<p>What do you guys think about the Outward Bound programs? I have been interested in them for awhile and I would really like to do one, but do you think I should spend my time on something more useful, like an internship or something. </p>
<p>....man college is really complicated....always walking a fine line between what you want to do and what colleges want you to do.</p>
<p>I think my cousin did one and really like it, but she's a really outdoorsy person and is going to college something related to summer camp management, so I suppose it was different for her.</p>
<p>Sometimes you just have to do what YOU want. I went to orchestra summer camps for two years and sumemr school PE (to not take it during the school year) instead of something else, b/c that's what I wanted. So I got rejected from MIT, but Carnegie Mellon is good enough for me.</p>
<p>My son did an outward bound program a few yrs ago in Boston Harbor. My advise to you is to check out the kids they enroll. This one consisted of may inner city kids and there were alot of problems; bullying,slurs and even assalts. Two boys were expelled during the program and these were kids known to the administration. All in all it was a great experience but could have been run and supervied MUCH better.</p>
<p>Go for it!</p>
<p>Thirty-five years ago I took a 3-week backpacking course with the Colorado Outward Bound School. Having grown up in the east near the Appalachian Mountains, this experience in the Rockies impressed me deeply, so I wrote about it in my college application essay. Evidently the colleges considered Outward Bound to be a worthy activity. During my freshman orientation at Harvard, I ran into another student from my Outward Bound group. In subsequent years I returned to the Rockies for more backpacking and mountain climbing adventures. Outward Bound introduced me to one of my favorite avocations.</p>
<p>When he was fifteen my son took the 3-week sailing course at the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School. While his experience in Maine was very different from mine in Colorado, my son has become a great outdoor enthusiast. He now attends an excellent liberal arts college with a very active outing club.</p>
<p>Consider also the National Outdoor Leadership School, NOLS. While Outward Bound is designed mostly as an "experience" (See what you can do if your work hard!...), NOLS emphasizes technique. I recommend them both highly.</p>
<p>My oldest son did a 2 week Outward Bound in the Northern Cascades in WA summer after sophomore year. It was a pivotal time for him because, when he got tired, and sore, and full of blisters, and lonely, and annoyed at the pot-smokers on the trip, etc., and considered quitting... he had sort of a mini-epiphany. He thought "Wait, I wanted to do this, I chose to be here, I WANT to finish." </p>
<p>So, he plugged on and finished. He ended up at a very difficult college and almost quit his sophomore year when he felt broken and depressed. He thought back to the Outward Bound experience and that gave him the inspiration to carry on. And, he's glad he did, now.</p>
<p>I don't think having OB on his resume helped or hurt when he applied. It was just part of a pattern of doing interesting things every summer.</p>