Are service trips a huge "NO" as a Common App essay topic?

Melissawilliams
Sun, 13 Jul 2014 15:56:07 +0000

I know that they make you seem like some privileged white kid who went to another country to help out. But I am a lower middle class black student who got to go on an amazing trip.

I was not going to write it as the typical “this trip was amazing, we did X Y Z, and all in all it was life changing.” Not sure if the reason why kids are told not to write about service trips is for that reason. I do not plan on doing anything like that, or even outlining what we did on the trip.

For example, my sister wrote her Common App essay on a river in the country she went to, and a woman who always returned to it, and it became a metaphor for her life.

Any thoughts? Do college admissions officers just roll their eyes at the mere mention of a service trip?