Sounds to me like it was a family vacation during which they took some time out to donate/work on some kind of charity. Lots of people do it. Listing it on your college app likely makes zero difference to admissions people, but it’s not cheating or illegal. @GoNoles85
Lots of juniors we know created a non-profit right at jr. year time…hmmmm. And then you hear nothing about it for the rest of junior year. Other stuff goes on that makes my eyelids twitchy and I can’t even describe here. I feel your pain. I can’t stand liars. I would probably be minimizing contact in the future. I hope your D lands a spot where she thrives.
It all comes around and I’m sure there will be plenty of snark fodder on that family for years to come.
@Pizzagirl - I take exception to your comment about Mission Trips being vacations - not sure which one’s you have ventured on but the mission trips my son participated in were far from anything you would want to pay to go do, but yes, they have to pay for air fare and food and extra luggage charges to carry supplies - living in the jungle and working to build a water purification plant and a 1 room school house - using outhouses and fighting bugs in 100+ heat and humidity, sleeping in hard bunk beds with no air conditioning and mosquito netting. These aren’t just from my church but from many others in our community. Would you take a vacation doing that! He didn’t list his vacations on his resume - he did take some but did not take credit for them.
To your statement that colleges have figured this out - they have figured out that many, many students take these mission trips so perhaps they are not special to college adcoms, but my son has assured me they are very special to many people in the DR, Nicaragua, and Haiti.
Regarding, the OP - yes, I understand her emotions, we saw this happen at my son’s high school from the students that didn’t need to be doing this quite frankly. I agree with the repeated advice above to manage your own and don’t worry about what others do, you will be frustrated and disapppointed since you have no control over their behavior…
@ 80,
Oh, great. We’re down to the lots of people do it mantra. Lots of people do drugs so it must be okay. Lots of people cheat in school that is okay too. Lots of people inflate their charitable and EC work to get ahead. That, frankly, does not make it right in my mind. Your logic is lost on me. Not need to argue. I think I understand what you mean but I’d go the other way on stuff like that.
It sounds like some are saying to distance yourself from your former friends. That is one option. That is probably the bottom line actually.
@GoNoles85 I meant lots of people take some time out of a vacation to make donations or do other charity work. I’ve done it several times personally.
Not “it’s ok to cheat because lots of people do it”.
@deb922, with all due respect, my daughter would never encounter the same poverty and suffering anywhere in the U.S. as she would in a Russian orphanage for special-needs children (which is more like a concentration camp). It would be different from the experience @threeofthree describes, but I’d say similar in the intensity of the impact. I think the mission trip her son took changed his life.
Actually (without being sarcastic) I’d love to hear of local volunteering that changed your kid life, moved him or her to re-examine intended major, purpose, etc.
There is nothing inherently “wrong” with going oversees to do charity work and have your kid experience the real world, get better perspective etc… I think the point everyone is trying to make is that the trip is fine just don’t write your essays about how it changed your life, it’s too trite. And don’t exaggerate what you did and try to make it into more than it really was. A lot of kids in our area do it and it seems to make a lasting and positive impression on them. But most of them also realize that they shouldn’t humblebrag about those trips in their essays.
@typiCAmom: please understand that my opinion has nothing to do with it. I’m explaining that for the purpose of admission, charity trips abroad are pointless. Of course they can be very important to teenagers’ growth, but, realistically, only if they’re not “one week in my life” deals, but are linked to meaningful involvement with the issue, the charity, or the country/region. But for college admission purpose, going on a mission trip with one’s church after participating in other similar charities locally/nationally with the church makes sense, going abroad for a week or two to experience poverty doesn’t. Also, the “mission trip essay by upper middle class kid” creates direct eye-roll.
I agree that mission trips are so common on applications that they likely have no impact on admissions, but they wan to know what you did with your spring break/summer - so you tell them, not in an essay but on the application.
This isn’t, “I had harder conditions on my trip than you did.” Nor, “The people I helped suffered more than those you helped.”
And if you claim compassion for those in foreign countries, don’t assume the “compassion” ends there, that you earned your X hours and that’s that. There is much need at home.
Nothing wrong with “mission” trips. But the kid who holds the orphan baby for a few minutes, then goes back to the hotel, maybe returns the next day, maybe not, still has time to do good at home. (Using this example as a classic one on CC, not aimed at #85.) And there is no hierarchy that says more expensive = more worthy.
My kids did US mission trips that changed their perspectives, led them to commitments that lasted. They also did good closer to home. And continued through college. Many kids still work in NO, post-Katrina. Many go to reservations (which can open plenty of eyes.) Or work in soup kitchens or health clinics. And plenty of other efforts.
Just claiming you founded some charity and an environmental club is small potatoes.
@typiCAmom I think a major issue with going abroad to volunteer is that the benefits to a community are debatable. My school has a program that involves students paying several thousand dollars to go volunteer in a small African LEDC, and another involving volunteering in a country that’s either developing or industrialized, depending on who you ask. The cost of sending 20-30 kids on that trip is usually in the upper 5 figures or lower 6 figures, and 80% of school fundraisers in the preceding months see proceeds go towards the industrialized-nation trip. Last year, 20 kids managed - in the space of a week - to build a room the size of a broom closet for a local school.
Whenever I see lavish spending on trips like this, I think of what a fraction of that money could accomplish without the “volunteering tourists.” If a fraction of the six-figure budget was used to hire a local construction firm, they could build a brand-new school and have money left over. As a bonus, the money spent would boost the local economy, not a tour provider’s profits. If it were just the students’ money, one could argue “well, they’re paying,” but the school has decided this is the best use for money raised through school events. I’ve never been on either trip, because I disagree with the principle.
To answer your question, I have had an experience that made me reexamine my purpose. Back in the stone age, I tutored some kids of asylum seekers, and two of them were deported in the space of a month (I live in a very xenophobic country). The good intentions of my fellow tutors and I did them less good than an effort to help their families deal with immigration authorities might’ve. Our efforts were misdirected, because we found tutoring a lot more fun, but the help they needed wasn’t the help that rich private-school kids were interested in providing. Ultimately, I decided change on the macro level was the only thing that would help asylum-seekers in our area in the long term.
You may be noticing a theme here. I don’t know if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but when a student’s efforts are misdirected, the feel-good value of volunteering is greater than the benefits.
@MYOS1634, IMHO the purpose of such mission trip is to change high-schooler’s out look on life. The end result might be different - one may choose to become a lawmaker/policymaker or go into foreign service, another one might choose to be a doctor. If a kid changes direction after such a trip, even without staying involved with the same church, etc., I think colleges will recognize that. On the other hand, I think there are a lot of kids who raise money for “real charities” only to enhance their fundraising skills without truly caring for the cause. But I don’t want to make any generalizations.
You can change their outlook in the US. You can change it in nearly every town in the US.
How does a kid show his outlook changed? Now he wants to be a policymaker or make words about how he wants to have some career? Or now he…volunteers significantly at home for a cause/causes he believes in or the common needs around him? Adcoms can see that difference. “Show, not just tell.”
Adcoms can say, “And then what?”
But, not all colleges care, certainly.
Is it you, MYOS, who speaks of narrative?
I’ve used “coherent narrative” before to describe an application or a transcript, but I’m far from the only one so I can’t claim to be .
But I guess that it’s relevant here, too.
Yes: not all colleges care.
Only colleges with admissions below 50% (and, realistically, rather those with sub 40% rates, plus other factors.)
But you’re absolutely right: “deeds, not words” ( 
) is a hugely important concept - if your outlook changed after that trip, what did you DO in your day-to-day life that reflects that profund alteration in your perspective?
…other than talk some new talk.
One of the admissions sessions I attended at a quite competitive LAC said they gave much, much more credit for local help than they ever did for foreign mission trips. She said at this point there must be a latrine for every person in Haiti, and they would much rather see a consistent local effort than hear about how someone’s life was changed because their parents paid for them to go on a trip for a week.
To relate this to the OP’s comment, I doubt this one thing got the student admitted. It’s almost never one thing, unless that one thing is the donation of a building. I understand the frustration – I personally have reported a business that insisted on payment in cash only so they didn’t have to pay taxes – but aside from learning about a friend’s morals this really hasn’t affected the OP much.
What if this student was admitted precisely because her family could afford such trip? Someone needs to be full pay after all. You want to tell the school that’s not fair to admit based on ability to pay?
“@Pizzagirl - I take exception to your comment about Mission Trips being vacations - not sure which one’s you have ventured on but the mission trips my son participated in were far from anything you would want to pay to go do”
Threeofthree, please reread my post. I chose my words carefully. I did not say “all mission trips are vacations.” I said that colleges are generally onto those that are.
I don’t know why OP thought her daughter should have been admitted because of slightly better stats. Maybe the other student wrote some great essays or has other qualities that OP is not aware of.
My kid was WL at Duke with over 4.0 UW GPA and most rigorous course load, whereas her very good friend was accepted with lower GPA and not many APs or honors. It turned out her friend was double legacy with a home in NC. Her parents were probably very active alums and maybe big donors. Not fair!
This dirt poor student volunteered well over 1,000 hours in high school between tutoring and being president of a community-based non-profit basketball league.
There is a HUGE difference between volunteering in your community and volunteering in some remote orphanage. (Not that I am in anyway disparaging the latter.)
Carry on…