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[quote]
[A]dmissions officials are also becoming more saavy in discerning the students with a real devotion to volunteering from those who merely dabble to improve their resume.</p>
<p>"Roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty," said Westport-based educational consultant Richard Avitabile, a former assistant vice president of enrollment at New York University....</p>
<p>Otherwise, it may be best not to bother: If a student isn't truly committed, a college admission official is likely to catch on.</p>
<p>One sign that a student has volunteered for less-than-altruistic reasons is when they showcase how many hours they've devoted to a project. Quantifying their efforts that way, Avitabile said, suggests that a student was merely trying to fulfill a school requirement.</p>
<p>Similarly, college admissions officials get skeptical when they see an applicant who boasts a long list of one-time commitments, from fundraisers and car washes to food drives and bake sales, Avitabile added....</p>
<p>Instead of showing well-roundedness, this type of scattershot volunteer record suggest to Avitabile "that the student has no real connection to what they've been doing," he said.</p>
<p>The same reasoning goes for students who participate in pricey community service trips overseas....
<p>Lol, geez if you do too much you get penalized if you do too little you get penalized. On a serious note, I see their point but some students do participate in several projects so I guess its not fair to assume that just because you do a lot youre not devoted.</p>
<p>I for one am happy that they are finally catching on. I think it is crazy when you hear about HS students going to africa to teach people how to read when there are plenty if illiterate people in your own city. Also, Im a teen, and I have work at the same restaurant for about 2 years, and I think that my steady commitment over time is much more meaningful than randomly scattered service projects, even if I do get some cash out of the deals.</p>
<p>It's not students who "do too much" who get penalized: The colleges are not impressed by students who showcase CS hours spent by dabbling in lots of projects. The colleges presume that students who, for instance, accumulate hundreds of hours during random service activities are trying to dress up their resumes: they aren't volunteering out of interest in some particular cause.</p>
<p>It's the content of the hours that's likely to flag admissions officers that the students did service only to impress adcoms. For instance, I've seen on students resumes, long lists of service activities of 1-2 hours for things ranging from car washes to picking up trash to participating in bake sales, all for totally different types of groups. The randomness of the activities and the fact that the student was tallying their times up indicates the student was only involved for the hours or was forced to do the activities as part of a sports team or a club like NHS.</p>
<p>Such descriptions are very different than, for instance, something like "Organizing and participating in a a dance marathon 40 hours; tutoring a child, 60 hours". Those show a real commitment.</p>
<p>The students I know who volunteer because of an interested in a particular cause have a hard time figuring out their total hours -- which could be very high -- because they were focused on helping others, not tracking hours.</p>
<p>I do a lot of community service, and also sign off on students' hours. The first ones to get signatures are the ones who showed up for only the hours, and did -- at best -- exactly what they were told. The last ones to show up to get signatures trend to be the ones who were there early, left late, and contributed hard work and ideas. They also tend to do a bad job of keeping track of their hours because the hours weren't that important to them even when the hours were required for things like IB programs.</p>
<p>My son loves to do community service, and I know that he underreported his service hours on his apps because he never bothered to keep track of them. Still, he had a couple of hundred hours, and also could list and describe real projects he'd participated in and organized over a period of time.</p>
<p>I am really into community service and participate in many different projects...so I feel this will work against me. I have over 400 hours of service in during high school, so am I not to let admissions know this?</p>
<p>nbg127, if you can show passion, go for it. The problem is with the resumes we see on CC where they list EVERYTHING they have done since 8th grade from 2 hours bake sales to car washes, etc. They obviously couldn't be passionate about all of that stuff.</p>
<p>It's pretty obvious when people love their volunteer work by the way they talk about it, the way the hours add up, etc. I personally had a very time figuring out how many hours to put down because I had no idea, I didn't care until I had to figure out a way to put it on the common app.</p>
<p>I agree. My friend and his family spent thousands of their own money (since they could not use the donations they received) to go to Africa to build a soccer field. He's been mentioned about 10 times in the newspaper for the same achievements.</p>
<p>Basically, it's just getting tiring and frustrating cuz many people know it's his mom (and the massive amounts of money that they have) that's putting the most effort into this act of community service and she's just pulling her sons along to get something significant onto their collegeapps and the sort. I might be biased because I don't have the money to go to Africa and etc., but I just think it's plain unfair and sort of fake. </p>
<p>As a response to NSMom's post (and in accordance with fhg's), I totally agree. Even though I've done a bit of community service, I seriously did not know how many hours I did until I filled up the CommonApp -- and even right now, I still don't know the total hours I've spent. A good guess is 200-300, but I have some feeling I've underestimated that.</p>
<p>I hope this doesn't hurt me either. At my church, I was a training minister which gave me A LOT of responsibilities and I also did lots of fundraisers and drives at church. Also, every Saturday morning after prayer, I went downtown to our soup kitchen to serve food. On top of all that, this past summer, I was able to minister all the way in Kenya and Ethiopia and I wrote my college essay on that. I think that my activities are devoted and I was certainly passionate about them but they aren't really spread out (I only have like 2-3 school activities, though most were leadership positions).</p>
<p>pyles_m, the fact that your activities "aren't really spread out" should work for you, not against you. Your activities show a commitment to what you're doing, both to the general community and to your church. Activities, community service, etc., don't need to be at school. For many students, it's not.</p>
<p>pyles, your community service is great because it shows passion and commitment to your church. The problem is when people have really scattered trips/service projects...</p>
<p>^^Maybe that's all it takes in some parts of America to build a soccer field, but have you ever considered that maybe they had to clear the land? Till it, fertilize it, level it, plant it, etc.? I'm not saying that's what they did - I have no idea. But to assume that the entire world has these large empty expanses of land just sitting there being mowed is quite parochial.</p>
<p>I think the bias against overseas community service trips is when they're the kind that cost 5-10k+. Because, really, rich kids don't need another boost in the college admissions office.</p>
<p>My D had an "interesting" community service project recently. She volunteers occasionally at a community theater selling refreshments. They asked her to come work at a show and she got there and found out it was a "drag-queen show." She got to go back-stage and deliver refreshments to the performers and found it all very fascinating. </p>
<p>On the international projects an example of a good project to me is the boy in my son's Scout troop who built a water well in Honduras. Since it was his Eagle Scout project he had to raise the money himself and present detailed plans to a Scout committee. I listened to one of his presentations and you could tell he was genuinely enthusiastic about the project and had learned a lot about water wells and the country he was working in. It seems that for the example above if the boy just got dragged along by his mother it would be rather apparent in his college essays and interviews. </p>
<p>I am rather conflicted about requiring community service because it seems to lead to organizatons relying on students needing hours to do the jobs that adults don't want to do such as cleaning up after an event or making copies. But it does get the students involved and exposed to new people and ideas. My D's school requires community service and as a result she has connected with some organizations and people she probably wouldn't have sought out otherwise. She ended up writing one of her college essays about her experiences feeding clients living at a hospice for people with AIDS.</p>
<p>Maybe college admissions officials should look at the role they play in creating the problem in the first place. They expect every applicant to meet their unending lists of requirements from great GPA's, test scores, AP courses, extra curricular & athletic activities, leadership on & on and now however they define "meaningful" volunteer experience. I would love to see any of these officials demonstrate how they could meet these requirements if they were applied to their lives at the moment. All of this for the honor of paying up to $50,000/ yr to attend their amazing schools with all the success that implies. What a racket and great job of marketing. As I have often heard it said here I am glad I am not a HS student today as I doubt my meager honor courses and NYS regents HS diploma of 30 yrs ago would get me into a "good" college today.</p>
<p>I think that service does not have to be dramatic. </p>
<p>Our son volunteered at the local cable tv station for 3 years in high school. He went for 2 hours every single week, including the summer and vacations, and rarely missed it. He did camera work and learned a little about directing a program, but it was nothing fancy.</p>
<p>He certainly was not thinking about saving the world, nor did he give a thought to college admissions. Our community is not one of those high-pressure places, and the kids don't get concerned about where they are going until senior year.</p>
<p>Regardless of where he ended up for college, which was very satisfactory, I was so glad to see him growing up with the kind of persistence in service that he had. The tv station could really count on him and he was very useful.</p>
<p>I think it is too bad the colleges ask the kids to quantify their service in hours.</p>
<p>I do alot of random things because I have to fulfill 25 hours of service a year and because my different clubs require different comittments. I have gone on what guys call "rich kid trips" to Africa and worked with AIDs orphans for a week. But I have also done long term projects like tutor students once a week for 12ish weeks. I personally don't think though that you could say my tutoring was more meaninful to me and those I tutored than my trip to Africa was. My trip to Kenya changed me and I am sure it brought hope to alot of kids with no hope.</p>