<p>How do I address this if I do not have a rich cultural background?</p>
<p>I don’t know what the wording of this particular question is, but I’m sure there is a way you can answer it. Being a unique human being who was shaped by unique experiences, you do have a rich cultural background. I imagine the goal of this question is to determine that you have something interesting to contribute to the MIT student body–a history, a culture, an identity that is you and only you. The year I applied the question was closer to “Describe the world you come from”; I actually talked about growing up in a family of scientists. I did not talk about immigration or my native country, even though that’s probably what would first come to mind.</p>
<p>You could also address the question by talking about how you’ve been shaped by the culture of your school or community.</p>
<p>It’s actually an optional question.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What makes you think you don’t have a rich cultural background?</p>
<p>I just want to point out that I’ve lived Internationally in very “diverse global schools” and I think my (approximately) all-white high school in Iowa was every bit as diverse. I’m reminded of an article written by Yale Professor William Deresiewicz </p>
<p>[“The</a> Disadvantages of an Elite Education”](<a href=“http://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/]"The”>The American Scholar: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education - <a href='https://theamericanscholar.org/author/william-deresiewicz/'>William Deresiewicz</a>)</p>
<p>Look, I’m not an officer, so I can’t comment… Maybe there’s an initial “wow” of applying from some tribe in Papa New Guinea or something, but I promise you from my experience (albeit limited) racially homogenous schools can be every bit as diverse as International ones.</p>
<p>In what way does cultural background matter?</p>
<p>MIT evaluates all applicants holistically – the admissions officers seek to build a diverse class, and to do so, they want to know as much about an applicant’s background as possible. As you may have already read elsewhere, MIT admits people, not numbers.</p>
<p>The following quote explains the mission of the admissions officers quite well; it’s from the MIT Admissions site regarding the [“Match”](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/match]“Match”[/url]:”>What we look for | MIT Admissions):</a>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It matters way more than you think. Race/Gender are of the utmost importance.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, every time anybody mentions this kind of thing, they usually bring up being an URM or living in a sparsely populated state. Like this! v</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=AtlasHugged]
I think my (approximately) all-white high school in Iowa was every bit as diverse…Maybe there’s an initial “wow” of applying from some tribe in Papa New Guinea or something[\quote]</p>
<p>Things attained by birth. On occasion, admissions people like you talk about customs: celebrating this holiday, knowing that language, playing some culture’s music. Good stuff, and I agree that has value. I completely approve of considering diversity in admissions.</p>
<p>But despite hanging around these boards more than I should, and reading a lot of posts by admissions officer people, I have <em>never</em> heard anybody mention the glorious celebrations of Chinese New Year or the Mid-Autumn Festival. Nobody here cares if you can make an erhu sing, or do effortless throws and catches on the Chinese yo-yo. Have any of you people ever been to Flushing and tried some Sichuan cuisine? It’s as if this kind of culture doesn’t count. Like, it’s inherently “undiverse”, however the hell that’s possible.</p>
<p>It’s almost to the point of hilarity, the way this works, just like those political commercials with the heartwarming group of kids that’s half white and half black. They are America’s future! Our scientists and innovators! My teacher gave me 50 of those to watch for a project. Token black kid dutifully there every time, not one Asian to be seen. I’ve heard a lot of speeches praising the poor inner city black family with this job or that, but never the owner of the laundromat down the street who just wants his kids to go forth and learn and <em>rise up</em>, goddamnit.</p>
<p>My friends and I are mostly Asian and from a middle-class suburb in New Jersey. I’d certainly like to think we’re not the test taking robots that everybody here says we are (for the record, the white kids in my school worry just as much as us about the SAT, and more than us over GPA). Did you know, MITChris, that we actually play piano and violin with each other for fun? To create art? That maybe there’s really <em>something</em> that gives emotion to our renditions of Red Flowers Blooming on the Mountain? I’d like to think we’re more diverse, far more in touch with our cultures, than the token black kids in our school (who, I note, all sound exactly the same, like they jumped out of a rap song. the people in our school in love with jazz are all Asian or Jewish). There’s a cynical attitude around here, that MIT doesn’t care about us unless we’re academic stars. That we need to kick ass at competitions to even be glanced at. So we do, but we’re more than that.</p>
<p>Two of my friends, one white and one Asian, wrote absolutely incredible answers to that prompt. But instead of asking me for edits, they asked if they should scrap it altogether – if it wasn’t the type of diversity MIT (or any elite college) was “looking for”.</p>
<p>Reading your trumpeted blog posts hasn’t helped me answer that at all.</p>
<p>
And what’s the reasoning behind it?</p>
<p>Applying as a female/URM, its like a whole different college.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
This is coming from the kid who kept citing irrelevant statistics to prove his point (like the USAMO qualifying statistics) that it’s much easier for females to get into MIT than males.</p>
<p>It’s not a “whole different college”, whatever that means. Every alum I’ve talked to says that there’s not some cultural divide. Look, affirmative action plays a role in every college’s admissions process, and maybe it will help you a bit.</p>
<p>But here’s a bit of news for all you people that are ready to say, “I got rejected because I’m a white dude”, a Princeton study that evaluated how much benefit Blacks had estimated an SAT advantage of approximately 120 points. This is less than the 140 needed for statistical significance. </p>
<p>
Makes him feel better?</p>
<p>I’ll just throw in some information from the MIT Admissions site:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Also, you may wish to check out this blog post on “Putting Diversity into Context”:
[Putting</a> Diversity into Context | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/which-box-should-i-check]Putting”>Putting Diversity into Context | MIT Admissions)</p>
<p>Err, maybe I’m wrong but from reading the blog posts and some of the threads here I got the sense that the purpose of the prompt isn’t to evaluate you based on your cultural background. It’s more to let you explain your background in case checking a box or two didn’t explain it well enough. Like if you’re half white, quarter Ecuadoran, and one-fourth Chinese but were raised in Russia or something like that. It isn’t a competition to see who has the richest background or the “right” culture. </p>
<p>Like I said, just my take on the question.</p>
<p>And WiseGuy/AtlasHugged, I totally agree with what you guys are saying.</p>
<p>@cheerios, I agree – there is no “right” way to respond to MIT’s essay prompts. MIT quite simply wants to learn more about its applicants and the things that make each applicant unique. One can address any of these questions from a variety of angles; there are no “requirements” on a particular essay, giving applicants the opportunity to reveal themselves in whichever ways they would like.</p>
<p>@everybody: you all make sense, but it doesn’t change the fact that only <em>some</em> kinds of diversity are praised as valuable, while others are completely ignored. I’m quite jealous of the people who are the “right” kind of diverse and get to be looked at holistically, as people, because I’m pretty sure me and my peers aren’t.</p>
<p>Absolutely every applicant is considered holistically, as a person. The idea that holistic evaluation is only for some applicants and not others is defeatist hogwash. It’s true that holistic evaluation is less of a help to applicants who have been advantaged in various ways throughout their lives, and more of a help to those who have been disadvantaged, but very few of the former group would really be jealous of the latter if they’d had to walk in those shoes.</p>
<p>The idea behind the cultural background question is to give you the opportunity to highlight and celebrate the ways you’d bring diversity to MIT. I don’t think it’s true that only some kinds of diversity are celebrated – diversity, after all, is a population-level thing. If only “some kinds” of people were admitted, MIT wouldn’t be diverse.</p>
<p>I understand that logic, about being brought up disadvantaged. That makes sense.</p>
<p>But what I mean is the second thing, about cultural diversity. I’m trying to reconcile the following things:</p>
<p>1) besides the aspect of cultural diversity, there is no difference between an ORM and an URM. (since most of the O/URM’s admitted are middle class anyway, being disadvantaged isn’t a big factor here) to reject this is to bring out the old “they’re all robots” stereotype, and my friends and I are not. I’ll add that, judging from the people I know, us ORMs are <em>much</em> more in touch with our native cultures than URMs.</p>
<p>2) URMs generally have an advantage while ORMs have a disadvantage. I don’t oppose trying to even out the racial makeup of MIT, but doesn’t this have only one logical conclusion – that one type of diversity is “better” than another?</p>
<p>
I reject this premise. For one thing, not all disadvantage is financial.</p>
<p>
And you’re being encouraged to talk about the ways in which you, personally, experience your native culture in this short response. The idea that your background is less important than someone else’s is yours, not MIT’s. </p>
<p>If you are able to write a compelling response in this section, it is a point in favor of your application, regardless of the specific content of your background. If you think your background is richer than others’, then this is a way your application will be better than others’.</p>
<p>
This is a widely-held opinion, yet, for example, Asian applicants are admitted to MIT at a higher rate than other minorities.</p>
<p>
Diversity is not a property of an individual admitted student. It is a property of the admitted class as a whole. The diversity is in the assembly of a collection of students with different life histories and backgrounds.</p>