@compmom - we’re a destination imagination (DI) family and have found it life changing for our kids. My D participated in a number of different challenges and since 8th grade, she’s been competing in the community service challenge. The community they picked was school age girls in need of education. Among other things, they read Nicholas Kristof’s half the sky, showed the documentary at their school and had q&a sessions with students. They learned of the work of Malala Yousafza and that influenced them to work with pakistani schools . The money they’ve raised has been used for books and classrooms. In addition to raising awareness, they have to create a project plan and a presentation that illustrates their project. So they learn sills around collaboration, project mgmt, time management, presentation and fund raising in addition to the culture/barriers to education in different countries.
we do think it might help with admissions. Our middle child, a strong writer, decided to add a resume to his app which consisted of two funny, well-written essays about his two top ECs. They were wonderful and I’d like to think helped him. Perhaps she’ll take the same approach.