Reply to What extracurriculars would you *not* mention, because they reek of privilege/other negatives?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Short-term community service that you have to pay (sometime big-time) to do, like teaching reading for 5 days in an isolated village in an impoverished distant country or going on a Habitat for Humanity trip to a tropical realm.  More subtractions in my mind if that paying community service doesn't obviously align with a serious, long-term interest that begins and continues at home.  Less subtraction if it's done with a larger group or activity in which the student is already invested, like a church or a civic organization.

Nothing to do with being rich or privileged, but can't imagine a 5-day trip is a worthwhile EC mention.

You'd be surprised how often I see this sort of thing mentioned as "study abroad experience" or "service" on fellowship applications (I'm a college prof).[/quote]

Geez talk about snooty. What exactly do you expect white suburban kids to do? Short-term community service in the summer is all they have time for and all their parents have money for. They're not going to go live in Honduras or Ghana for a year FFS.

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Here's what I'd expect: that any kid who is serious about really helping others will dedicate time and effort that extends beyond a one-week parachute into a gratuitously distant environment.  The location and the community being supported are largely immaterial when there is real commitment there.  There are *plenty* of organizations here in the DC area that assist people in need and welcome the help of volunteers, including organizations with chapters and clubs at schools.[/quote]

You may like to poopoo these trips, but you quite frankly are missing the point. First of all, some schools in our area strongly encourage their students to attend these week-long service trips and if students can't afford them there is often money available to assist. Second, these trips allow students to get out and see a part of the world they have not experienced before. In many cases it opens their eyes to new and different populations and environments that are different than their own. Could they serve a local population in need, absolutely, and all of them do between 9-11th grade for yearly service hour requirements. These service trips abroad or in other regions across the US allow these rising seniors to get out of their homes, communities, and comfort zones to go to parts of the world and/or country that they have not been to before and serve populations that are not in their backyard. It opens their eyes and allows them to experience first hand, different communities in need around our globe. Not to mention many of these service trips are immersion, so the teens live in the community they are serving - meaning they don't get to go home to their comfy beds and homes after a few hours of service, they live there for a week. These trips often have a profound effect on many of these teens and are different than local service. Are they better or worse, no, they are just a different experience for teens who have typically done their service locally.[/quote]

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