No, particularly if it’s covered elsewhere in the app.
But what do you define as intellectual activities? Like what are some examples?
@shehar17 like research or coding your own program and such. there are too many options lol but anything that you learn something from beyond just school I guess. could also include math competitions or science competitions too but I wouldn’t put those bc it’s hard to make a meaningful elaboration that’ll actually make an impact (from how I see it)
@isicim012 If you were an American, you would be a shoo-in 
@nijusohc what intellectual activities did you put? and what do you want to major in?
@shehar17 I put humanities as academic program, and for the intellectual activity, I talked about how I translated for a research I did with a university
@nijusohc oh that’s cool! was it research in the humanities?
@shehar17 it’s on chronic pruritus. tbh getting that research and being able to work with the head of the dermatology dep. of that university was honestly pure luck & I still don’t know how I was able to work with them but that research isn’t like my main thing, It’s just what I wrote about for that essay you were mentioning. my main stuff are humanities focused
@nijusohc Oh okay! Did you ever get an interview?
@shehar17 yea mine was about a month ago. I submitted my app literally just before the deadline but was contacted in a couple days. did you ?
Yeah, I did! But in a couple of days? That’s crazy. I feel as if having an immediate interview is a good thing! What do you think?
@shehar17 eh, I mean interviews aren’t mandatory and tbh I doubt they would’ve quickly reviewed a mass number of applications and give them a “ranking” for interviews. I don’t think it means much, it’s just that the alumni who was contacted quickly responded. some alumni don’t respond quickly. I think its dependent on the alumni that was assigned to u
@isicim012
i will wager high you are accepted. Congrats ahead of time.
@shehar17 why are chances less for international students ? it affects financial aid but not admissions, i thought.
Because top schools, like Harvard, impose a hard or soft cap on what percentage of the freshman class internationals can be, typically in the 10-12% range. International applications far outpace the spots available.
While I don’t believe Harvard has ever published admissions statistics for international applicants, I think the school down the street is pretty indicative: Int’l acceptance rate = 2.4%; domestic acceptance rate = 7.9%
https://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats/
Yikes! I haven’t had anything uploaded in my portal, and so it seems that–based off the opinion of this thread–I will likely not be admitted 
Does Harvard usually indicate acceptance before the date decisions are released this conspicuously? I guess I’m just clinging to some shred of hope that I might get accepted, even though that’s probably not the case anyway.
Stop trying to read the tea leaves.
No, and they’re not doing it this year either.
Ahahaha sorry. Just stressed. Thank you for your response @skieurope
@skieurope Is updating the admissions office with being a Gates National Semifinalist a good choice?
It is a national award with 2000 selections from 50,000-60,000 applicants? But it might also seem like I’m annoying them.
@Euclid314 It can’t hurt. But as I’ve said, I really don’t think any updates at this late date will impact SCEA results. However, if you don’t send, you’ll always wonder “If only…”