Everyone doers volunteer work, but is there certain volunteer work that is better than other volunteering opportunities? The different ways I know that you can volunteer is either at a hospital, at a local library, events like science camp, or though community service clubs at school. Is there any services that colleges prefer to see compared to other volunteer services?
What are your interests? What causes or concerns do you feel strongly about? Where can you volunteer and what can you do to reflect those interests?
Colleges prefer to see volunteer work that the applicant enjoys doing and that relates to who that individual is in terms of interest and personality. Volunteer work should reflect who you are as a person, not something that is done in an attempt to impress admissions officers.
Plus it helps you to perform as a volunteer. Doing something you don’t enjoy will effect negatively your performance. Agencies want people who want to be there.
@KKmama I currently volunteer at the library and within my youth group at church. While those activities are ones I enjoy, they do not translate to anything I would like to major in. I am not completely sure what I will apply as my major though. I am planning to either apply as a chemistry major or go as undeclared.
If you are volunteering in a field you enjoy that’s fine. People have avocations as well as vocations.
Schools know that only the very fortunate have access to chem labs and people in position to give high school students impressive experiences in sciences. And the majority of schools do not accept you into a specific major so you would not be competing directly against other potential chem students.
And required volunteer work is a myth. Volunteering is somehow thought by students to be part of some magic formula for admissions. It isn’t. Neither are foreign mission trips or volunteer experiences, by the way.
The best type of volunteer work, for college admissions and in a larger sense, is whatever has the most impact on those you are striving to help.
I would just say that continue with what you are doing, but look for opportunities to “do more.” See things that need to be done, and volunteer to be responsible for them, rather than just “showing up and doing what they ask you to do.” Places that rely heavily on volunteers, particularly churches, are typically thrilled to have someone take ownership of something so that someone else doesn’t have to worry about whether it’s getting done! And that’s part of becoming a responsible adult.
In my church I worked with a teen who was volunteering as part of a senior year “internship” through her high school. She never did the things she volunteered to do (“oh I called them but they never got back to me” or “Oh I was away with my family that weekend so I couldn’t do it after all”). I got tired of nagging so I did it myself, DON’T BE THAT PERSON!
The best kind is the kind that you enjoy and can be good at.
Check out “How to be a High School Superstar” by Cal Newport.
“The basic message of the book is this: Don’t wear yourself out taking as many classes as you can and being involved in every club and sport. Instead, leave yourself enough free time to explore your interests. Cultivate one interest and make it into something special that will make you stand out among the other applicants and get you into the toughest schools, even if your grades and scores aren’t stellar. Newport calls this the “relaxed superstar approach,” and he shows you how to really do this, breaking the process down into three principles, explained and illustrated with real life examples of students who got into top schools: (1) underscheduling—making sure you have copious amounts of free time to pursue interesting things, (2) focusing on one or two pursuits instead of trying to be a “jack of all trades,” and (3) innovation—developing an interesting and important activity or project in your area of interest. This fruit yielded by this strategy, an interesting life and real, meaningful achievements, is sure to help not only with college admissions, but getting a job, starting a business, or whatever your goals.”
http://www.examiner.com/review/be-a-relaxed-high-school-superstar
Agree, the best kind is what interests and excites you, what allows you to feel you are making a difference in something you care about etc. For my S it was teaching swimming to disabled children and adults, for my D it was helping the homeless in NYC. Both did something that was meaningful/important to them and both made important contributions by spending a great deal of time and directly helping others. One volunteer activity was not “better” than the other.