<p>i am in love with MIT, but im afraid they wont feel the same about me. my grades are good enough to make it past the first cut (i hope, if not this post is pointless). i want to know how to express my passion in EC's and essays
im afraid because i feel like every other applicant is studying some rare Amazonian frog or the cultural effect of the mandolin on southeast asia....
my passion is medicine. now isnt that the most boring/common thing you have ever heard. ive volunteered at hospitals, shadowed doctors, created, "medical masterminds" clubs and worked with the alzheimer's association. this summer i will be doing research. but it just doesnt seem like enough. it doesnt seem interesting. my passion will be boring to them. but i cant change my passion... so how do i make it interesting??</p>
<p>MIT doesn’t care what passion it is (okay, they do care, but they won’t bias a field over another). For example, one of my passions is tournament Scrabble. Sounds weird and peculiar, but I’ve been playing in tournament clubs for years and even won Div. 2 of the National Scrabble Championship.</p>
<p>Basically, as long as you can show your passion throughout your MIT application/interview, that will be very good. To make your interest in medicine stand out even more, perhaps you can try to publish your research or specify what field of medicine you’re doing in your application (this signals the admissions reviewers that you know what you’re talking about).</p>
<p>Good luck in your application process!</p>
<p>yea but thats like actually interesting. how many people have such an interest with scrabble? it seems like every other person wants to be a doctor though 
but thanks for the advice</p>
<p>I would look at it differently: if you are passionate about medicine, then MIT values what you have to offer, although it may be that they accept someone else passionate about medicine. It’s a hard path, and not everyone who is passionate about it will actually make it in the end, and I’d focus most on making it.</p>
<p>what if you are interested in everything basically? ( i.e. physics, quantum physics, computer language, and computer engineering, photography, video games, philosophy, history, etc.)</p>
<p>I’m interested in all those things, but I choose what to spend most of my time on based on what works best for me – both what I enjoy working through most and what I’m best at.</p>
<p>@rr5001 it’s pretty hard to be genuinely interested in all those things…</p>
<p>@ghealy12, as long as you make your passion in medicine stand out in a way unique to everybody else’s, you’ll be just fine.</p>
<p>I think it’s quite possible to have sufficient general curiosity to know a fair number of things about all those areas. And we have to remember, “interested” does not at the high school stage have to mean they’d do a PhD in it if they had the chance. It could mean they’d take several classes on it in the future, read it in their spare time, discuss and think about it, etc.</p>
<p>“Passon” is a misused term. The better the school, the more they expect that you have focused interests, pursued them and actually achieved something. It’s about seeing opportunities (your and other needs that are out there) and taking on some responsibility, which can convert to leadership experience. So, OP, what did you actually do? What was your impact? Not a club, not shadowing, not an occasional walk-a-thon, but the things that stretched you and tested you? This isn’t about frogs or mandolins; it’s about showing you are empowered, have vision and can commit.</p>
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<p>This is exactly what’s wrong with ivy league admission…they care more about superficial diversity of interests rather than deep thinking in general.</p>
<p>I think MIT, in general, does not make this mistake. The Dean of Admissions there wrote a post saying, “You don’t have to play the kazoo to get into MIT,” meaning you don’t have to “distinguish” yourself by picking some bizarre interest.</p>
<p>I will also add that MIT does not admit by major, either formally or informally.</p>
<p>I’d bet half the kids in my class wrote down that they were going to major in physics and the other half in pre-med. Most end up in different majors than they intended. MIT knows that, so in general they admit for the magnitude of the talent vector, not the direction.</p>