Olin College Application Eassy

         When I have some time to sit and think, one of my favorite pastimes, I have often pondered the question, “What kind of person am I?”  Am I the caring friend?  The leader?  The follower?  The athlete?  The computer geek?  The volunteer?  The scholar?  Or the artist?  I have never been able to come to a definite conclusion.  Maybe it’s because I can occasionally be famously indecisive due to my capacity to overanalyze a situation (which I believe to be better than under analyzing).  Maybe it’s because I don’t fit into any one single category.  Maybe that’s why I know that Olin is the school for me.
         I first heard about Olin by way of a small book decorated with sketches and duct tape.  I rarely read college propaganda because all of it seemed to be the same, telling me about great facilities and teachers and innumerable awards and long (and supposedly interesting) history.  Olin’s little book was different.  It wasn’t just filled with the standard cold facts like size and cost.  It was warmer, more personal.  It gave an intimate portrait of individual students and faculty instead of trying to “paint a picture” of the school in general.  From the way these people were described, it seemed like a general overview of the students and faculty would have been impossible because each member of Olin was truly unique.  That is how I strive to be and want to be my entire life: not a number, but a spirit.
         Olin’s size would afford me the ability to be not just a member of the school, but a contributing member where students and teachers would have the chance to listen to my ideas and I theirs.  Upon visiting Olin, I felt I was looking at more of a team or family than a school.  Each person seemed to be leaning on and working with everyone else in order to succeed and make the school, and themselves, better day by day.  Some might say that this is because of the Honor Code and its requirement that students show integrity, respect, passion, patience, and openness to change.  I say that, judging by the students I spoke to, the Honor Code is not so much a rule as it is an outlining of qualities that students already hold close to their hearts.  Although its existence is one of the main reasons I believe Olin is right for me, I am firmly convinced that even if the Code had never been devised, it would be upheld daily by the kind of people that make Olin a golden needle in a haystack.  It is these very people that draw me so powerfully to Olin. 
         My college search has taken me to many schools but they all seem the same.  It has only taken me to one family: Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering.  I want to be a part of this family, and if it will accept me with open arms, I promise to do the same.