I had two interviews last weekend, one for Yale and the other for Harvard. I ended up talking about ideologies and politics. I’m a left-leaning ideological Marxist. I talked about why I didn’t support capitalism and how I think it doesn’t go well with democracy and why communism failed etc etc. I also talked about other things like music and programming and learning languages for my interest part. Coming out of both of them I thought they were fine. But now I realize that both my interviewers and these schools belong to the top 1% and what I’ve done is voicing my opinion against that 1%. I didn’t make anything emotional, I explained why I liked thinking about these stuff and explained my thoughts. But still I feel like I was wrong in the first place even to talk about this. Or even to think about it. Thankfully interviews are not as important as other components, but for some supplemental essays I talked about my opinions like this. So if this is wrong, those were also wrong. Did I just destroy all my chances, if I had any?
Regardless, it’s out of your hands now. Acceptance rates for those schools are so low that no one has good chances of being accepted anyway – if you do, it should be a pleasant surprise, just because of the number of applicants and smaller number of seats.
I would think Marxism would go over very will at Harvard. Seriously.
Interviews rarely tip anything in an applicant’s favor. Some seasoned interviewers here will sometimes say that the only time they really matter is when they are truly awful. A lot of the interviewers here also say that only a handful of the dozens they have interviewed over the years actually get in.
As a rule, politics, religion and sex are considered no-no’s during interviews, and for essays. Your interviewer might have liked your enthusiasm, or thought you were extreme. The problem with talking about those things isn’t that you think them. There is nothing wrong with having earnest conversations with people about causes you believe in. But, you are talking to a total stranger, and you just don’t know how they feel about anything. It is possible that one of your interviewers had a parent or grandparent who felt persecuted by the movement and fled to another country. You are trying to sell yourself, right?
Try to avoid politics in future interviews or essays, because I suspect there are plenty of other things you can talk about.
Why don’t you go to college in Venezuela where communism and socialism obviously flourishes?
I didn’t know left-leaning ideological Marxists still existed in the real world.
Perhaps not the real world, but most certainly in universities! 
University students graduate into the real world.
Nobody asked for ideological jabs.
I am sorry but I just can’t help but laugh at this.
Why would Communism v Capitalism even come up at an interview at an IVY LEAGUE
I’m guessing a lot of interviewers will get the occasional applicant who tries to stand out from the rest. A way to do this is to over-share one’s fascination with a failed and discredited ideology, one that has an ever-dwindling number of adherents.
I think you helped yourself more than you hurt, because you satisfied the main objective of the interview process - you demonstrated that you will not only THINK about issues, and you can communicate your ideas about them. But mostly, the interviews don’t really matter at all because only 1 in 20 kids will be accepted, yet interviewers will often rate a much higher percentage favorably.
Don’t sweat this. If you don’t get accepted, it won’t be because of your interview, unless you by chance passed gas in both of them.
I guess the interviewers might scratch their heads over why a left leaning ideological Marxist would be trying to get into elite exclusive private schools rather than a “college of the people” like a minor state school, but I can’t imagine that this would hurt you in any way.
As both untenured and tenured faculty at multiple institutions, I never heard discussion of or posted meetings to discuss Marxism. He has been dead for a very long time as has Freud or Mendel or others with unpopular ideas.
I am a liberal democrat, third generation on both sides. That is the source of my political leaning. Neither as a student nor as faculty contributed to my orientation. College and university towns, like large cities, are often blue. Other places are conservative and red. This is part of American life and not part of nefarious plottings by either side.
What is the old expression, something about a young person who isn’t a radical is a fool, and a middle aged person who isn’t a conservative is a fool? (There is a much pithier way it is described). Being passionate about your political and theoretical interests is to be expected for a young person, and any middle aged person will have encountered enough of that unbridled enthusiasm to put it in perspective in an interview.
Don’t worry, at all.
I can see how that might be a problem. There are many, many socialist and Marxists at Harvard. You really should have come up with a subject matter that would have helped you to stand out. oh well, perhaps your presentation was really great and they will push for you. Best of luck!
Hi there OP. I always worry about how my eldest will handle her political views in situations such as these. If you were asked about them, or if it came up in the natural course of conversation, I wouldn’t worry about it. Even if you opted to bring the topics up, don’t worry. What is done is done.
My daughter and I discuss on a near daily basis the very, very nuanced space between standing up for your beliefs and ideas and keeping things close to the vest. It’s a complicated moral, ethical, and strategic social and professional gray space that most adults struggle with. Please do not beat yourself up (and PLEASE ignore the beatings of those who wished for your failure in this thread…shame on them!) for not being sure when and where and how to discuss these things.
The conclusion I have come to with my daughter (and I’ve learned from her a bit, I think) is that it’s important to not always worry about what people think of your beliefs. It’s equally important to express them in a way that does not attack others. It’s important to show confidence in your beliefs and thinking and equally important to not come off as boorish or arrogant. Five minutes on the internet proves that so many people struggle with this! If you were respectful and appropriate and not arrogant, I think you are fine. Good luck!
“We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty