Hi,
I was filling in the Harvard questions in Commonapp. And there is a question:
“Your intellectual life may extend beyond the academic requirements of your particular school. Please use the space below to list additional intellectual activities that you have not mentioned or detailed elsewhere in your application. These could include, but are not limited to, supervised or self-directed projects not done as school work, training experiences, online courses not run by your school, or summer academic or research programs not described elsewhere.”
I watch MIT OpenCourseWare on YouTube. Should I list that in this question? Will it affect my admission anyhow if they see that I watch lectures from other university and not their own?
No. People who work at Forever 21 have been known to shop at A&F. People who work at Burger King have been known to eat a Big Mac. And the world continued to rotate on its axis.
No. It would give the impression that you’re a resourceful, curious student who takes whatever opportunities are available to them. Admissions committees understand that different colleges have different resources available, and students learn from all kinds of different sources.
If they removed all the applicants who undertook research or high school programs or classes or summer activities at other colleges and universities while they were in high school, they would lose hundreds, even thousands of their undergraduates. Hundreds of students in every admitted class do such activities every year.
In addition to what @Telluric said, you need to realize that while many of the videos on MIT OpenCourseWare (or any similar version) are videos of lectures, watching videos is not the same as actually taking the class at MIT and interacting with the instructor/students. Admissions Officers are certainly well aware of this.
Of course watching MIT OpenCourseWare is not a negative. Harvard and other schools are not territorial about what you do and learn and it is an asset on your application that you took the initiative to study on your own.
It’s not a trick question. “List” means the definition given in any English dictionary. You can add a little commentary if you’d like, but there is a word limit for a reason.