<p>[Campus</a> Overload - Admissions officers not impressed by pricey service trips](<a href=“http://voices.washingtonpost.com/campus-overload/2010/10/pricey_service_trips.html]Campus”>http://voices.washingtonpost.com/campus-overload/2010/10/pricey_service_trips.html)</p>
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<p>Sorry, calling this cynical misses the points made. If you want to show adcoms you have a compassionate side- and the energy to follow through on that- you don’t need to take a trip to a 3rd world nation. (You may want to, you don’t need to.) If you want to send yor kids on an independent trip to see how others live, you may also choose to send them to NOLA, Appalachia, a reservation or other parts of the US in dire need.</p>
<p>Two Moose put it directly: However, the singular trip is less likely to impress the admissions committee and less likely to sound sincere than a sustained committment to a service project over time.</p>
<p>Try to absorb that.<br>
Wanna travel, wanna send your kid off on a trip without you, fine. Don’t think adcoms will find it sufficient evidence you can give of yourself. It’s different in both concept and practice. Wanna “tell” them how it changed your life, fine. Don’t expect them to stop there. When you tell, very often, the immediate next question is: and then what? </p>
<p>We are talking about super elites. If you want a college that doesn’t give a darn abut more than stats, go for it. </p>
<p>Adcoms are not jaded about these trips. It is more that some kids and parents don’t understand one showpiece, in the absebse of some work at home, conveys something different than some here think it does.</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with US mission trips.<br>
*Let’s not assume that participants in academic competitions are solely motivated by college admissions, either, as some have done in this thread. *</p>
<p>I am saying, don’t think one expensive trp is enough to fulfill an adcom’s idea you need activities in which you show the ability to give of yourself, your time and energy.</p>
<p>I don’t know why people assume that kids and their parents assume that writing about a trip to Africa is going to <em>impress</em> adcoms or blow their socks off or even make them think the kid is a community service superstar. My guess is they are probably just answering question #1 (describe a significant experience and how it impacted you) in an honest way. Ask Beliavsky, most rich people are not stupid ;). I have middle-aged adult friends who tell me their trip to Africa was the most amazing thing they have ever done in their lives.</p>
<p>If adcoms find spending money on trips or limited community service offensive, then they should not be adcoms.</p>
<p>For every bit of the path to getting your kids into a top holistic college, remember: it is a freaking college app. It is the one vehicle to convey the kid is a good choice, should make it to the finals, where the last cut is made.</p>
<p>It’s not “what I did with my summer.” Or a list of your hs activities for the GC. Or even a recounting, in a note to a relative, of what you did and how it affected you. It is your one chance to present yourself to strangers who have an idea what they feel kids can do, can be expected to do, and can pick those they feel did it best. </p>
<p>Understand that no question should be taken at face value. You are applying to a competitive college. Impressions can be made. And lost.</p>
<p>What works for us as parents, trying to round our kids as our nestlings, exposing them to more, getting them to think and feel-- wrap yourself around this: adcoms are not looking at our kids the way we do.</p>
<p>I am the one who said 10k. I also looked at costs and agree with Sue. Quite frankly, we took the four of us for a week in Paris for less than 5k. All expenses. (Smart planner, here. We could go with Lorem and do well.)</p>
<p>I do read apps. I am not a final deciison maker.<br>
Again, Bay, do not take th short question on the CA at face value.</p>
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<p>Wow. Like you would ever know if some kid visits an old lady down the street. Your bias is palpable. Regarding “leaving one’s comfort zone” to do CS, who cares? Where do you think the rich kid who hands out sandwiches at the soup kitchen sleeps at night?</p>
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<p>Could you please clarify this? Are you on a college admissions committee? High School?
A ways back you talked about leaving the thread to go work with stem students… again HS? College? Teacher?</p>
<p>Bay-
Who do you think I’m biased against? Rich kids? </p>
<p>I can tell you about some of my own kid’s growth experiences at the food pantry in a wealthy community:
Seeing the father of one of his friends in line to pick up a free bag of groceries.
Learning why food pantries are busier at the end of the month than at the beginning.
Being asked by a woman holding an unshucked ear of corn, “What’s this and how do you cook it?”
Making friends with a lonely old woman and eventually hearing about her time serving in WWII.
Spending 6 years working alongside adults and earning increasing responsibility to the point where at the end he was training adults.</p>
<p>He’s also done community service as part of a deluxe travel trip. As I believe I said on another thread where you and I had this debate, the money the kids spent on snacks after their work could have paid for locals to do the same labor.</p>
<p>The reason leaving one’s comfort zone is important is because that is where the growth happens.</p>
<p>A couple of thoughts:
First, I’m still not persuaded by the premise behind much of this discussion: that MIT in fact rejects demonstrated math whizzes in favor of less qualified applicants–I’m not persuaded that there wasn’t something in those apps that MIT simply didn’t like–even if the kid got into Harvard. Even if this happens sometimes, I think the frequency is probably so vanishingly small that it’s not worth worrying about.</p>
<p>Second, while I do think there are service trips that are thinly disguised vacations, there are plenty that aren’t, including some to foreign countries. A lot of these are done through churches, and I can tell you that many of the participants are not doing them for college admissions purposes. There is no question, though, that much of the benefit of these trips is to the people who go on them–their manual labor is not the most efficient way to repair houses in Appalachia, or Belize. But on balance, my observation is that they are often worthwhile.</p>
<p>^Well, I always believed community service was about what you do for others, not what it does for you. I don’t think kids should only do CS that provides growth for themselves in a way that is acceptable to adcoms.</p>
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<p>If this is a reference to something I wrote about academic competitions, allow me to add that it is wrong to paraphrase the words with the inclusion of the word SOLELY. </p>
<p>There are multiple reasons why students participate in academic competitions. However, it is undeniable that some do it for the precise reasons to boost their chances in college admissions. Some could be a small percentage, or an overwhelming one. Feel free to pick the one you prefer!</p>
<p>And, again, there IS a way to take care of that part of the equation. It does, however, require the people who are in the position to make decisions to start REMOVING such competitions from their decision “indexes.” Especially since the organizers of competitions such as Intel will never, ever take the risk to remove the main appeal of their competition.</p>
<p>In a way, participants are NOT to blame for seeking to “game” the system; it is up to the schools to recognize that they are being played again. Just as they were when the Suzuki classes fabricated prodigies were all the rage in admissions. Just as they are with all the fake credentials created abroad. </p>
<p>Simply stated … have the competitions but release the results well after the admission decision have been made!</p>
<p>Some of this conversation has gotten a bit off track- initially, iirc, some thought a round of “service” in a 3rd world country was sufficient- that it could be a poignant answer to Q1.<br>
No one is dissing the efforts. It’s the lens we question- and whether a kid does anything more than that one trip. Ok, and the expense, when there is much need in the US. Gotta go.</p>
<p>What LF said is helpful regardless where she works. I suspect that my kid didn’t make into her school, but I could be wrong. My question is: Is there real difference between two kids with the same everything expect one’s essays are impressive to a reader and one goes to top choice while the other not?</p>
<p>Not prejudging people is all that we want.</p>
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<p>I completely agree with Hunt. Such trips can be worthwhile for both the participants and the recipients of the help or service. </p>
<p>The real question here is about what role it plays in the college application and the essays. Why what would happen to the student if the 10 days trip had NOT existed? Why is it important for the student to pick THAT subject to define him or herself (in the eyes of the adcoms that is) through such examples? Was there nothing else in their entire 16 to 18 years to write about except THAT trip? </p>
<p>My observation is that writing about this type of activities can work (and does) when it is complemented by similar or comparable dedication locally or by YEARS of dedication to service abroad. </p>
<p>But last but not least, in a cynical way, not all descriptions of luxury travel to an exotic destination (under the guise of a CS) are poor signals to adcoms. The message that a family is indeed willing to spend beaucoup dollars is also an early indication of a possible longterm willingness to continue to invest in the well-being of their children and … the schools that were kind enough to accept the kids. </p>
<p>All in all, it all brings up to the main square. We (here) really do not know why kids are accepted or rejected. We all look at anecdotes to define an ever moving target.</p>
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There are some competitions/awards like this–for example, the Presidential Scholar decisions come out too late for use in college applications–and there’s no money, either. I know from prior threads on CC that this discourages some kids from filling out the extensive application.</p>
<p>Where the kid goes is so unimportant in comparison to how he will perform there. And being within student body of higher caliber students might not work. Some people will step up, others might get discouraged and for third, dealing with very intense crowd socially might be a challenge.<br>
it is very important to have a variety in student body. Some very top UGs might lack in this aspect. As my own D. pointed out that many who ar coming from very top Ivy’s and Elite colleges lack in social skills. Dealing with this intensity (which is NOT warranted at all at UG) might be just additional level of stress. Just remember one thing, no matter where the kid end up going, there is going to be an acdemic shock, it includes those 4.0 valedictorians from private prep. HSs with tons of APs and other honors. They will be shocked by academic gap between HS and college even if they choose state public. I guarantee you that, no exceptions. You do not want to shock them any more than that.</p>
<p>Lake42ks - if we assume the academic and test credentials are the same for two kids, then their circumstances, essays, LORs determine who gets in if there is only one seat.</p>
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<p>My guess is that the trip truly was the most significant experience of that kid’s lifetime. Most kids live lives that are similar to their peers’ lives. If they are lucky and have the lives most of us want for their kids, their lives really are <em>unremarkable</em> in comparison to their peers. They haven’t suffered unusual hardships, unless they’ve lost a relative, which I understand many kids write about; they may have <em>passions</em> about dance or sports or mock trial or math club or soup kitchen or those other ECs that we have cultivated in them. When they travel on their own, outside this country, to an exotic place and see abject poverty, even if they stay in a nice hotel, it leaves a lasting mark and inspires them to write about it.</p>
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<p>Are you advocating this? Why should being a great athlete or the child of an alumnus count for college admissions but not doing scientific research or doing well in a math contest? Every aspect of high school life that appears on a college application, including grades and the rigor of high school courses taken, is influenced by admissions considerations. The only way to remove the college admissions motivation is to have open admissions or random admissions.</p>
<p>winning the intel prize has the reverse effect. The winners are getting likely letters from top schools 2 weeks before their actual announcements. </p>
<p>They just figured out this kid is in their applicant pool?</p>
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<p>And that is exactly my point. It would be a really bad idea to send a message that the most significant experience is … having made that trip!</p>