Would writing a research paper be of any great benefit when seeking admission in the top ten universities(mainly MIT in mind)?
Like, “you look up a topic and write about it” research paper? Or “actually performing original research, as in a lab, and writing it up for a professional journal” research paper?
research paper on history to be precise
a teacher of mine told me to write on history since it had a humanities touch to it which i heard was highly prefered by the top universites and that it would show diversity
They don’t have time to read something that’s basically a school assignment. If it’s not original research that could be published in a humanities journal, it will not impress them.
so what type of a research paper should i ought to proceed with?
Unless you are going original research for a paper that will be published, entered into a competition or something like that I don’t think it will help with admissions. Admissions officers are swamped and won’t want to read a HS research paper. FWIW my kids wrote multiple 20+ page research papers as part of HS English and SS classes. However, I believe that learning how to write a research paper is an important skill that will help you to succeed in college so that might be a good reason to do it.