<p>I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but the last time I checked the MIT admissions website, I couldn't find the answer. </p>
<p>When MIT says it needs a humanities teacher to fill in a rec, what counts as humanities? I know languages and social sciences definitely count, but what about the arts, like music/ visual arts... ? </p>
<p>Business would not count, right? But in my school, economics is a social science course, so my economics teacher would count, right? And I'm assuming that co-op teachers don't count...</p>
<p>At MIT, HASS classes (Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences) are grouped together as a requirement, so I assume anything in that category could go towards your humanities requirement. I think music/visual arts/econ would be fine, but you could always contact admissions to ask.</p>
<p>My general rule of thumb, like Piper’s, is that a teacher teaching a subject that would be contained within MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Science, were it held at MIT, is acceptable. Foreign Languages and Literatures is within the SHASS, so by my rule, it would be fine.</p>
<p>Only at MIT would “social sciences” be considered “humanities”. Generally, those are mutually exclusive categories, although history often has a foot in both camps. (Humanities is not the same as “liberal arts”. Science is included in “liberal arts”. Business isn’t.)</p>
<p>Music or visual arts are certainly humanities. I don’t think you could go wrong with a history teacher. I bow to mollie’s infinite wisdom, but I would phone admissions before submitting a “humanities” recommendation from your economics teacher.</p>