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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No, seriously, no mission trips. Unless something funny happened and that's the topic of the essay. But they're a joke among admissions officers - pp got the sentiment right.

I got into an Ivy by writing about my favorite pop band. [/quote]

OK.  So my daughter went to Panama for a school trip and the trip had a homestay component (four nights) where they were living with a[b] Panaman (?)[/b], non-English speaking family.  Would it be appropriate to write about that and the communication thing? [/quote]

First, since you asked (or implied you were asking), it's Panamanian.  And the 'a' after the 'm' is a long a.

Second the reason that mission essays are usually frowned upon is that the majority of students write it from a completely condescending position.  The English teacher has it right.  The kids talk about how downtrod the poor people are, while their parents are buying them an intercontinental trip plus expenses.  The kids are not used to manual labor so it makes them look spoiled and they act as if helping poor people for a few days and having a pretty trite epiphany is supposed to make them look good.  What it does is makes them look spoiled and pampered that they had to take a summer vacation just before college to find out how insulated they were from the world.

If you change the perspective and make it meaningful without looking pampered, then it might sell.  An essay should not make the writer look privileged and condescending towards the topic.  It should be about personal growth that isn't trite and cliched.  Talking instead about going on a trip, looking forward to spending time with another family and learning about another culture and learning to communicate through mutual appreciation of each other (rather than she, the privileged American, trying to Help(TM) them, the downtrodden heathen, through their hardships).  Rather than learning that most people deep down aren't that different, talk about the richness of the culture that she learned from them and what values or lessons that she learned that make her a better person.[/quote]

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