Olin College of Engineering
About
Olin College of Engineering is a small private college in Needham that offers a hands-on, project-based undergraduate engineering education. Students start designing, building and testing real solutions in their first semester, working in small classes with close faculty mentorship. The curriculum blends engineering with design, entrepreneurship and the humanities, and every student completes industry-sponsored or impact-focused capstone work before graduating, preparing them for careers in industry, startups, research, medicine or graduate school.
Olin describes itself as the nation’s third-ranked undergraduate engineering program and appears in The Princeton Review’s Best Colleges guide, where it improved its rankings for professors, classroom experience and dorms. In September 2026 it inaugurated R. May Lee as its third president. Its partnership with the Kyiv School of Economics to shape engineering education in Ukraine was named Partnership of the Year at the 2026 PIEoneer Awards.
What to Know
- Every admitted student receives a merit-based Olin Tuition Scholarship.
- Applications are accepted through the Common Application.
- Academic resources include the Olin Shops, a summer research program and study away options.
- Olin lists Greentown Labs among its partnerships, focused on climate action.
- Students pursue interests beyond engineering, from a Formula SAE team to the Babson Dance Ensemble.
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