<p>My high school that I attend is private, Catholic (Jesuit), and they offer Service Trips for the summer for sophomores and juniors (I'm a junior by the way) to go to Tennessee for a week and a half to build houses, or go to Ecuador for a week and a half to help out with schools for pre-schoolers and stuff. I got accepted into Ecuador. The guy who is running it says it's great to put on a college transcript, but I also heard from my friend who said that the admissions guy at a top university said that those trips were only for the kids who are rich and have money to afford those trips. Which is true? I'm not going to Ecuador just so that I can put it on my transcript, but I want to know if it makes my transcript "look better." Thanks.</p>
<p>A transcript is what your school sends out with your grades. You mean resume, or list of EC’s and service. As travel trips go, I think a service trip through your school would be helpful to your chances. I don’t think it would hurt. How is the trip financed? Do you have to fund raise in order to get the money to go? Our church sends high school students to a poor rural community in a nearby state to help with home repair, and some kids go to an orphanage in central America. They work to raise all the funds for the trip. I think it sounds like a fantastic opportunity for you and I would not hesitate to list it on your applications. It should be very educational for you as well if you haven’t traveled to that part of the world.</p>
<p>Sorry - yeah I meant resume. And yes, we have to raise money. I think I just have to pay $650 for airfare (roundtrip from NY to Ecuador), but everything else is raised through fundraising…should it be something I stress on my application / college essay, pending how much I got out of the trip?</p>
<p>I would take a wait and see approach - it’s hard to write about an experience before it happens ;)</p>
<p>That said, many adcoms have said the mission trip theme has run its course as an essay topic. However if you have an ironic, amusing, or otherwise very different experience - or you can write about it in a unique way - it would be fine for an essay topic.</p>
<p>But wait and take the trip first.</p>