<p>I am currently a junior, and I am interested in applying to MIT to study engineering next year. I am currently involved in multiple extra curricular activities, however very few of them pertain to engineering. I'm the Seceretary General of Model United Nations, Vice President of the Young Republicans Club, and I volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House, but I don't do anything speccifically relating to engineering. Will this affect my chances at admission at all, and is it important to be involved in engineering in order to be accepted? Thank you</p>
<p>None of my extracurriculars related to engineering, yet I was accepted.</p>
<p>Be passionate, don’t worry about what will please colleges. Find something you like and work hard at it.</p>
<p>^ what xjudokax said</p>
<p>From MIT:</p>
<p>"Some students feel so much pressure to get into the “right” college that they want to make sure they do everything “right” - even do the “right” extracurricular activities. Fortunately, the only right answer is to do what’s right for you - not what you think is right for us.</p>
<p>Choose your activities because they really delight, intrigue and challenge you, not because you think they’ll look impressive on your application. Go out of your way to find projects, activities and experiences that stimulate your creativity and leadership, that connect you with peers and adults who bring out your best, that please you so much you don’t mind the work involved. Some students find room for many activities; others prefer to concentrate on just a few. Either way, the test for any extracurricular should be whether it makes you happy - whether it feels right for you.</p>
<p>By the same token, some applicants struggle to turn themselves into clones of the “ideal” MIT student - you know, the one who gets triple 800s on the SAT. Fortunately, cloning is still for sheep. What we really want to see on your application is you being you - pursuing the things you love, growing, changing, taking risks, learning from your mistakes, all in your own distinctive way. College is not a costume party; you’re not supposed to come dressed as someone else. Instead, college is an intense, irreplaceable four-year opportunity to become more yourself than you’ve ever been. What you need to show us is that you’re ready to try."</p>
<p>As a member of the MIT Educational Council, here is my perspective:</p>
<p>When I interview students, one thing I really like to see is a person who doesn’t “put off for tomorrow what can be done today.” Now, please read that carefully. I fully realize that not everything <em>can</em> be done today. So, I don’t expect every student who is interested in pursuing, say, engineering to have already explored it to a significant degree. There are so many ways for high school students to explore their interests and it is unreasonable to think that they will have deeply explored all of them by the time they come for their interview. So, instead, let me better explain what I mean by expressing what I <em>don’t</em> like to see.</p>
<p>If a student tells me that they’re interested in A, B, C, D, … and they can’t wait to explore those interests in college, I often ask questions to figure out what they have done to begin exploring some of those things *already". If the apparent answer is, “very little,” I have to question why. Sometimes there are legitimate reasons. Sometimes not. </p>
<p>What I am looking for is a person who doesn’t make excuses about trying to make opportunities for his or her own growth. Because, ultimately, I think MIT is the kind of place where the students use the significant resources available to them to <em>enrich</em> their ability to pursue activities that they would likely be (or try to be) pursuing even if they were elsewhere (and, of course, to expose them to <em>new</em> ideas and activities that might affect their trajectory). That is to say, while MIT does a lot to nurture the growth of its students once they are there, they do have the luxury of starting with some pretty amazing raw materials. The “magic” of a place like MIT is largely in putting all of those individually amazing people in close quarters for four years. Once you do that, a significant portion of the hard work of producing a successful college graduate takes care of itself.</p>
<p>So, the above statements sort of portray my proxy definition for the overused word “passion.” I like to see applicants who have the willingness, determination, “passion” (if you must) to find something that they really want to do and actually <em>do</em> it to the best of their current ability. It doesn’t have to be in engineering, or anything in particular. The <em>particular interests</em> pursued at the high school level, at least to me, are largely immaterial. What I’m after is the applicants disposition towards “doing.”</p>
<p>Different interviewers might look for different things…and the admissions department could have a slightly different view on this, though I doubt it is much different. So, take my perspective for what it is: the perspective of one undergraduate interviewer and MIT graduate.</p>