Hacking club participation

[Ynotgo]

<p>We're having a parental "discussion" here about the value of S17 putting time into hacking competitions, which I've been told can be called "computer security competitions" to avoid the "hack" word. S's friend who was a senior last year was successful at apps to that small technical school in Pasadena and that highly-ranked school up the road from MIT--but not MIT itself--with essays that discussed nationally-ranked computer hacking activities prominently. Is this anecdote likely to be random noise in the admissions process or a difference in the current view of hacking at MIT? </p>

<p>The "discussion" centers on whether such activities are too "scary" to be an EC for most universities. Or, whether it is valuable enough in itself to be learning lots about how operating systems work, UNIX tools, and the internals of files and network protocols. Or, whether that time should be spent on "normal" computer activities.</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>I don’t think the EC is the reason your friend got into Harvard and Caltech but not MIT, not that there is any rational reason for why she/he didn’t get in. I don’t think hacking competitions are too scary to be an EC. “Hacks” are a tradition at MIT after all. Though most are not necessarily computer hacks, I distinctly remember that one fraternity hacked into the computer system to put their logo on all of the login screens; the admin didn’t care. There’s nothing unethical about what you are doing. MIT expects there to be a fair amount of people who could break into their computer system if they felt like it.</p>

[molliebatmit]

<p>And to add to collegealum’s post, I think MIT would be a place where that kind of EC would be considered cool by the admissions officers – definitely not scary.</p>