When it came to his essays, Vineet avoided repeating his activities list. Instead, he chose stories that revealed who he was beyond academics. He opted for a "show, don't tell" writing tactic and communicated to admissions that he's a multifaceted, complete person that would contribute more than academics to MIT campus.

That choice made him memorable. His essays showed discipline and personality, painting a picture of someone who would bring both brains and balance to campus life.

Takeaway: Don’t shy away from writing about personal interests — your essays can show sides of you that a resume can’t. Even the little things can make your application feel more complete and uniquely humanizing.

If essays showed personality, his activities showed persistence and focus. Robotics was a staple of Vineet’s life, but it was his biomedical research that really stood out.

Takeaway: Admissions officers can tell the difference between dabbling and depth. Go deep, and let that effort speak for itself.

Asked how others could find authentic passions, Vineet pointed to the friends he surrounded himself with.

What Vineet shows here is how exposure fuels discovery. By stepping beyond a single social circle, he kept stumbling into new interests. Some stuck, others didn’t, but each one taught him something valuable. Takeaway: Surround yourself with people who aren’t like you, they can open doors for you that you never knew existed.

• Wagoo.ai — Leading operations at an AI startup, combining interests in computer science and business. • Rockbridge Growth Equity — Gained hands-on experience in private equity and financial analysis. • University of Michigan–Flint — Contributed to three NLP projects in the CoCoA Lab, publishing papers at SemEval and NAACL conferences. • SMILES Lab — Applied machine learning to brain segmentation tasks, expanding biomedical research expertise. • Oakland University — Conducted evolutionary genomics analysis of Enterobacteria; presented work at SMBE 2024. • SSP International — Performed directed evolution studies in Vibrio natriegens using chemostats, sequencing mutants and creating primers. • Intrepid Control Systems — Developed interface and client testing scripts for the flagship Vehicle Spy X codebase. • Udemy — Created two stock market courses reaching 10,000+ students worldwide; maintained a 4.5-star rating with 100+ reviews. • Robotics — Built long-term technical and teamwork skills through sustained participation and competition. • Weightlifting — Brought discipline and personality into his essays through a unique passion.

🤖 The Tinkerer Tinkerers are defined by their hands-on creativity. They build, test, and re-build new ideas until something works. Colleges value Tinkerers because they bring an experimental spirit to labs, clubs, and classrooms, showing that learning doesn’t need to be confined to a textbook. For Vineet, that identity started early. “I always, like, enjoyed making stuff, building stuff. I was a big Legos guy as a kid” he said. That love evolved into seven years of robotics and eventually into MIT’s maker culture, which he’d admired from afar through YouTube portfolios. By the time he applied, it was the foundation of why MIT felt like his dream school. 🔬 The Researcher Researchers are defined by their depth. They dive into problems, chase questions, and push until they find answers. Colleges value Researchers because they bring focus, persistence, and an ability to contribute meaningfully to academic inquiry from day one. Vineet embodied this archetype through his biomedical work. “I did research on brain aneurysms, and I published papers and stuff,” he explained. For him, it was about going all in and that mindset gave his application a clear edge at a research powerhouse like MIT. Together, these archetypes made Vineet’s story stand out. MIT saw a student who could ask big questions and then build the answer himself — a maker with the curiosity and persistence to turn projects into real discovery.

Q: If you could go back and give advice to yourself starting this process over again, what would it be?

• Authenticity as Strength — Vineet’s essays showed personality, not just a resume. • Depth Over Dabbling — Long-term robotics and published research highlighted true commitment. • Exposure Sparks Discovery — Diverse friends opened doors to unexpected passions.

Q: Why MIT? A: I mean, ever since I was young, I always, like, enjoyed making stuff, building stuff. I was a big Legos guy as a kid, and that kind of, like, pointed me towards MIT being a dream for me. MIT is, like, known for their maker community. I’d be seeing all these really cool maker portfolios on YouTube, and so when I think of colleges, like, that build cool stuff, I thought about MIT, like, immediately. It’s always been a dream, it’s always been, like, my top choice. In high school, I had some changes in what I wanted to do — at first just engineering, but then I got interested in business and finance too — but still, like, the main goal was MIT. Yeah, it’s highly ranked, but also, like, the community here I thought was really strong. And coming on campus, I’d agree with what I thought. Q: How are you planning to connect your interests in business and finance with MIT? A: So my major, it’s Course 6-14. It’s kind of weird, they go by numbers here. But it’s computer science, data science, and economics. So I do have that econ piece built in. I’m also planning to join some startup clubs. Q: How did you show your personality and passions in your essays? A: In terms of my essays, I tried not to talk about, like, all my activities. I tried to show more of my personality. So, like, I wrote about my hobbies, my passions. One of my essays was about lifting. The idea was, like, my activities would show I’m strong academically, but my essays would show, like, I’m social, I’ll connect with people, I’ll be a good friend. Q: What was your approach with the lifting essay? A: Yeah, I mean, I lift for fun, so that’s, like, one of my biggest hobbies. And one thing I realized was, like, I feel like most MIT students don’t really be, like, lifting, at least with my type of application. So that’s why I was, like, yo, this will help me stand out. And it’s not like I faked it — they’d definitely see through it if I didn’t actually lift. Q: What advice would you give students about finding authentic passions? A: I think one thing for me is, like, throughout high school I had a very diverse friend group. Everyone had their own unique thing. So, like, talking to all these people, I tried different things. If I didn’t like it, I just didn’t do it again. If I liked it, I kept doing it. I think that’s, like, the biggest piece of advice I have. ’Cause I know a lot of people, they’re just friends with the same type of people, and, like, you can’t really grow that much, you can’t try new things if all your friends are just like that. Q: What were some of your most impactful activities? A: Yeah, so, I did robotics for, like, seven or eight years. That was one of my biggest activities. But I think the more impactful one was my research — I did research on brain aneurysms, and I published papers and stuff. Research is a big component, especially for schools like MIT, ’cause most students here, when they come on campus, they do research. Q: How did you learn about MIT before applying? A: To be honest, I didn’t really do too much. Most of my research was just to answer the Why MIT essay. So I just, like, searched up some research labs I thought I might join, stuff along my interests. I just Googled it and the first page was enough. Nothing too crazy. Q: What’s it like now that you’re on campus? A: It’s really fun. Classes haven’t started yet, so it’s just hanging out, meeting new people. It’s a great time. Q: If you could go back and give advice to yourself starting this process over again, what would it be? A: Honestly, like, everyone says write your essays in the summer — that’s a big thing. But bigger picture, I feel like a lot of people do stuff just for college apps, and they get really burnt out. At least for me, that wasn’t the case. Whatever activities I did, I actually enjoyed. So I don’t really have regrets. A lot of people do things they don’t enjoy just to get in, and then regret it later. For me, I only did stuff I liked, so it wasn’t like that. Q: How did you stay authentic instead of chasing resume items? A: One thing for me is, like, whenever I do something, I don’t just stay surface-level. I think that’s what a lot of people do — they do something at the surface and then exaggerate it. For me, if I try something, I’m gonna go fully in-depth. I’ll spend hundreds of hours, keep trying, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. But I’ll still put in my full effort. That’s my philosophy: if you try something, actually put your all into it. If it fails, it’s still a learning thing.