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

[gibby]

<p>See: <a href=“Why Your Brilliant Child Didn't Get Into The Ivies | HuffPost Life”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost;

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Your child’s application stinks of privilege. You had the best of intentions when you sent your son or daughter to Oxford last July to read the classics. But guess what? The colleges, who eventually are happy to accept your $200,000, aren’t thrilled about $11,000 summer programs, even the life-changing ones. Outward Bound now looks dubious as well – it used to be about achieving clarity through eating bark, but now could be a euphemism for “troubled teen.” And forget those service opportunities in Central America – the whole isthmus is now frowned upon.

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A lame essay. Admissions officers are sick of reading essays about the challenges of building a latrine in Guatemala (see above) or how “I found the people of (insert name of developing country) to be exactly the same as in my home town of Greenwich, CT.”

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