Essay Topics

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

MIT has three long essay topics: how the world you come from has shaped your aspirations, how you’ve helped the community, and how you’ve recovered from failure. So far I’ve written two of them about math: recovering from a poor competition performance, and helping my school community & AoPS. If I write the third essay about math, I’m going to show my passion for math. Otherwise, I’ll try to present myself as a sophisticated, deliberate, and reflective person whose personality is nuanced, if that makes sense.

My question is: what should I write my third essay on? On one hand, I want to show MIT every facet of my dedication to math: how I’ve helped others, why I enjoy it so much, and how my skills have progressed. On the other hand, I’m afraid that focusing too much on math will suggest that I’m not well-rounded and that I lack sophistication. Part of the reason I’m afraid this will happen is that I don’t have many non-academic extracurriculars or achievements.

For reference, I got a 2360 on SAT and qualified for USAMO in 2013, 2014, and 2015.

2

If I were you, I might write the third essay on something other than math (olympiad math is fun - I made USAMO once, but it’s not the only thing in life). Perhaps can you think of other ways you have helped the community, or other failures you’ve recovered from?

3

Thanks for the advice; this has been bothering me for a while, and it’s nice to hear another person’s opinion.

Sadly, I’ve spent the vast majority of my time doing competition math (and not progressing much), so I have few topics to choose from. I’m still leaning towards writing about something other than math, but it’ll be hard to find something to actually write about since my experiences are so limited. I’ll keep thinking.

Thanks again for the advice; I appreciate it.