[unishark]

One problem is the competitiveness of the dream. If one is good at computers & math, and wants to go to college to do computers and math so they can contribute more computers and math to society, well the admissions committee mentally sticks them in the oversized pile of computer/math nerds who are all also overachievers at computers & math. And never mind that industry desperately wants these skills, academia is a warped place with its own agendas.

AI/Machine Learning are likely similarly competitive goals currently. No sure about biology, but the connection to medicine probably means it is a similarly problematic choice.

Another big issue could be the reasons behind your plans. Was it an extroverted story of benefiting society with your new skills, or an introverted story of learning about stuff that excites you for its own sake?

[_wt8k]

For my supplemental essays, I wrote about the importance of PL theory for software engineering, where you want to design programming languages that increase programmer productivity and ensure correctness, therefore leading to less bugs (e.g. security holes) and a benefit to society. I basically tried to appeal to the applied motivation behind PL theory. I don't know if you would consider this to be a benevolent motivation, I mean, it's not reducing inequality or curing cancer or anything like that.