<p>You are who you are. You have been taking part in your activities and ECs presumably because you enjoy them or they have meaning to you. To wonder whether you should not mention an activity that is important to you is exactly backwards. You <em>SHOULD</em> mention the things that are important to you: the objective is to help the admissions committee get a sense of who you are, what makes you tick, what moves you, and how you act on those inner truths. It seems to me it would be exactly the <em>wrong</em> thing to do to fail to present something that is important to you. (And it's not as if they're all atheists on the admission committee and looking to remove all aspects of faith from their campus, y'know?)</p>
<p>Wow, I'm finding this thread increasingly disturbing.</p>
<p>Of COURSE a religious EC wouldn't be counted against you, as that would be completely ILLEGAL, not to mention horribly unethical. Geez.</p>
<p>Ashwin, please, by all means, talk about your religious ECs. Lots of people get into MIT because of outstanding passion for band or athletics in addition to the math and science; for the purpose of admissions a religious EC isn't any different. My church's youth group was the most important of all my activities to me in high school, and I'm sure I talked about it somewhere on my application.</p>
<p>I can absolutely guarantee you that being religious does not make you a "bad fit" for MIT, and that the admissions counselors will not at all hold it against you when reading your application. Please, don't worry about it.</p>
<p>I am in complete agreement with LauraN. Hinduism is a mainstream religion and even if it wasn't, the MIT admissions officers would NOT hold that against you. Also, there is not only one spot for EC's - definitely mention your religious ones AND any other ones.</p>
<p>There's also really no reason to worry about the math/science thing. If you're into math/science EC's - then by all means you should be mentioning them anyway because they are things you DO. If you don't do anything, there's no real way to change that before you apply..</p>
<p>They want you to be honest about what you do besides school. Don't lie or be hesitant about mentioning something because you think they want to hear something else, it's almost counter-intuitive.</p>
<p>Just be real :)</p>
<p>
I know you probably mean something totally out there, rather than something like run-of-the-mill fundamentalism. I think that actually being a fundamentalist in the current American Protestant sense would be a hindrance to a career in biology (and possibly to science in general), but I don't think it would necessarily be a hindrance to education in or a career in engineering. (I mean, hey, they already believe in the power of design...)</p>
<p>Wow, thanks guys. That helped a lot! </p>
<p>Also, I don't think I made myself clear. "^^
Actaully, I would definately mention my religious EC on all of my apps. I was just confused whether to include a separate essay topic on my religious EC instead of talking about a math/science EC. </p>
<p>Well, yeah, I was thinking about that, and if my religious EC is really so important, I gues I should explain that. I shouldn't not state it just because it might "not make me a fit to MIT"</p>
<p>Anyway, thanks for your replies!</p>
<p>LauraN says:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Wow, I'm finding this thread increasingly disturbing.</p>
<p>Of COURSE a religious EC wouldn't be counted against you, as that would be completely ILLEGAL, not to mention horribly unethical. Geez.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Laura -- it's not that simple. There are some religious extracurricular activities with the property that it would be neither illegal nor unethical to reject people for practicing them. </p>
<p>A fairly tame example: ritual animal sacrifice is both a religious activity for some people and also a criminal one (via cruelty to animals statutes) in most American locales. MIT would reject people for most criminal activity and I am guessing that this kind would be included, too.</p>
<p>The law regarding discrimination on the basis of religious practices is complicated, and it certainly doesn't forbid taking those practices into account in any decisions and in any circumstances. It does so only when the practice is a private matter, and your religious practice doesn't interfere with your ability to practice the primary activity that you are seeking to undertake as well as anybody else, provided some "reasonable accommodations" are made for you. That's the test which prohibits discrimination on the basis of keeping the Sabbath but allows it on the basis of a faith that forbids all work on all days.</p>
<p>While, of course, mainstream religions have tended to fall on the protected side, this could become less obvious if the tension between some religious and scientific groups continues to grow. If a particular religion interferes with the ability to do acceptable scientific work according to the standards of a given discipline, it might be the right (and legally protected) thing to do for a graduate school in that field to reject devout and vocal adherents of that religion. These issues are certainly not settled legally (or ethically) yet and will be interesting to watch as the debate as it develops in the next few years.</p>
<p>In any case, my short reaction to your remark is that you seek to make the distinction between your religious convictions and your merits as a scientist a lot sharper than it actually is; the line gets blurred in some places and at those places it's fine for religion to matter in admissions decisions.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Normative standards from law and ethics aside, there is a pragmatic issue here. The people reading the applications are people. This may not be exactly a popular or safe thing to say, I guarantee you that expressing certain religious or moral views would hurt your application, at least if the case is reasonably close.</p>
<p>If you write an essay that makes you sound like a strident Christian fundamentalist with strong negative views about the the propriety of gay marriage and strong positive views about the historical importance of the confederate flag, that is definitely going to hurt you with MIT (and any other northeastern school) even though, in principle, it shouldn't by the kind of standard Laura likes. Incidentally, writing an essay that makes you sound like a strident environmentalist with strong positive views about gay marriage and the merits of the Soviet flag would not hurt you nearly as much. </p>
<p>These things are just true, and anyone who tries to tell you that MIT admissions, or any other group of humans, is perfect enough to eliminate their cultural prejudices in making these decisions is trying to sell you a load of hogwash; I anticipate such sales attempts in the discussion below.</p>
<p>Of course, most people applying to MIT are pretty smart, and would be careful not to be too strident about their more dissonant views. In practice, the right thing to do is to either avoid discussing those aspects of your personality entirely or to present yourself as just contrarian and unusual enough to be interesting, but not enough to actually scare anyone. The second option is probably most honest and, overall, best. From the applications I read at Caltech from people with religious or political views far out of the mainstream, that is exactly how they handled the issue, and it tended to work out pretty well.</p>
<p>BUT, in short, things are more complicated Laura's one sentence summary allows.</p>
<p>Mollie says:</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think that actually being a fundamentalist in the current American Protestant sense would be a hindrance to a career in biology (and possibly to science in general), but I don't think it would necessarily be a hindrance to education in or a career in engineering. (I mean, hey, they already believe in the power of design...)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree. In practice, at most undergraduate institutions, very few "mainstream" beliefs would hinder you from getting some kind of useful education there, which is why formally there should be no discrimination. See the above post, however, for the difference between ideals and what will happen in practice.</p>
<p>Hypothetical question? What if you are a member of a fringe group like the Wahabi sect of Islam or the Westboro Baptist Church? Will admissions still not be able to touch you because of the ban against discrimination.</p>
<p>^Well, that's what we're talking about. I mean, one could argue that if an applicant spent his entire application talking only about his involvement with Westboro Baptist Church, the admissions office would see it as off-topic the same way they would see an entire application about anything else as off-topic. But that's an extreme case of an extreme case.</p>
<p>Of course, even if a candidate were a member of a fringe group, that wouldn't mean MIT had to accept him or else risk a lawsuit. Simply rejecting someone isn't by itself evidence of discrimination, and given that MIT and other top schools have large pools of qualified applicants, it's difficult to prove that one thing or another caused someone to be rejected.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In practice, the right thing to do is to either avoid discussing those aspects of your personality entirely or to present yourself as just contrarian and unusual enough to be interesting, but not enough to actually scare anyone. The second option is probably most honest and, overall, best.
[/quote]
Right, and it's evidence of an understanding of the implications of those beliefs. An undesirable candidate wouldn't necessarily be someone who held fringe beliefs, but someone who held them and couldn't respect the right of others to hold different beliefs. The first is a potential disruption and source of trouble on campus, while the second is a source of interesting conversations. (The first also potentially shows a misunderstanding of the appropriate use of an application, which I was trying to get at above.)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Hehe, are you saying they won't take [url=<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster%5DPastafarians%5B/url">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster]Pastafarians[/url</a>]? jk</p>
<p>A solid fundamentalist, I do not see any obstacles to "a career in biology (and possibly science in general)."
A thorough understanding of the ideas of evolution are a necessary prerequisite - neither to prove nor disprove anything - to help arrive at an understanding of the nature of how things work and arrive at manipulations beneficial to all.
A fundamentalist is not a fanatic - nor are fanatics fundamentalists of their faith.</p>
<p>A fundamentalist isn't necessarily a fanatic, no, but a Christian who interprets the Bible literally does tend to believe that the earth and all the animal species contained therein were specially created during historical times, which is at odds with biology, geology, and physics, at least.</p>
<p>I agree that some people are capable of the intellectual machinations necessary to separate that kind of belief and their scientific work, but it's more common not to be able to live with the inconsistency.</p>
<p>I know a couple of fundamentalist Protestants at MIT. They're not exactly common, but they do exist. Both of the ones I know are EECS majors.</p>
<p>Ashwin: You've been told this by others, but no, it won't count against you. There are plenty of MIT students who were and are involved in religious activities.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I was pleasantly surprised to see the large number of students at MIT (around 10%) from religiously affiliated secondary schools. Perhaps these individuals are assumed to have a greater moral fiber, who knows?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I would certainly hope not. And I would hardly consider 10% to be abnormally high, anyway.</p>
<p>Ashwin: Take a look at MIT's website. You will find a long listing of religious groups/events on the campus. Some are more active than others. Admissions will not hold it against you at all. Good luck with the process.</p>
<p>ya ya!</p>
<p>Im pleased Diwali is an acknowledged event in the USA, and most probably in MIT!</p>
<p>But I was wondering that if MIT places more emphasis on the "fit" then how does having a religious activity fall on any catagories of the "fit"
Certainly it doesn't mean I'm trying to make the world a better place, for all everyone knows, religious stuff can be misleading.
Ben mentioned uncommon practices.
I understand that religious activities don't count against you, the MIT/Caltech alumns here in this thread have already told me.
I am just thinking whether having religious ECs will actually do anyting or HELP me during evaluvation.
I'm just depressed (well, I guess not: I can be pretty easily excited =P)
that someone with ISEF awards who is all devoted to science and math would be chosed over me with my religious activities as MIT is more science and math oriented . . . same with Caltech.</p>
<p>MIT especially is not just looking for one type of person. They get their share of math/science die-hards but also have people whose primary interests are somewhat less hardcore and who add breadth and beauty to the campus. You want to be the best person YOU can be (emphasis on YOU) and maybe MIT will decide that you are just who they need to fill out this particular class.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But I was wondering that if MIT places more emphasis on the "fit" then how does having a religious activity fall on any catagories of the "fit"
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It will probably help you in a different way than math/science/tech ECs will help you. Passion for something MIT teaches (for most, math/science/tech) is an important part of fit, so with ECs related to those subjects, you get a boost in that area that other ECs don't give you.</p>
<p>But love of learning in general, pursuing things you care about, dedication and sustained commitment...these are also part of fit. This is something that you care deeply about, and that you've been doing since you were small (the sustained commitment part). So it will boost you in those aspects of fit.</p>
<p>I guess . . . </p>
<p>But hey, having a religious EC does make you stand out. I know a person in my year who got married as a HS Sophomore because her religion demanded it! Pretty unique huh?
I guess thats what colleges now want. Unique people who have unique lives/circumstances and how well they have taken them in advantage.</p>
<p>Don't get carried away with the idea of "uniqueness." If you want to get into MIT, then you should focus on getting good grades in hard classes. That's the first step into the door. When you see all these chances posts with people taking 7-8 AP exams in the math/sciences and getting 5's, etc etc, this falls in the solid-academic-foundation pillar. Once you've worked as hard as possible in this area of making sure you're competent, THEN you can focus on emphasizing the side things you do that are unique. But the idea that every applicant has some extraordinarily unique crazy thing about them is not true. The majority of MIT students are hard working, motivated, smart students who got in because they were very hard working, motivated and smart in high school as well. A FEW kids will get in every year for some absolutely crazy thing they did on the side that makes them way more unique with respect to the applicant pool than the vast majority of applicants. Stories of these people get popularized because they are exciting.</p>
<p>I don't know how religion might give you a big boost in any way. I would equate it to doing a sport or participating in a club intensly for years and years. Of course the difference is that there isn't any measure of how well you performed in this activity (being mediocre at something for 10 years in a row just means that you're mediocre). </p>
<p>So if you're going to write about religion, I recommend you talk about how it helped you develop as you grew, how it let you tackle tough situations, etc. Definetely don't touch on subjects that are very controvertial unless it puts you in a positive light.</p>
<p>It will count for your as being diverse. I don't agree with that, I think it should not be a factor. But they will consider it an EC and an interesting experience to contribute to the community.</p>