It truly is amazing!Just brilliant and creative. and you are right - I bet AOs today would love to see more creativity in essays!
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Red FlagâŠ
âThis application has been endorsed by Donald J Trumpâ
Edited as follows in response to being flagged. Not intended as political but suggesting that the endorsement of âfamous peopleâ versus those that know you best is a red flag.
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I can assure you that my childâs horrific handwriting has nothing to do with my willingness or unwillingness as a parent to write an essay for them! 
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According to AP Style, the Oxford comma shouldnât be used unless its absence would lead to ambiguity.
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He gave the roses to Carla, Darlene and Felicia. (here, there is no confusion without it)
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We went to Dennyâs, McDonaldâs and Dave and Busterâs. (here, there might be⊠probably best to include the Oxford comma)
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As I said upthread, style guides differ on if it should be used. The Oxford Style Manual, Chicago Manual of Style, and the MLA Style Manual, as examples, suggest its use.
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As an old Journalism major, I figured I should speak up for the most revered journalistic style bible. hehe
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Letâs do an Oxford full-stop and move on from that one :).
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I dunnoâŠthe kids I know of who listed similar activities all got into top 30 schools.
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I think itâs probably true, as mentioned above, that these kinds of âpurchasedâ ECs can be shorthand for ârich familyâ. And some schools certainly are interested in admitting such kids.
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We attended an AMA top 25 university webinar right before EA deadline and the AO said one thing that is a major concern is students stating they are passionate about something and itâs like only 1 week.
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Hopefully no parent is writing their kids essays.
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Perhaps that is one of the big advantages of certain prep schools, where a dedicated college counseling staff can follow each student through high school to write an optimal counselor report and allocate teacher recommenders to get each student the optimal teacher recommendations without overloading any of the teachers, in contrast to a typical high school where an overloaded counselor dealing with other things besides colleges writes a minimal report, and the quality of teachersâ recommendation writing is unknown to the student, and some students are rationed out of recommendations due to teacher overloading.
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Hey! No dissing the oboe players. Oboe was one of my main ECs. 
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My child actually did establish a non-profit in order to fund-raise for community service work. What is it that you think is an issue with doing this and including it?
Without getting into semantics on the definition of non-profit and 501(c)(3), starting a non-profit for the purpose of assisting people long after youâve left HS is great. The challenge is that many students want to do so to pad their resumes thinking that college admissions simply requires completing a checklist. Start a non-profit. Check. Publish a book. Check. Get 100K views on my YouTube channel. Check. Unfortunately, admissions does not work that way, and AOs will see right through the obvious ploys.
MIT actually says it really well:
http://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/highschool
The person who starts a non-profit will intrigue the AO not simply because s/he checked a box, but because of other factors related to it, some of which are intangible. The same, though, can be said for other ECs.
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There is nothing wrong with starting a non profit per se.
However- in some parts of the country, the LAST thing the community needs is another non-profit. There are hundreds of organizations all competing for talent, time and dollars-- a kid who wants to help a specific cause can usually find an existing organization which has infrastructure in place which can help accelerate the learning curve so that MORE time and money goes to the cause, and LESS time and money go to paying a lawyer or accountant to file paperwork, learn the rules on gift acknowledgements, what is and is not a legitimate tax deduction, etc.
So Adcomâs view some of the âI started a charityâ with a bit of a jaundiced eye. For sure it can be a legitimate activity, funding a need which exists and isnât being addressed by the local organizations. And itâs also open to abuse- momâs friend the lawyer does the filings, dadâs friends pass the hat and kick in enough money to fund year one, kid gets to call herself CEO, and the entire enterprise falls apart once the kid graduates from HS and moves on.
Nothing wrong with it. But itâs a favorite activity of unhooked kids with affluent parents looking to stand out.
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My kid is the opposite. She had a serious illness that she is now recovered from and wanted to give back. Itâs just her with my help and no money, hence the vehicle for fundraising. She is still doing incredible volunteerism. Sounds like you are talking about the exception and not the rule. Creating a nonprofit and doing work that is meaningful to you is not something most do. Also, it sounds like a lot of effort to just have something to put in your application if your heartâs not in it.
I never thought about it that way. Thatâs kind of cynical. My daughterâs time is spent helping others with the same rate autoimmune disorder. Itâs not something I think of as easy, or checking a box. My daughter continues to do great volunteering or many organizations even though all her applications are in. Itâs not for show here. 
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Iâm pretty cynical about all of this. I think their is so much embellishing going on, and many kids flat out lie on their applications. nobody is checking to see if the are really captain of track or president of club X or raised this amount of $ for some cause. not to mention their carefully crafted essays. there is no fact-checking going on. the chances of getting caught in a lie seem pretty slim.
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Theyâre too busy rolling their eyes. 
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