<p>So this summer I am incredibly excited to go to ecuador for three weeks and volunteer at an orphanage. Not only will it be rewarding for me to live in a VERY different society for a few weeks, but it will also help me improve my spanish skills. Of course, when I booked the program I was sure it would also look good for college, but now that I think about it do you think it is too common and will they just see me as another kid trying to please their admissions staff (which I am not, it is simply an added plus that it looks good, I've always wanted to do something like this)? </p>
<p>I know not to write my essay about it, I'm just wondering if just doing it will hurt my chances. </p>
<p>I wrote my essay about my charity work in japan, and I was accepted to 3/4 ivies applied to and waitlisted at the other. I would say it definitely doesn’t hurt, and don’t see any way it could help. Especially if you’re passionate about it.</p>
<p>There’s no way it can hurt. It’s true that this kind of thing isn’t very uncommon, so it won’t be given a ton of weight, but it also definitely won’t “backfire.”</p>
<p>Give it an unusual angle. Like, rather than talking about how eye-opening and humbling it was to volunteer in an orphanage, make your essay about how difficult or easy it was to use your Spanish. </p>
<p>The orphanage is merely your backdrop, the setting/scene. Make your essay about hearing and adjusting to a new dialect, about saying something wrong and getting a laugh out of the consequences, about a slang vocabulary breakthrough, etc., etc. </p>
<p>You can easily avoid the overdone “I saw the third world and realize how fortunate I am” theme if you try.</p>
There has been a fair amount of discussion about this topic in the press and in this forum. The consensus is that adcoms are looking down on kids they see as having their parents try to buy them an exotic or standout experience. For example there are plenty of shelters for the homeless right here at home where someone could make a regular and long-term committment to help out children in need, probably even orphanages too. This type of help actually makes a difference as opposed to merely trying to looking good, which is what a 3-week trip does.</p>
<p>Sorry to be blunt, but there is nothing unusual about what you are proposing. They see these essays with these points all the do-da-day. </p>
<p>O.P.,</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with helping people out but avoid these sort of essays like the plague. It not a matter of the essay causing you harm; it is a matter of creating an essay that will help you. When the reality is that youth groups won’t go to the neighboring town to build a building but somehow can figure out how to help out a village in the Bahamas, how transparent will that seem if you were an admission’s officer?</p>
<p>Why are you asking? In the worst case scenario, either they will see you as another kid just trying to impress them, or you will be another kid just trying to impress them. hmm…that still wouldn’t give you much of a choice.</p>
<p>They definitely wouldn’t look down upon it, at the worst it may just do nothing for you. I really doubt colleges would look down upon an applicant for doing community service, even if they did think the kid was some sort of resume padder. Don’t worry about it at all. It may help you, or it may do nothing, but it won’t hurt you. Go ahead with it, it sounds like an amazing opportunity.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone looks down on community service, but b/c there are so many local opportunities, you’re really taking a trip for personal growth and enrichment. As long as you present you trip in that light (where your activity happened to be service rather than surfing), there’s no problem. </p>
<p>FYI: The service vacation experience is increasingly popular among adults; the desire to do good and to give back is admirable, but the name - - volun-tourism - - says it all.</p>