Kind of anxious at the moment as I’m a junior with no weekly volunteer hours (clarification: I worked ~80 hours at the library in the summer before soph year and about 4 hours a week during sophomore year at a clinic for children with autism; but as of right now, I have no weekly commitments).
Besides this I’m a rather solid applicant–4.0 GPA, currently taking 3 AP’s (considered rigorous where I go, am actually the only junior taking more than 2), planning to take the SAT in January and score around a 1560-1600. Moreover I work part time at the library, tutor a couple times per week, am currently planning to start a program at the library which host its first session in about 2 weeks, participate in debate (will likely be captain next year) and am involved in a couple trivial honors societies, Math team, (and Tennis? probably don’t have the time to do it this year, should I not mention it on Common app if I participated fresh/soph year?).
But yeah, this whole volunteering thing is giving me anxiety. It seems like everyone and their mom applying to the Ivies–or any college for that matter–has racked up a ton of hours. I’m planning to start volunteering at Holy Name Hospital but does starting in Junior year send the message that I’m not passionate about what I’m doing and only want something to put on my application?
I’m in the same boat as you. I am a junior, and I do not have many volunteering contributions. From what I’ve heard, colleges do not really care about volunteering hours. They care more about your grades, test scores, and extracurricular achievements. I, of course, do not actually know for sure (this is just information I have read).
You are fine with the volunteering you have done. You can check the common data set and see if the colleges you are applying to use that as an admissions criterion, and how highly they consider it. Most colleges realize that kids are very busy and may not have time to volunteer during the school year. My kid did little volunteering during the school year and mostly during the summer. She got into a bunch of good schools.
EC’s (of which volunteering is one) should show excellence - you can demonstrate excellence by initiative and/or leadership, or by winning competitions.
Your library work is an excellent EC. You have shown initiative by starting a program. Debate team is a potentially excellent EC, if you make captain and/or if your team does well. Your honor societies could become excellent EC’s too, if you have the time and imagination to do something interesting with them. Could you round up a handful of honor society kids to volunteer with you at Holy Name? That would be more notable than just going on your own.
Just putting in some drudge work at the hospital isn’t going to help you all that much.