<p>I grew up in Indonesia but I am Chinese.</p>
<p>So do I put Indonesia?</p>
<p>Or Chinese?</p>
<p>What does Origin mean? Thanks</p>
<p>Oh I don’t know, what about “Indonesian Chinese” or “Indonesian of Chinese Descent” or anything else that you think describes you. Keep in mind that you may choose to elaborate on the essay that asks:</p>
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<p>Or you might write about something else entirely. If being Chinese is central to your identity, then indicate that, or discuss it at the interview, or get it in somehow. If it is not central to who you are then you may choose to leave it out.</p>
<p>The application is your opportunity to present yourself to MIT. Therefore you have some flexibility in how you answer a question like this. Heck, if you think that the admissions committee might be amused, you could even list your origin as “Earth”, but I personally would not recommend that option.</p>
<p>Oh I kinda asked because I thought one would be more beneficial without me actually lying–maybe they have different agendas for Indonesians and Chinese was thinking about putting one or the other. you know, even my gov teacher was like “if it benefits you then put it-if it doesnt dont” when we were talking about affirmative action.</p>
<p>My last name (Tang) is chinese sounding but can be other countries/american. I have american first name and no middle name.</p>
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<p>Origin is quite simple if you were born in a certain country and you are of that ethnicity. For different combinations of origins, you must calculate the dot product of the two ethnicities to yield the total ethnicity.</p>
<p>In your case, the dot product of Indonesian and Chinese is Norwegian. Note that the dot product is commutative. </p>
<p>Your welcome.</p>
<p>But I calculated the dot product and got French. Cross product is Norwegian.</p>
<p>It is a trick question, actually intended to identify the dimensionality of the space in which you reside. The origin is (0, 0, 0, . . . 0), in N-space.</p>