<p>I just read the article and not the posts, but it seems like what the article is stating that colleges only look at passionate service?</p>
<p>I did like 800 hours of service to many areas (not 1 or 2 or 3 places) because I love it, not to get into college. I showed this in my essay vividly. So this article doesnt really affect me, right? And i went to Haiti on a trip I paid for by babysitting to follow up a fundraiser we did in my community. Again, the article isnt talking about an applicant like me, are they? </p>
<p>Someone please answer my questions because this is what my application is built on.</p>
<p>Well, you always need a unique hook - you don't need it, but throughout this evolution theory, the hook has been getting harder and harder to find. It's HARD to get community service to be your hook - but it can be done. Music and sports can be your hook, but you really have to be extraordinary at it because there is a clear idea of a good musician vs. great vs. extraordinary. But for community service what is an extraordinary CSer versus a non-extraordinary CSer?</p>
<p>If you want to get in to HPYS, the only tool in your pocket in CS, then you've gotta SEEM extraordinary, even if you aren't. Colleges don't want to care about you, but they will care if your unique passion about CS comes through in every piece of writing that you, your teachers, your supplementary recs, and counselor recs are submitting. Since I'm a physics nerd, your claim that you are a better CSer than anyone else needs momentum. It needs a mass (sheer quantity of CS), and a focused velocity vector all heading in the same direction. All your writing and your teachers writing needs to have its velocity in the same direction - you need a cohesive momentum. The mass (resume) needs to be pushed in the right direction, with the right amount of push, from one or more ways.</p>
<p>Hopefully from one way. Thanks Nick017. Im also an URM, but this article scared the living crap outta me when I read some of the posts about it...</p>
<p>We lived overseas for 7 years (just returning this past summer). My kids did lots of volunteer work in the local communities in which we lived, and living in 3rd world countries was just part of our life, but my older son's best experience came on a class trip to Tanzania to help build a classroom for a local school. </p>
<p>Yes, it cost us money (though under $2000), but this is going to be an essay topic for my son because the experience was more than just the time spent in Tanzania. The kids cleared off the land (no trees, just shrubs and stuff), dug the ditches and mixed and poured the concrete for the foundation. Unfortunately, that is all they were able to accomplish before needing to leave, but the project was finished by local workers because of the funds the kids provided.</p>
<p>Due to timing constraints, the class didn't have time to raise the money needed to build the classroom before they left. So they requested a "loan" of $3500 from the Parent's Association. The trip was in September and they spent the rest of the year raising money to pay the amount back. They also put together a slide show of photos and movie clips from the trip to present to the Parent's Association at an evening meeting.</p>
<p>They did the usual bake sales but also organized movie nights, a talent show, a "no-talent" talent show, and a dodge ball tournament. Although only 9 of the 15 students in the class actually went on the trip, every student was involved in the fund raising activities. It took them almost the whole year, but they raised all the money (save the $500 the Parent's Association was going to give them anyway).</p>
<p>To me, that is something to be proud of and it would be disappointing to have it's meaning for my son diminished because someone thought it was a "purchased experience" for the sole purpose of providing a volunteer activity for a college application.</p>
<p>Thank goodness, I don't have to apply to undergrad anymore. When I applied four years ago, I had zero volunteer hours. Not that I couldn't do any. I honestly did not feel like it. I can't say this is the same strategy kids should use nowadays because the applicant pool is TOUGH!</p>
<p>What your son did required hard work and dedication, so good for him. You should be proud of him. Really, no sarcasm here.</p>
<p>But I'm talking about community service, or service to benefit the community, not individual service. There is a difference between what an individual gets out of an expensive trip, and how it helps/hurts the community.</p>
<p>No offense, but the group could have paid pay local workers to build the schoolhouse for less. My aunt is a schoolteacher, and they built a classroom for 8000 yuan, or around 1000 USD. Furthermore, the money would not go to the airlines, but to local workers who need money to live and reinvigorate the local economy. Of course your son wouldn't do that, because he needed the experience- and I see that. But he could have also gotten the same experience and saved money by doing local service.</p>
<p>I'm not criticizing the individual, I'm criticizing the system that creates these expensive, marginally beneficial programs when much more can be done elsewhere. It's funny how we spend so much money traveling overseas to fix problems, but turn a blind eye to the problems in our own country.</p>
<p>Yes, the kids could have sent the money directly to Tanzania and allowed local workers to build the classroom. That certainly would have been easy. But the kids would have missed out on the experience of what is needed (the physical labor) to DO the actual work. No backhoes, no cement mixers. All of this was done by hand. To be honest, the movie clips of my son swinging a pick-ax to break up the dirt was rather frightening.</p>
<p>Then all of the kids (the local students and our students) would have missed out on the opportunity to get to know each other and to work side-by-side (as the local students came to help out during lunch breaks). I loved the movie clips of one of our girls (a fabulous soccer player) teaching the local kids some of her special moves or of the local students teaching our kids some of their dances. </p>
<p>And, yes, I agree that international service opportunities should not supersede doing good for the local community. But, in our case, that is generally what our kids did - work to help those in our specific locations. Supporting and helping the local community is a huge part of what international schools do as part of their curriculum.</p>
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I think the bias against overseas community service trips is when they're the kind that cost 5-10k+. Because, really, rich kids don't need another boost in the college admissions office.
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<p>Why would you think rich kids automatically have a boost in the college admissions process? With most schools going need-blind and looking to build their minority population and broaden diversity, I think they have a strike against them. First and foremost, the majority (51%+) are more likely than not going to be white. Plus, it's pretty hard to make an "overcome obstacles" essay convincing if it might be assumed you've been given every opportunity or at least had it within your grasp.</p>
<p>Thing is.. my kids go to a very elite school, but we are neither rich, nor are they on scholarship. We live a nice life, but we don't take vacations and our holidays are humble. It's not like we're scraping by, but I often think when we've checked we won't be seeking financial aid and it is noted where our S goes to school that these adcoms will think my son just didn't want to take full advantage of every opportunity the school offers because he was carrying a gold spoon around his mouth while headed to the playing fields. If he writes about this amazing trip to Japan when my sister used her gazillion frequent flier miles for him to visit because she lived there or the time he went to Africa with my other sister (yes, I have GREAT sisters) ..... well..you need a paragraph of explaining how you got to go or you risk coming come off as being pretentious. It becomes convoluted, especially in short answers.</p>
<p>However, I also do know some very wealthy kids who benefit from some of these trips and the like because they really aren't great at the academics, but it's not for an additional boost... it's the only one they're gonna have. And seriously, that admission officers are taking note, this is a good thing.</p>
<p>My point is only that you shouldn't assume that money in and of itself buys you anything. And don't assume that monied people have no headaches or sincerity. While all headaches are not the same, everyone still has them.. and I mean everyone.</p>
<p>PS. I just want to say that it's not that my son didn't do community service. They have service learning days sprinkled throughout the year, they adopt families at christmas in their advisory (Home room) and he has done things with his teammates for soup kitchens and other heavy lifting kinds of things, but the truth is that a 3-sport athlete does not have a lot of time to spend hundreds of hours volunteering to the local food bank and take 7 AP's along the way. Anyway.. you make choices based on your kids talents and his opportunity.</p>
<p>SAT prep schools, elite schools, more resources and opportunities are available to rich people. If I dont get into these schools, it's because I was too poor to afford time to research (it was spent on jobs and helping the family ceaselessly with the house). </p>
<p>Dont say money has nothing to do with not having a boost in admissions, because well, it affects every thing inside the college application.</p>
<p>I think overseas service trips are fine - really, it's probably the best way to go on a vacation. But that's all it is - a vacation. You're doing it for yourself; you want an "authentic cultural experience", you want to ease your guilt at being comfortably western and affluent. It's good of you. You're not saving the world, and that's fine, but really, you're the one reaping the majority of the benefit, so don't claim it's the ultimate altruistic act.</p>
<p>elinck - I'm sure there are kids who look at overseas volunteer opportunities as a vacation. Maybe it's the only way they will ever go overseas. Maybe they go all the time with their parents and it's a chance for them to go on their own. My son's class had some "vacation" time build into the trip when their work was done. I had no problem with that. They worked their butts off before having their "fun." </p>
<p>But the kids I know have spent most of their lives living overseas. They don't "need" an "authentic cultural experience" because they live that everyday. One of the main reasons we chose to live overseas was so that our children could experience different cultures and people. Yes, most folks living overseas have lives that are much better than the local country population, but that does not diminish the experiences they have and the things they see and experience. If anything, it makes them appreciate it more.</p>
<p>No one at this age is going to save the world. The best we can hope for is that they get an appreciation/understanding that people all over the world need help and that maybe - by spending some time in a different country, with a different culture, and out of their "comfort zone" - the future generation will look at the world with a little different view.</p>
<p>About the kid's international experience - it is a valuable experience that can help with college, but it has to be utilized differently than a community service deal. I think the first step is for your son to think about what it did for him, how it helped him grow - if he comes off as a person who thinks his trump card is that his CS was in africa - no. Because the Africa part of it was purchased - the hard labor, was not. You can see how it changed him for the better - find a way to make colleges see that. </p>
<p>Also, we're not diminishing the meaning of it, where hypothesizing about how colleges diminish the meanings of things like that because they have become plain cynical due to the fact that HS kids (really parents actually) have become conniving. Its a meaningful experience of course, it just may not add the meaning to his CS resume that you would imagine it might.</p>
<p>Nick017 - I can understand that doing volunteer work in Africa is not the "thing"....the "thing" is WHAT he did, what he got out of it, what he learned from it, etc. </p>
<p>Geez - we LIVED in Africa for 4 years and, to be honest, it was his 2nd trip to Tanzania (we went as a family). So, that was no big deal for him. The BIG deal was the work he did that made a difference to someone's life, the sore muscles he had from the labor, the people he met, and the socks that he still has bearing the stains of red clay soil. It was also the work that the kids did when they got back to school to earn the money to repay the loan and the friendships he made with kids that he really hadn't known well before (even though the whole class only had 15 kids!).</p>
<p>One of the things I liked about this program was the level of "safety." To be fair, I was very picky about the types of activities that my kids were involved in due to health and safety issues. There are some things I said "yes" to and some things I said "no" to. Knowing my child was involved in an established, well-run program was a BIG plus to me.</p>
<p>Nick and Miller: I won't argue with your perspective. But the grass is always greener theory applies to just about everything.</p>
<p>OK.. watch this video of Amherst admissions. Now maybe at schools that are not need-blind wealth absolutely determines admission, but most top CLA's and Ivies spend a lot of time touting their increased percentages of minority students and generous financial aid --some even now offering packages with no loans. </p>
<p>modadunn... I think it is as fair as it can be to impoverished applicants. Which is unfair, but hey, you don't need me to tell you that that's life. I'm not an impoverished student - not at all, but its just the whole affluent atmosphere that just... surrounds you with ways to make everything easier. Money allows you to devote more resources to intellectual pursuits.</p>
<p>But thats just how it goes - it is a lot more level than many other facets of life.</p>
<p>The ironic part is that the first time my daughter had to figure out how many hours of community service she put in (all for one organization) was for the common app. It was EXTREMELY difficult, because some weeks she puts in just an hour, while others she may put in 15 hours. She ended up averaging the total (because it asks for number of hours per week and number of weeks participating).</p>
<p>If they care about passion rather than number of hours, why do they require applicants to list number of hours for each activity?</p>
<p>momof3, I agree. I was in the same situation as your daughter, had a terrible time trying to figure out what to put down for hours per week because during the summer it was a significantly higher number (because I love going and took advantage of the free time). I ended up just putting down the number during the school year and writing a note in the description box about the hours during the summer.</p>
<p>I wish they'd just get rid of the hours/week boxes, people stretch the truth all the time and it's so hard to figure out what to write.</p>
<p>I totally agree. And for the mission trip thing, I think that it is best when students have to raise their own money to go. When I went to Africa, I had done extra fundraisers for myself as well as being sponsored by local companies who had known of my previous charity work.</p>