Will I be a competitive Brown applicant?

Clueless1Z
Mon, 16 Jul 2012 22:30:27 +0000

I don’t know if I’ll be able to make this clear in a college app, but the Costa Rica trip wasn’t the nonrmal “book online through some tour company” deal. A friend and I contacted a grass roots group in rural costa rica. Their whole conservation effort is local, in partnership with Costa Rica’s coast guard. They don’t do planned trips or anything like that - we had to navigate Costa Rica’s (rather confusing) public bus system to get there. We roomed with a local family and basically made our own agenda. We also brought an old laptop with us to donate - increasing the group’s total number of computers to 2. I know its not the same level as commitment as starting a local charity or dedicating hundreds of hours to a group week after week, but it definitely was not the normal prepackaged volunteer vacation. Will that count for anything? Is it worth writing about and explaining?