This summer I plan on building my college resume by traveling overseas. I cannot decide between volunteering for youth empowerment in Rabat morocco for over 40 hours of overseas volunteering, Or going to Paris, France in order to complete this amazing novel that I am working on in order to get it published so that I can put down on my desire to join the Yale English department that I am a published author at 17/18.
Basically which one stands out to colleges more, and will give me a better chance.
Also the program offers 4 college credits because I will be taking rigorous French classes and using my French conversationally in order to improve fluency dramatically.
@lavendrstclaire , if your post is legit, I would spend some time thinking about college and applications. Although it’s about MIT, read http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/1024719-before-i-go-under-water-applying-sideways.html
Fwiw, if your (as yet unfinished) novel is published by anyone other than a legitimate non-paid publishing house, it won’t count for much and could possibly count against you.
my post is legit haha, so between getting a legitimate publishing house to publish my novel and volunteering over seas for an immense amount of hours, which one is more ivy league worthy?
Did you mean to say 40 hours? Or is it actually more than that for the whole summer?
The program says “A Certificate of International Service Learning (50+ hours)” and here is a snippet of what it entails, "
Meet with government leaders, teachers and medical staff. Mentor underprivileged youth at a US embassy-sponsored summer camp. Run arts and crafts workshops for after-school programs. Create newsletters and contribute to international podcasts. Collaborate with peers to raise awareness on education, the environment, and a range of social issues.’
Honestly, either one sounds really off-putting. All of the tippy tops are looking for students who care about others and have had an impact on their community. The days of elite universities viewing poverty tours or purchasing international experiences as hooks are long gone.
You could do any of those service projects within a few miles of your home in the USA. No need to go to Morocco to do them. And if your writing is novel-worthy, I’m sure your English teacher recs will mention your ability.
I’m not sure what the connection is between going to Paris to complete your novel? Could you not complete your novel elsewhere/anywhere?
Morocco would be a more interesting experience for most Americans, more outside your comfort zone, which I always think is a good thing. However, these “pay to play” volunteering experiences don’t carry much cachet with admissions committees, IMO. Not saying it won’t be an enriching experience but I don’t think it carries a lot of weight.
As far as Paris, I doubt most colleges of Yale’s caliber are going to let you transfer those college credits.
What gives you confidence that legitimate publishing houses will be interested in your novel? Getting published is no easy endeavor these days even for previously published authors. It’s a tough business.
Pay to play does not impress them. Nor does the “I went to teach them but instead they taught me…” approach.
Both of these experiences (and your attitude) concern me. Your focus seems to be more on how it looks rather than a genuine and deep motivation.
Given how you’ve phrased things online, it wouldn’t surprise me if elements of this attitude come through in your application. Be careful, as this type of thing lands people in the reject pile quickly.
You do realize that there is A LOT of work involved in the publishing process, correct? You don’t just send it off to a hotshot publishing house, watch them fall in love with it, and then be lavished with fame and glory. It is an entire journey of its own. And you will likely face a lot of rejection, no matter how great you think your novel is.
Unless you’re a sophomore, considering it takes about a year from contract to publication (in the best of cases) finishing à novel this summer won’t help with admissions. However it is a worthy achievement to finish it if you have a novel waiting to burst out.
As for international charity, frankly it’s more a negative. You’d be better off spending your summer helping a * local * charity and REALLY being helpful, full time, not just a couple weeks, but the whole summer, continuing for a few hours a week - although it’s a bit late if you’re thinking in terms of admissions and highly selective colleges won’t see it as as meaningful as volunteering you started before that summer. Generally speaking, things you so just fr college admissions aren’t useful since adcoms see through it. Do things because they matter to you.
Going to a foreign country is far less than serving in your home community. You could start now and continue through senior year. This means the hard work, responsibilities and the sort of work that can have some impact, not just easy things that collect hours. And finishing a novel is a long way from writing something of quality that gets industry and public attention. You need to learn what matters.
From a blog entitled Why Your Brilliant Child Didn’t Get Into The Ivies: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jd-rothman/ivy-league-admissions_b_1398145.html
Poverty tourism is a negative to the adcoms.
“over 40 hours of overseas volunteering”
“volunteering over seas for an immense amount of hours”
“A Certificate of International Service Learning (50+ hours)”
40-50 hours in a whole summer?! that is 1 week of work in the real world- hardly “an immense amount of hours”. Also, doing AP Psych over the summer just to bump up the # of APs will not help you even a little bit.
Seriously, an actual full-time job will be more impressive for your college app than your playing Gertrude Stein in Paris or being a drop-in do-gooder in a cool location over the summer.
These two statements are contradictory. 40 hours over the course of a summer is not “immense.” When I was in HS, I did some volunteering over the summer, in addition to a job that paid. The cost for me was about 4 euro 50 a day for public transportation, which is far less than the $5K some of these outfits charge for the “privilege” of travelling overseas.
Saying that one is a “published author at 17/18” by itself is less-than-impressive, IMO. It’s possible to write a “book” over a weekend and get it self-published and make that claim. Now being a published author of a book that is a best-seller and/or is critically acclaimed would be something to mention.
Also, I’m not a native-English speaker, so I could be wrong, but I believe that it’s “amount of time” or “number of hours.” Not a big deal except for a published author looking to study English at Yale.
Not to mention, “volunteering over seas” would require being lifted above multiple bodies of water to do one’s good deeds. :))
I also wouldn’t ordinarily mention this, but the bar is raised if one wants to join the Yale English department. I know, I know, it’s the internet and phone typing and autocorrect and fussy uptight old people, but still, more care should go into what one writes.