Monetary, intellectual, social value of HS summer experiences

Parent Cafe
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<p>Fellow CCers: Sorry about the gobbledegook at the end of #95. Didn’t edit down far enough. </p>

<p>Soozievt:
I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with my neighbors buying their daughter a Range Rover or with someone sending their kid on a whirlwind tour of Europe. If it’s not illegal, I don’t think there’s anything morally objectionable about anyone spending their money anyway they like. Shoot, I can read in the L.A. Times about people who build $400,000 swimming pools they don’t intend to swim in and jackets for pets that cost $1,000 and not even blink an eye. If someone wants to provide their kids with luxuries that – at least for the people I grew up with – came only in adulthood and after hard work, that’s their business. But I can still be flabbergasted by it for the reasons I already mentioned. I suspect that my sons, not having been subjected regularly to the Rainy Day lecture, will have a whole different generational view of spending money. </p>

<p>Marite: Good link.</p>

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<p>“Traveled”
“Traveling”</p>

<p>Thought you’d want to know. ;)</p>

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<p>alwaysamom, our school formed a committee to evaluate students who applied for several corporate scholarships- I don’t know the exact details and I don’t want to list the names but there was one award per school per scholarship and we were asked to review the apps and “vote” for lack of a better word. Anyway, I think that some essay responses lacked the commitment, excitement, passion; nothing came through. Plus looking over the entire application and all the other responses- usually the uniqueness of each applicant comes through.</p>

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<p>Different ways to spell in different parts of the world. Thought YOU’D like to know. ;)</p>

<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(spelling[/url])”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(spelling)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Allmusic, back to the original topic (summer activities)-
20 hr/wk job, bb travel team, football conditioning/summer league, boys state, senatorial campaign, engineering camp at local college, visit colleges, summer reading</p>

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<p>Wasn’t Robert E Lee’s horse named “Traveller”?</p>

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<p>I have a backstory, too - it goes like this. All my life, as a child, I heard from my mom that the one thing she had never done that she wanted desperately to do was visit Europe. (She couldn’t have done so as a teenager since she grew up duing the war years - I believe she graduated high school in 1946). The year I graduated from high school, my mom and I traveled to Europe together - I was 16, she was 40 - we visited the British Isles & Scandanavia and it certainly was the highlight of our lives at the time, and the best mother-daughter experience we ever had. Of course I still have vivid memories of that trip. Fortunately, my parents were able to travel again once or twice over the next several years.</p>

<p>Eight years after that trip, a few months after the last cruise she & my dad took together, my mother had a massive stroke and died. </p>

<p>I was 24. The lesson I took from that was: you’ve only got one life, and if you don’t do the things you want to when you can, you may never get the chance. Physical things - nice cars, a big house, etc. – aren’t of particular value to me - but experiences are. So if I am able to afford it, I will never turn down an opportunity for a special or unique travel experience – and the same is true for my kids. It doesn’t matter whether the trip is deemed “educational” – all travel is enriching and brings new experiences and memories, at least as long as you are traveling somewhere you haven’t been before. Even now I can remember all the trips I took in my childhood with my family, and the trips I took with my own children, far more vividly than anything else. </p>

<p>I don’t have a lot of money, so we economize when we travel – no 5 star hotels, no first class seats. But I won’t economizes so much as to turn down to the opportunity for something special. Yes, it cost $150/person for the helicopter ride to the glacier for me & my kids when we were in Alaska, and we can ill-afford to spend $450 for an afternoon excursion… but when else are we ever going to get to walk on a glacier? </p>

<p>So that’s my ultimate spending test: is this something easy to arrange, or is it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? The foreign exchange thing is obvious: adults don’t get invited to live in the homes of strangers for weeks or months on end; adults can’t get that time off from work. So if a parent can afford it -foreign travel with a homestay is one of those only-for-teens opportunities. Even college students are more likely to be housed in dorms or apartments than homestays during study abroad, though certainly homestays are available. </p>

<p>So when my d. came home a month ago with the news that her dance group had been invited to peform in China - it was a no-brainer. Of course I hadn’t planned on an overseas year the summer before d… started college, and I didn’t have money put aside-- I charged the airfare to a credit card and I’ll worry about it later. My d’s got a good summer job, so maybe she’ll be able to contribute. Maybe not. But it doesn’t matter - because this simply is one of those now or never opportunities. </p>

<p>I do have to note that as a parent, I do get some vicarious pleasure from all of this traveling. I wish I could go along, but even though I can’t - I do get the pictures and the stories and I have fun reading up on all the places where my d. is traveling. And Google Earth is incredible – between that and web cams in major cities and instantaneous communication via email and text messaging, it is almost like I am there.</p>

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<p>After reading the Boston Globe story (link posted by Marite, post #99), I have some thoughts to add. </p>

<p>Teenagers choose these overseas adventure/exploration/service programs for a variety of complex reasons. It may seem like an easy resume-builder to a skeptical ad com, but to 15, 16, or 17 year old it can be a major and very scary undertaking. Traveling far away from home, away from parents, to a strange place where there is an expectation of some sort of work, possibly strenous physical activity or labor, is no small matter to a teenager. So a lot of thought goes through their minds and the minds of their parents, a lot of weighing pros and cons. The fact that something may look good for college or will fulfill the school community service requirement is just one more item in the “pro” column. </p>

<p>I’m sorry that some ad coms are so skeptical. The reality is that at age 16 or so, a lot of kids have no idea what they want to do or what their passions are. The kids who are inclined toward community service will find these summer programs intriguing – kids who don’t have such an inclination will probably shudder at the thought when the idea is suggested to them, and ask their parents to fund music camp or a summer academic program or something else. Most parents simply want to see their kids doing something productive over the summer - the activity the kid chooses tends to reflect their underlying interests, even if it is something different from anything they have ever done before. </p>

<p>It’s really unfair when ad coms insist not only that they want to see certain types of activities, but that they have to be done for the right reasons, none of which can be the desire to actually get recognition for having done whatever it is the kid has done.</p>

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<p>calmom:</p>

<p>I so agree with you! </p>

<p>While S2 wore the discarded clothes of S1 for many years and we drive an increasingly disreputable-looking car (both out of choice rather than necessity), we’ve gone on many trips abroad, sometimes to visit family, but other times because I knew it would be a wonderful experience for my kids. And each time, it has been.</p>

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<p>calmom - I so agree with your post #108.</p>

<p>It is one thing for adults to be judgmental about how other adults spend their money, but it is too bad when adults are judgmental about how young people are spending their summers, especially as teens should be in a place in their life where they can learn something from just about any type of summer experience.</p>

<p>I would hope that interviewers would be attempting to draw out teens about things that they have done, whether it be a mundane job or an extravaganza funded by their well-heeled parents.</p>

<p>When kids find out the high expectations that come with these high stakes interviews, I’m not surprised that they try to describe a cow’s ear experience as a silk purse, and lose credibility in the process.</p>

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<p>This is another case of adcoms speaking from both sides of their mouth.</p>

<p>On the one hand, they counsel to let kids be kids, to avoid putting too much pressure on them, to let them take a gap year so they can smell the flowers and do a bit of growing up. On the other, they want everything the kids do to have significance. Spending time at the beach is not the right way to spend summer (not enough pressure?). If the kids are not looking to cure for cancer, they are expected to do significant community service, etc…, etc… Pity the suburban kid. If s/he travels abroad, it’s seen as showing off afluence instead of curiosity about the rest of the world.</p>

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<p>“It is one thing for adults to be judgmental about how other adults spend their money, but it is too bad when adults are judgmental about how young people are spending their summers, especially as teens should be in a place in their life where they can learn something from just about any type of summer experience.”</p>

<p>It’s important to remember that when it comes to the “high stakes” college interviews for places like Harvard that I interview for, there are about 8-10 outstanding students who are rejected for every student who is accepted. That’s because those colleges attract the very best students in the country when it comes to things like grades, scores and, yes, activities.</p>

<p>Students who are basically average or even above average when it comes to leadership, assertiveness, independence may be students whom most colleges would welcome with open arms, they are not the kind of students that HPYS are looking for because those colleges are flooded with applicants with great strengths in those areas as well as strong stats.</p>

<p>Consequently, while I realize that for most high school students, being willing to spend 3 weeks away from home traveling abroad on a packaged tour requires a great deal of thought and courage, the assertiveness and independence that those tours require will not make anyone stand out in an Ivy pool.</p>

<p>The tours may be a very worthwhile, valuable experience for the students who choose to do them. They may grow in sophistication, maturity, independence. All are fine. However, if their main reason in going on such a trip is to stand out in an elite college admission pool, they will be disappointed. </p>

<p>I had never heard of those packaged student tours until I became an alum interviewer for Harvard close to 20 years ago. When the applicants told me that they had been especially selected for these tours, initially, I was impressed – that is until I noticed that each time I asked students about their experiences, all I got were travelogues and cliches like “I learned that people are people.”</p>

<p>When I’d ask the students why they took the tours, they’d say their parents told them to take them or they thought the tours help them get into college. Yes, students actually told me that.</p>

<p>Not one time has any student who took that kind of tour told me anything about it that made them seem like standouts in the competitive application field. Indeed, every one of the students whom I have interviewed who went on such a tour stood out for being very passive. I used to think that something was wrong with me when I’d ask leading question after leading question and get one word answers or one-sentence cliches. In fact, I used to lengthen the interviews to give students every chance of shining.</p>

<p>Finally, it dawned on me that I was doing so much work because the students were passive. When it comes to the trips, the parents probably sent those particular students on the trips to help the students learn assertiveness skills. This is fine, and there are many colleges, including good ones, who’ll happily accept that kind of diamond in the rough, and will do a good job helping the student develop. My alma mater, however, is more of a swim with the sharks place where type As thrive and students who need more coddling would be miserable.</p>

<p>There’s a big difference between students who go abroad on expensive packaged vacations and students who, for instance, hold very ordinary jobs. I have never interviewed or met a student who held an ordinary job who couldn’t talk about it in more than cliches. </p>

<p>Holding an ordinary job – fast food, cashier, waitress, camp counselor, etc. – requires a level of maturity,r responsibility and independence that going on a packaged tour does not. Since very few middle and upper class parents now force their kids to work , the elite college-aspiring students who do work those kind of ordinary jobs (note – I’m not talking about internships that their parents line up – the kind of things that look great on paper, but require little in reality) have more than average levels of assertiveness, responsibility, etc.</p>

<p>Due to the requirements of the jobs, they also learn a great deal about themselves, other people, the world, etc. I have just watched a shy friend of S’s blossom after one week of working as a camp counselor. She bubbles over with details about challenges she’s faced and noncliched things that she has learned about kids. </p>

<p>Anyway, people can spend their money any way that they choose. However, if they’re spending their $ on packaged European tours hoping those experiences will get their kids into Harvard, the parents are wasting their $. I’m sure that some Ivy kids have gone on those tours, but I also am sure that unless the kids did something remarkable such as earned the money to go on the tours, their trips aren’t what got them into top colleges.</p>

<p>One last thing: I have met students who have stood out because of their experiences abroad. One was a student who loved French and combed the Internet to find an affordable way that he could spend the summer in France. What he found was an opportunity to work as summer help in a French resort. His parents had no idea that he was looking for such a thing until he showed them the information and announced he was going.</p>

<p>Unfortunately for Harvard, that particular student didn’t apply, but went instead to the Naval Academy, however, IMO, that student would have been a strong candidate in the Harvard pool. NB: The student didn’t go to France to try to look good for colleges. His trip was his idea of summer fun. His idea of summer fun just happened to indicate that he also is the type of student who would be very welcome and happy at the top colleges.</p>

<p>Most students, no matter how intelligent, don’t have those kind of interests, and adcoms are right in that students shouldn’t spend their free time including summers forcing themselves to do things to try to look good to colleges. Instead, students should look for colleges that welcome students with their kinds of talents, interests and personalities.The US has thousands of colleges, and most accept the majority of their applicants. There’s no need for students to force themselves to do special extracurricular activities to get into college.</p>

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<p>Calmom, Marite, and Fendrock, I very much agree with and relate to your posts. Calmom, I agree that the kids got a lot out of these travels. Some have a true interest in travel and these experiences are ones that were not available or the same as with family. As well, often the summer activities were tied to other interests which is evident when looking over everything about the student. Also, like Calmom says, certain kids would choose certain activities. A program abroad appeals to certain kids and other may pick an academic pre-college program or some other worthwhile experience.</p>

<p>Marite, I agree about the mixed messages. On the one hand, selective colleges want to see students choosing activities that mean something to them out of genuine interest. On the other hand, there appears to be some judgment that the activity was not “impressive.” </p>

<p>Northstarmom, I don’t doubt that you have met some students like you described who had gone on packaged travel trips. But I find it hard to imagine the generalizations you are making. My oldest D has been on two “packaged” teen tours…one in the US and one in Europe (the latter one was a tennis tour). She is not passive AT ALL. She would be so enthusiastic in an interview about these experiences. She is assertive as well. She is quite independent. She chose these activities out of sheer interest and desire…they were all her idea, not ours. She is the opposite of someone who needs coddling. </p>

<p>This kid is very into travel. After freshman year in college, she opted to drive 6000 miles to Alaska. I’m leaving now to pick her up at the airport as she is flying in from Mt. Hood, Oregon where she attended a ski race training camp, which she funded herself. Yes, we funded summer programs prior to college but do not during college. In fact, she funded a six week program at Harvard last summer herself. Anyway, as I said, she loves travel. She also loves French/France. She has been to France twice…once on a ten day school trip with her French class and once on the summer tennis tour she did before 12th grade. She wants to spend a more extended time there now. To do so, she wrote to many places in France to secure a summer job there. You see, this kid HAS been a camp counselor and HAS been a waitress. She has references from those various jobs. She is leaving for France in two days and has a job there in a program for children learning English. She was also offered a job working at a chateau. She initiated all of this. </p>

<p>If someone looked over her activity resume, they would see common themes. I won’t get into all her activities in sports, the arts, etc. But will say that she has done MANY jobs, both for pay and volunteer with youth. She obviously loves to travel and has done travel trips. This summer combines those two (plus her love of French). So, even though she did packaged tours because she wanted to very badly, she could talk to you so enthusiastically about these trips and their connection to her various interests (the European tour also tied into her love of competitive tennis…was on Varsity team, #1 singles player). She did not have a problem getting into very selective colleges. I believe she interviews very well. I interview candidates like you do and I have met some like you describe who are passive and I have to probe and probe. But I have also met very enthusiastic types. My D falls into the latter description and would have described these summer experiences in detail with loads of enthusiasm because they were genuine interests of hers, even if they did cost a lot.</p>

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<p>I am not belittling your daughters, Soozivt, or your sons, Marite, or any other children who have been described here in their summer travel adventures. I’m glad their experiences were so positive.</p>

<p>It is interesting that my experiences, however, more closely mirror Northstarmom’s, and I don’t do Ivy interviewing either. In my professional life, I do plenty o’ work with affluent teenagers and their families, and happen to know many in my personal life as well; the kids that <em>I</em> know, who have done prepackaged tours, tend to be more like the ones Northstarmom describes. I already mentioned several posts back about trying to elicit some interest or response from a friend of mine’s DD who went to China last summer. I’ve known this girl since she was born, so it isn’t like I was some stranger asking her! She literally could not articulate anything at all about her trip, besides mumbling that it was “fun”. Well, yippy.</p>

<p>The same would be true about the girl going on the teen tour this summer. As opposed to exuding enthusiasm about the opportunity to travel abroad, she was grousing about having to travel to New York to fly to London, instead of leaving from Boston, and how “tired” she would be. I will be really curious to hear her responses after her month long adventure.</p>

<p>I am sure not ALL kids on pre-packaged tours have so little enthusiasm about this exceptional opportunity, but from the ones I have seen, that has been the rule, not the exception.</p>

<p>If I were an ad com, and heard these responses, it would sure turn me right off. Now, truthfully, some of these kids don’t exude enthusiasm about anything else either, so it may just be their personalities…</p>

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<p>I’m not trying to justify my family’s decisions to adcoms or anyone else, so there is no need for all this reassurance. </p>

<p>Both my Ss listed their fairly extensive travels on their resumes, but these did not form the basis for essays. And yet, S1 could have written about the enormous impact a ten-day trip to El Salvador had on him. Whether or not it would have come off as jejune is a moot point. The fact is that it had an impact on him that has lasted all these years; and that is all that mattered to us.</p>

<p>I don’t take the ability to articulate what was exciting or educational about a trip–expensive or otherwise–as a lack of passion. I’m not even sure that being able to impress an interviewer is at all important. As I’ve mentioned before, a friend of ours who was a Harvard alumnus interviewer for many years recounted his experience interviewing a girl so shy she burst into tears and could not string two sentences together. She was admitted. Another applicant was extremely fluent during his interview and exuded confidence. He was not admitted. </p>

<p>Travel can be an enormous hassle. Sometimes, the logistics of it are all that you can focus on at a particular time. We recently said good bye to a friend who was traveling back to Asia. She was delayed by weather. Then she missed her connection; she had to be re-routed via another airport; then she had to sleep in the airport, the airline refusing to pay for a hotel. When she returned home, her luggage was missing. It was missing for ten days. By the time she got it back, it was clear that someone had gone through it and made away with some items. She burst out crying on several occasions during this nightmare odyssey. And yet, once the memories of the flight itself fades, she will be able to remember that her short time in the US, her very first trip, was extremely productive and also fun.</p>

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<p>So the defense for sneering at such programs is that…those students can’t get into Harvard? Or they are reluctant to talk to middle-aged moms about their experience?</p>

<p>marite, I don’t know how your son got into Harvard at age 16! </p>

<p>As for passive explanations of trips abroad, any expat or immigrant will tell you that many Americans have a limited capacity for taking in new information about other countries. As an extremely extroverted 49 year old, I avoid those conversations like the plague–the questions follow the same dull pattern. “How do you like it? Why did you move there?” </p>

<p>There is a pat answer Americans want to hear. They are not interested in a true discussion. Most expats find a way to deliver the desired answer in the shortest manner possible. The limitations of the interviewer make the conversations dull–not my experiences.</p>

<p>If my boys have to give up an acceptance at Harvard for 11 years of travelling, that’s a burden we will have to carry. Somehow.</p>

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<p>Cheers:</p>

<p>It can’t have been the interviews! :)</p>

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<p>I took my Ds to Europe last summer, we had always done Ireland, but I wanted to go with them to Paris and Rome…we saw everything we could…it was whirlwind</p>

<p>Last summer, the school took several kids to Rome, London and Paris on a ten day trip, it was a structured trip, to a degree, but with lots of free time to do whatever</p>

<p>The difference I noted from pictures, descriptions etc, were interesting</p>

<p>On the family trip (ours) we did as much culture as we could get in without going crazy, we shopped, we explored and got to know the places we were in, we really ate local, and had adventures</p>

<p>When hearing the kids on the school trip talk- they would try and not have to go to a museum, they would try and sneak away, as if it was more important to sneak away and miss something, than to “have” to stay with the group and explore a great old church- they bonded greatly with the new friends they made on the trip, and to the kids I spoke to at least, that trumped much of the scenery, culture, etc…as well, for the school trip, it was ALOT about sneaking booze (these were 14-18 year olds), and while there was a certain sense of independence, it was more of getting away with stuff than actually learning how to take care of themselves, these kids opted out of going to the Vatican Museum, if you can imagine that…</p>

<p>Another problem I saw with the school trip was you had graduated seniors and freshman (going to be sophmores) on the same trip…those seniors were ready to party hearty, and the younger students followed along to be cool…not all mind you, but enough, from what I heard</p>

<p>Perhaps becuase this was a school trip, and not a packaged one the kids didn’t really take advantage of where they were, they really just took advantage of not being home, if you can see the difference</p>

<p>I am sure mine would have LOVED to have gone on the school trip, and hung out with new friends, but when I here how much those kids did not see, because it was cooler not to, and to hear my Ds talk about all that we saw, and how much it meant to them- to see where Caeser stood…and their memories and experiences were different because they were with mom and dad, I don’t think they missed anything by not being around classmates</p>

<p>My D asked her friend what she really thought of the Mona Lisa after seeing it in person at the Louvre…her friend, who went on the school trip said, Oh, didn’t go, I wanted to shop…</p>

<p>My Ds other summer experiences have been a mix of summer classes and following their passions and interests, while having fun</p>

<p>My youngest is going to LA for a couple of classes/camp for two weeks, not going with any friends, and her friends here are like, you aren’t going with ANYONE you know? They can’t beleive she wants to go to these camps by herself…My oldest will be in europe for 5 weeks, 4 at a program, and a week seeing relatives…</p>

<p>I am kind of jealous</p>

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<p>

Well, having seen the Mona Lisa for the first time 2 years ago myself… I’d say that was a good choice on the part of the friend. Though I admit that I did like other parts of the Louvre better. But the Mona Lisa is a little picture behind glass in a very crowded room where tourists wind their way through like sheep, and for some inexplicable reason they are all allowed to bring in their cameras with flashes and snap away, resulting in a lot of glare reflecting off the glass… and it is just one big disappointment. The picture looks better on the refrigerator magnet I purchased as a souvenir than it did in real life. </p>

<p>I honestly don’t know anyone who has seen it who wasn’t disappointed by the experience. </p>

<p>Now when I went shopping in Paris it was a chance to interact with people and even practice the few words of French I know… so honestly? My daily visit to the Boulangerie down the block from my hotel is a memory I cherish much more than my museum visits. (I ordered pain au chocolat each day because that and croissant are the only French bakery words I know, and I was so proud of myself for being able to say, pain au chocolat, sil vous plais? and then merci each morning.)</p>

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<p>;) marite. I remember you said your son was very shy. </p>

<p>Shopping in Paris on the Left Bank or in Marais for food, art, fashion or whatever…ahhhhhhh. That is a heavenly experience. </p>

<p>My sons too would have blinked blandly at the mention of the Mona Lisa. They were surrounded by anxious, camera mad Japanese tourists when they visited it with us. But ask them about the Picasso museum, and well, you might get a different reaction. </p>

<p>Viva la France!</p>