<p>So somebody has to fill majors like english, political sci, history, etc at predominantly math/science schools like MIT.</p>
<p>if persox has awards in writing, great letter of rec from ap lit teacher, a's in humanities, etc. and wasnt as strong a cadidate as most mit applicants in terested in math/science, what would their chances be? like they would have a- average in math and science class but straight a's in humanities</p>
<p>A lot would depend on their SAT scores as well, but out of curiosity, why would someone so interested in humanities apply to MIT?</p>
<p>When I was there (>20 years ago) MIT didn’t even have individual majors such as english, poli sci, history, etc. They had three Humanities degrees: Humanities, Humanities and Science, and Humanities and Engineering. I think they totalled well under 10 graduates per year. These weren’t departments that needed to be filled.</p>
<p>Every student – even a Humanities student – needed a year of physics, calculus, and a semester of chemistry or biology. The students graduating in those areas tended to be science or engineering students that changed their minds halfway through school and weren’t left with a lot of options.</p>
<p>I do not recommend applying to MIT if your goal is to major in Humanities. There are so many other good schools for that!</p>
<p>An A- average is still a strong average.</p>
<p>There are a lot of tech schools that have degrees in other fields – Georgia Tech has an entire school dedicated to liberal arts degrees. MIT oviously has a lot of programs of study that aren’t math or science-related, as they have a School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences - with majors in anthropology, comparative media studies, economics, foreign languages, history, literature, linguistics, music and theater, political science, philosophy, STS, and humanistic studies – and a School of Management.</p>
<p>Like you said, they obviously have students who are interested in other kinds of degrees, so I can definitely see why a student more interested in the humanities and social sciences would apply to MIT (I mean, come on, it’s MIT – the name itself can get you far in the future, and you can work with top researchers in the field in the social sciences). The majors are not just sitting around for decoration.</p>
<p>However, I still think you need to have a very strong math and science background to get into MIT. I know at Tech, even the students who specified an Ivan Allen major (IA being the school for social sciences) had to have all the same stats as an engineering major, and they were still required to take a full year of calculus and a bunch of other science courses that they wouldn’t have taken at a different type of university. You might be a humanities or social science student that has a keen interest in math or science, or is interested in the intersection of the humanities and science (like the literature of science, or philosophy of science or history of science - I have a colleague in my Ph.D program who studies the history of public health and medicine and bioethics). MIT would be a great place to study that.</p>
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MIT doesn’t admit by major, so being interested in a non-technical major won’t give you a boost – you’ll have to be admitted by the same criteria as everyone else.</p>
<p>Many of MIT’s humanities departments are great, and they’re much more attractive options than they were in seattle_mom’s time, but as she says, all students must still take and pass the General Insitute Requirements. That’s often not very attractive for people who want to major in non-technical fields.</p>
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<p>As a more recent alum, I disagree, depending on the field. MIT has first-rate programs in economics, political science (especially in security studies), media studies (my media studies friends seem to get absorbed by the video game industry), linguistics, and scientific writing*. And with so few students in most of those majors, you get treated very well by your department!</p>
<p>Like Mollie said, you still have to pass Institute requirements, and MIT doesn’t admit by major.</p>
<p>*I may have failed to list outstanding programs - those are just the ones that I can name off the top of my head.</p>