<p>Yes, it really is what you need to do. Be true to yourself - if you try to be something MIT wants, you won’t end up liking who you are, and you won’t enjoy your 4 years at MIT (or wherever else you got in). If MIT is looking for a student who spent 500 hours each of the last 4 years feeding the hungry, they would rather accept the person who did it, because it’s just what they do, as opposed to the person who did so just to get into MIT. The former is likely to continue to do so, and improve her world, the latter is likely to stop, unless it will help them get something else they want.</p>
<p>Forget passion - what do you enjoy doing? How can you share that with others? What have you done, in the smallest of ways, to make the world a better place?</p>