I feel like anyone with enough talent to get into MIT will have no problem picking up a programming language in a month or two on their own. Heck there are freshmen there who write programming languages for fun
I think that assumes a base level of programming knowledge in the generic which may be a reasonable assumption in this day and age if you're applying to MIT/Stanford/etc. It wasn't going back a decade or two but may be today. Perhaps if you've never written a program, you're just not a candidate for some undergraduate programs today whatever your other talents.
