<p>As a point of reference, my kid was a soccer coach and that was volunteer and it was under community service. You could link it to soccer team but that was under Athletics on her resume. She also was a babysitter and tap dance teacher but those were paid and were under Work Experience. Her own tap dance classes were under Performing Arts Activities. She was a teacher’s assistant at the elem school for math and French but that was under Volunteer/Community Service. </p>
<p>Even if paid work relates to one of their extracurricular activities, I feel that the paid work belongs in the category of Work Experience (which is a sub category of extracurriculars).</p>
<p>It’s not an EC, but it is a job, and the relatively few colleges that factor ECs/jobs/community service into admission consider jobs similar to how strong ECs are considered. Meanwhile, most colleges make admissions decisions overwhelmingly on students’ stats and --in the case of public colleges – state of residence.</p>
<p>S1 did not have paid employment. It did not matter. S2 put down his well-remunerated teaching as EC (but I do not think he mentioned that he was being paid for it–his main interest was in the teaching). That did not bother adcoms, either. A student does not have to fill every last category!</p>
<p>“She’s getting paid” as a reason to list under work/experience: So if one is doing an unpaid internship or community service, one is not getting experience? My S described the topics he taught and did not say he was being paid for it. I’m sure that the adcoms were more impressed by the fact that he had been teaching and what he had taught than the fact that he was being paid for it. He did not think it as a “job” but something that he enjoyed doing and that in so doing he was paying the program back for having been a student in it.</p>
<p>D listed the babysitting and Pet Sitting under the “employment” section as this was the only paid employment she had. She had other activities (dance/drama/youth group) in the EC section.</p>
<p>I agree with Marite that not everyone has paid work, nor needs to fill that space. </p>
<p>That said, paid work is looked upon positively, so do include it if you have done it. And put it under Work Experience.</p>
<p>What I think speaks more to the OP…is how the applications don’t always do justice to extracurriculars as they give very little space and not all ECs are self explanatory. That is why I feel an annotated activity resume is an important piece to include, as it gives a fuller picture of how the student spends their time and their interests and the activities can be annotated. So, that is the answer to how your kid could explain the significance of her babysitting job…in the annotation on the resume.</p>
<p>D used it in the employment spot as she had plenty of EC’s, and babysitting on a weekly basis for a family (as well as paid tutoring) were her jobs. My mother, who had early onset alzheimer’s, also lived in our home. Most of the time D was just granddaughter and took care of mom when I was out because she loved her grandma. However, when my h and I needed a weekend away ocassionally, we paid D as “fulltime caregiver” because I would have (and did ocassionally) have to pay for a caregiver and I always felt more comfortable with d than anyone else, as did her g’ma. She put that under employment, too, and it became one of her essays, actually … the experience of growing up more quickly in a household where we collectively care for 4 grandparents over the span of 7 years and had hospice, regretably, on speed dial. </p>
<p>Yes, but NSM, I think you “know” me and what I’ve posted about my kids enough to know that they’re not looking at state schools in which the decisions are 95% based on hitting certain stats.</p>
<p>zebes, that was a good idea. I should have thought of that as I am advising my nephew on every aspect of his college admissions process and I should have had him list “caregiver” on his resume because he has a lot of responsibilities due to his mom (my sister-in-law) having MS and she is confined to a wheelchair and needs help and my nephew does a great deal in his home due to his situation. I didn’t think about listing it as caregiver on the resume but should have. I did have him ask his GC to include it in his report, however.</p>
<p>Marite: If your son was getting paid to teach, it should have been listed under Employment/Work Experience. Leaving out the fact that he was being paid implies that he was volunteering his time which was an untruth.</p>
<p>Unpaid Internships should be listed as Unpaid Internship Experience. It could also be listed under Internship Experience with the notation that it was unpaid. Volunteer tutoring services should be listed under Community Service.
Paid services should be listed under Employment/Work Experience.</p>
<p>Of course, all of the above provide different experiences. It is important to separate paid experiences from volunteer experiences.</p>
<p>DD listed her nanny jobs and a fast food job she had last summer (it was a life changer, btw!) on ‘employment’. Volunteer work and all the clubs, sports etc were in EC category.</p>
<p>“Yes, but NSM, I think you “know” me and what I’ve posted about my kids enough to know that they’re not looking at state schools in which the decisions are 95% based on hitting certain stats.”</p>
<p>Actually, I don’t keep tabs on where posters’ kids are applying. Even if I did, my comment might be useful to the many posters whose kids are applying to schools that don’t factor ECs, service, jobs into admissions decisions.</p>
<p>Right, but if someone is asking about it on CC, it’s pretty fair to infer that they or their kids ARE applying to schools in which that kind of stuff counts, NSM. </p>
<p>The kids who are applying to stats-driven state schools where it’s a formulaic “top x% of class + x on SAT’s” don’t make those inquiries in the first place because they already know whether they have the stats or not.</p>
<p>"Right, but if someone is asking about it on CC, it’s pretty fair to infer that they or their kids ARE applying to schools in which that kind of stuff counts, NSM. "</p>
<p>Not true at all. I see many posts by students concerned about ECs, jobs, internships, etc. when they’re applying to very ordinary public and private universities. On the college admissions board, today I replied to one poster who was concerned about whether his ECs were strong enough for him to transfer to some 2nd tier publics.</p>
<p>I’m in the “if she’s getting paid, it’s employment” camp, but I don’t think admissions officers obsess over this to any level approaching CCers’ obsession. They just want to know your kid!</p>
<p>As to where this activity fits “thematically,” Pizzagirl – here’s another way to look at it. Her employment and volunteer work both reflect a (passionate?) commitment to working with kids. The theme is there, and perhaps more powerful because it turns up in various aspects of her life.</p>
<p>This is how my son’s application fleshed out. His school ECs related to his community ECs, and both of those related to his volunteer work as a summer camp counselor. And all related to some leadership activities that turned up in his essays (and probably in his recs too). He didn’t plan the activities that way, just pursued his interests and opportunities as they came up – but his application came across as “well-lopsided” in an interesting way.</p>
<p>My daughter put it down as a job (although not your typical employer) and as an excuse to why she didn’t continue a couple of EC’s. The job started an hour after school until dinner time and she couldn’t stay after school. What she did with the skills she learned and the money also was included in her extra essays.</p>
<p>Here’s how I’ve seen two situations handled where students were involved regularly caring for children with autism and neither were paid:</p>
<p>I read one essay by a student/close friend of my S. Their family required he perform daily afterschool care of his severely autistic brother until Mom arrived home from work at dinnertime. It was therefore impossible for him to list a single high school EC, nor could he take paid employment. He squeaked in some weekend community-based leadership on weekends when Dad’s work schedule provided some relief and rides. In his case, it was vital that he mention his sibling babysitting work, which he did not enjoy at all, as centerpiece in his essay which spun into other themes of interest to him. I respected his essay very much and was glad to see him attend an OOS public flagship. </p>
<p>I know another young lady who listed EC of “volunteer babysitting/special needs/x hrs/week…” and never mentioned it in an essay. I thought it was a cheesy way to express what she actually did. She was the most helpful presence at weekly extended family gatherings that included one autistic cousin in the mix. She was never left alone with the child. Her “hours” matched the timeframe of the weekly Sunday extended family gathering at grandma’s house. She could have written a worthy essay about what she learned from those family gatherings, but wrote on other topics. </p>
<p>Both kids had the situation imposed upon them; the brother somewhat resented and didn’t enjoy it, managed to write about it candidly and respectfully. The girl liked her encounters; although enjoyable to her, they did not drive her life. He wrote on it; she didn’t. I found him candid and honest (even if he didn’t say the correctly positive things). She was, IMO, stretching it to list formally what she did as EC.</p>
<p>Nowhere did S suggest that he was volunteering. He also listed being on the school’s Academic Team as being an EC. He was more or less “volunteered” for it, if you know what I mean. It was definitely not a paid job. </p>
<p>I really don’t see the point of dividing between paid and unpaid. The adcoms are looking for experiences and interests outside of school rather than how much one earned.
PG’s D’s experience speaks exactly to this point. In certain cases, the D took care of the grandmother for free; on other occasions, PG paid her D for it. It was exactly the same kind of care, given at the same level, providing exactly the same kind of experience, showing the same qualities in the applicant. These are the things that adcoms will consider, not whether PG paid her daughter or not.
By the way, we never paid our Ss for doing work around the house. That’s not part of our culture. But I know American families who do.</p>
<p>Whoa, whoa, whoa. This isn’t my D’s situation. I think you may be confusing me with someone else on here who may have a D taking care of a grandmother. Thankfully (knocking on wood) all grandmas in our family are doing just fine!</p>
<p>A big OOPS, PG. I was quoting Zebes and got mixed up. I was just back from visiting grandma in hospital (she’s getting better, but she had us really worried).</p>
<p>But I agree with geekmom that adcoms only want to know the applicants.
I worry about kids who post that they don’t have ECs because the have to mind siblings or have to work 20 hours or more per week; and kids who worry because they have no work experience because they are tied up in sports or music. It really does not matter. What matters is what they do and what it tells about them.</p>