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<p>Well, it certainly isn’t likely to hurt you! 
Research experience can be used to demonstrate many, many important qualities that MIT looks for - academic ability, passion, work ethic, creativity, risk-taking…yeah, it can be a big plus, especially if you play it up well. Of course, if you don’t have research opportunities, you can demonstrate all these attributes in other ways - like Matt said, lack of research experience doesn’t disadvantage you. But it’s certainly convenient to have something that by itself can show so many of your positive qualities!</p>