A recent New York Times articles took another look at the Olin College of Engineering: Re-engineering Engineering
The result is a school with no academic departments or tenure, and one that emphasizes entrepreneurship and humanities as well as technical education. Its method of instruction has more in common with a liberal arts college, where the focus is on learning how to learn, than with a standard engineering curriculum. “How can you possibly provide everything they need in their knapsack of education to sustain them in their 40-year career?” Miller asked. “I think those days are over. Learning the skill of how to learn is more important than trying to fill every possible cup of knowledge in every possible discipline.”
Though the school charges no tuition, room and board is about $12,000 a year, which is in line with the full cost of a year at some state universities. Olin has already garnered an impressive amount of attention in the college guides. A Kaplan/Newsweek “How to Get Into College” guide called Olin one of “the new Ivies.” The Princeton Review says Olin “may well be the most dynamic undergraduate institution in the country.”
Related: Olin Student Blog – ASEE Olin College Article – On Novelty in Engineering Education – The best engineering school in the United States?