<p>Our son is a junior at a public high school in northwest Missouri. He is very interested in applying to MIT and his principal and guidance counselor are encouraging him. The school sends less than 10 students per year to competitive colleges. About two-thirds of his class of 400 will go to college and 95 percent of those will go to state schools within a 200-mile radius.</p>
<p>He has received unsolicited mail from MIT--probably as a result of the PSAT, PLAN or ACT taken as a sophomore (33 composite.) He met with an MIT admission representative at the Missouri Scholars Academy (our version of the governor's school.) He loves everything he reads, hears and sees about MIT. (The tattoos that came yesterday were awesome.)</p>
<p>We are a conservative Christian family. Most of his extracurricular activities have to do with mission trips, mentoring middle school students from our church, participating ion neighborhood cleanup work crews with the men of our congregation. His is also an Eagle Scout.</p>
<p>Can a devout Christian student who wants to be a nuclear engineer "fit in" at MIT? I hestiate to encourage him to apply if he would not fit in socially.</p>
<p>Me! When I came to MIT, I was a politically conservative, religiously active Ohioan. I was perfectly comfortable. MIT is a pretty live-and-let-live place, and people hold a wide variety of views. The only way MIT wouldn’t be a fit for someone who’s religious and conservative would be if that person was intolerant of other people holding different opinions. </p>
<p>That’s not to say that MIT students let anybody believe whatever they want to without challenging their beliefs – I got into a lot of debates with my friends about my political and religious views. But I never felt attacked, and I learned to back up my views with logic and facts.</p>
<p>There are a bunch of Christian student groups on campus, although I didn’t join any. The Christian community on campus is active, although more students at MIT than at other schools would probably self-identify as atheists.</p>
<p>We have a few conservative Christians on hall (anyone who knows where I live might find this surprising). As Mollie said, as long as your children are respectful of other people’s beliefs, and they’re comfortable with the fact that most people here probably won’t share their religious beliefs, they’ll be totally fine.</p>
<p>MIT students are extremely tolerant, as long as you’re tolerant of their views. If your children come in with the idea of converting their hallmates…well, that will end poorly. But it’s always interesting to meet people with different views than yours, and I don’t think anyone will disrespect your child simply because they believe something different.</p>
<p>The only way people would give you a hard time for your religious beliefs is if you don’t believe in evolution. But even that would not be a huge deal.</p>
<p>I’d say that MIT and Caltech are the only top schools where people won’t give you a hard time for being a conservative. The students there don’t care about pushing political agendas; they are there to learn.</p>
<p>Ditto what everyone else has said. I know quite a few very religious people, and they fit in without the slightest problem. There are plenty of Christian organizations on campus, and while there definitely is a higher concentration of atheists around, people are very, very tolerant.</p>
<p>One great story I can tell to illustrate this is about Easter Sunday during my sophomore year. I was raised Catholic, and while I’m not terribly strict about practicing, I’m used to having a huge dinner with tons of family on Easter. Sophomore year was the first time I’d be spending Easter away from home, and I was sort of bummed about it. I sent an email out to my floor, asking if people would be interested in putting together a potluck dinner that Sunday. I made it clear that although it was for Easter, I wasn’t interested in converting people, just treating some homesickness. At least 15 people (probably 10 of whom weren’t practicing Christians of any kind) said they’d be interested. We had a huge meal (sorry Grandma, but probably better than what I would have had at home) and a fantastic time. One girl, who is very vehemently atheist, sat down to dinner and said, “Way to go Catholics, if it weren’t for you I’d be eating mac and cheese tonight. This rocks.”</p>
<p>Now, if I had said, “Hey guys, I’m having a huge Easter dinner followed by a prayer group and all of us going to mass together after” and sent that to my floor and not the email list of some Christian group or something, that would not have gone over well. But I was respectful of others’ opinions (i.e. not celebrating Easter) but not trying to jam the religious message down their throats, and they responded in kind.</p>
<p>A good friend of mine here practices her religion pretty devoutly. She often advertises bible studies and similar things for interested people, and she doesn’t get any flak for it.</p>
<p>Even in my circles, there were/are a few conservative Christians. And my social circles were on the whole about as far away from that worldview as they come.</p>
<p>You do have to realize, if you’re a conservative Christian, that most of your fellow students are not going to share your politics, and are probably not going to share your religion (I am less sure about that, but I think the MIT student body is not majority-Christian - I’ve heard estimates that it is 40-50% atheist/agnostic, and then you have practicing Jews, Muslims, Pagans, etc). Also, if you express intolerance toward LGBT people or non-Christians, you are going to get off on three wrong feet with the people around you, especially if you live in a living group with high numbers of LGBT people and/or non-Christians.</p>
<p>My freshman roommate was a devout Christian from the Midwest whose father worked for a missionary organization or something like that (though she was politically liberal, so the situation is not a perfect parallel). She got along just fine. She joined one of the Christian student groups and made a lot of friends there, but she was also socially integrated into the hall, which at the time (and possibly still) was only about 10% Christians.</p>
<p>I have a very conservative Christian friend who is a freshman this year. He already seems to have found a niche in Christian groups on campus, which seem to be quite numerous.</p>
<p>MIT seems to have a pretty live-and-let-live attitude regarding religion, politics, and similar topics - we have better things to worry about than other people’s beliefs.</p>