Colleges unimpressed by applications showcasing volunteer hours or service abroad

Applying to College
21

<p>It's not about the hours. At least it shouldn't be. It disheartens me when I read chance threads that emphasize applicant's CS hours instead of their involvement, creativity, and passion.</p>

<p>I feel particularly strongly about this because I had the honor of attending the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards presentation in Washington, D.C. earlier this year. Not a dry eye in the house.</p>

<p>Here's a link to the top ten honorees:</p>

<p>NASSP</a> - Congratulations to America’s Top Ten Youth Volunteers</p>

<p>Here's a link to all of the 2008 honorees (just click on a State to see the high school and middle school winner from each State): </p>

<p>NASSP</a> - 2008 Honorees</p>

<p>Meeting these kids was humbling and inspirational experience. For them it was most definitely not about accumulating hours, it was more about recognizing a need in their communities and throwing themselves into being part of the solution.</p>

22

<p>I'm so glad colleges finally realized this. I always refused to report my community service hours because I thought it went against the entire point of it. I have devoted hundreds of hours of my time to causes I believe in and I am so glad colleges will finally realize that community service is about the passion and not just reporting hours.</p>

23

<p>While I'm glad that college admissioners are catching onto some of the falsehood of volunteer hours, their dislike towards service aboard displeases quite me a bit.
While it is true that some rich kids do service aboard just because they can, it's not true for all the people that list it. One of my friends for example, did some aboard service last year and she comes from a near (if not) poverty background, but she raised all the money herself because she was truely dedicated to the idea of helping overseas. </p>

<p>So, I just hope they'll be able to pick out the ones who really are dedicated.</p>

24

<p>Say I volunteered just 1 or 2 hours a week at an school for disadvantaged girls and also served as a board member, would that look committed?</p>

25

<p>In my opinion, people who are only interested in the amount you are doing and your keeping records of it reside in churches, high schools, and admissions offices.</p>

<p>I helped a ton of people on the internet with technology with tasks such as diagnosing/fixing problems, component selection assistance, and individually reviewed technology needs assessment etc.</p>

<p>I never once cared to log the hours I spent on it, or had a supervisor watch me, or reported it to the "Christian Service Department" of my private school.</p>

<p>I didn't get in to National Honor Society because I had only logged 60 hours of community service... and I had had to get every signature verifying every log for the community service, bothering everybody and wasting time. Kids who were very poor academically got in because they had went on most of the school trips to other areas.</p>

<p>I lost all respect for the society and refused to reapply the next year when invited. Instead of worrying about how we should do it, how to report it to colleges, how much to do where, not doing too many separate occasions etc... why not mind your own damn business and stop trying to judge everybody's character by a number and how good a person you are by how you formulate your community service resume.</p>

26

<p>Service to others is a wonderful thing. If I were a kid in a disadvantaged area and
someone came and built me a soccer field, I would be happy. I wouldn't really care
if they were doing it for volunteer hours or out of the goodness of their hearts.</p>

<p>I also think service is a learned enjoyment. At first kids might not like it, but then they
come to appreciate the satisfaction of having made a difference. So it doesn't bother
me that kids often have to be encouraged to take the first steps in learning to give
to others outside their normal sphere.</p>

<p>How this all became the business of admissions officers, and some kind of competition
befuddles me. There are plenty of things that are also virtues that one doesn't put
on one's college application, like: I have great faith in God! I am so, so cute! I am
an active member of my loving extended family am the apple of my grandmother's eye!</p>

<p>I'm all for virtue and goodness, but I though college was supposed to be mainly about
academics. When did college admissions become so - for lack of a better word -
voyeuristic?</p>

27

<p>I've done Habitat for Humanity for two years now with my church... not because it "looked good" but because it was with my youth group and the service hours were a nice bonus. I ended up going back because that whole thing about getting something back when you volunteer turned out to be true. First we went to Missouri, then Minnesota (I'm from IL). I think the trip cost me between $100-$200. Who needs Africa when there are homes to be built right here?</p>

<p>Not that I think Africa should be neglected... quite the opposite, in fact. =P I just think it's goofy for HS students to jet around the world so they can look like do-gooders.</p>

28

<p>^I agree. Charity begins at home.</p>

29

<p>its not about what you have, its about how you frame it. College is a marketing process; spitting out a long list of activities was the prime business strategy for one tiny margin of time, before everyone started doing it. Now, a different strategy is necessary. Those that have a sound, unique strategy and method to appeal to admissions officers - will get in. Even if they have subpar service and did it for themselves; if you have skills, for lack of a better word, you can convince someone that quartz is diamond. </p>

<p>No one cares about how smart you are or about how caring you are, its about how smart you seem. How caring you can get others to percieve you to be. Whether or not your writing can make someone else think and drop whatever they are doing to just sit there for a few minutes and ponder. </p>

<p>You have the hours and service that you have, you have the academics that you have, but its not sufficient to just inform colleges about them. Information doesnt mean anything - you need to use the information to convince and persuade, to make a case. If you arent willing to convince them that your 40 hour stint with a habitat for humanity thingy was a meaningful, defining experience, they are going to assume it isn't. </p>

<p>A car salesman doesnt sell a car, he sells himself.</p>

30

<p>Community service should mean being part of a community - really part and participating to make the community function. Jetting off to Kenya to save the world is buying community service: an oxymoron.</p>

<p>Instead, look at one's own community and see what needs to be done. We live in a really small town, where the working of town government are largely volunteer: fire police, town boards. Some things just need to be done. My D is town grave digger. Someone dies with a wish to be cremated, she fits digging the 2x2x2 hole into her day-student prep school schedule, and backfills after. No fuss, no saving the world, no buying community service points. Just being part of the community and doing what needs to be done.</p>

31

<p>That's a really interesting question, geomom, and i think it has to do completely with the evolution of the college process, which has to do with the increasing numbers of applicants to top places.</p>

<p>Imagine there was a perfect method to get into HPYS. There was when my parents did it. It was take the top level classes, 4.0, 1600, good public school. That was all you needed (or know the right people, etc.). But naturally, as competition increases, more people start doing the same strategy, so that strategy is nullified. It becomes cliche when more people than spots start doing it. Then the strategy morphs. You tack on playing a sport. And music. Thats the best strategy for a few years, until everyone is doing it. Then it becomes doing 128739 ECs like a scattershot and it WORKS. It did work in the past for about 1-2 years. Then everyone sees it, and it doesnt work anymore. Then you expand it to do your SAT, GPA, academics, EC list, and one EC that has passion. Now everyone is doing that - at least, more people are doing all of it that spots are available. So what are you going to do? Whats the future innovation to the strategy? </p>

<p>After each progression, the focus has encompassed more and more personal, nonrelated things. The microscope that you once held your academics under, you now have to bear every positive thing that you do under. Its similar to the way that Google has grown. It was not the first search engine - not even the best, really, but it kept encompassing more and more of internet functions. Google was once a search engine only.... college admissions was once only about academics.</p>

32

<p>Haha, wow, college admission darwinism</p>

33

<p>Colleges place so much emphasis on extracurriculars, and now turn around and start acting like they can dictate who "really does service" and who are just in it for resume fluff. The fact that they ask for documented hours itself provokes a need to accumulate what seems to become meaningless hours only for the purpose of colleges. </p>

<p>
[quote]
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

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I know plenty of people from my school who do that who clearly aren't in it for college fluff but sincerely want to involve themselves in thier communities even if it's just the little things. </p>

<p>
[quote]
While a six-week stint doing unpaid work in an exotic locale may look good on paper, she said, colleges are rarely impressed unless a student demonstrates that they have followed-up with a meaningful service at home.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>First of all how do colleges differentiate between paid programs for service and non-paid; there isn't any place on the commonapp that I know of to write specifications about any activity over a sentence or two. Even if they were paid a student could just leave that part out and the adcoms couldn't just jump to the conclusion they spent thousands doing that. </p>

<p>And as NSMom mentioned, if a 40 or 60 hour service project means something, how can colleges say a 6-week abroad program that probably took way more effort than something at home be worth less to an adcom? </p>

<p>
[quote]
its not about what you have, its about how you frame it. College is a marketing process; spitting out a long list of activities was the prime business strategy for one tiny margin of time, before everyone started doing it. Now, a different strategy is necessary. Those that have a sound, unique strategy and method to appeal to admissions officers - will get in. Even if they have subpar service and did it for themselves; if you have skills, for lack of a better word, you can convince someone that quartz is diamond.</p>

<p>No one cares about how smart you are or about how caring you are, its about how smart you seem. How caring you can get others to percieve you to be. Whether or not your writing can make someone else think and drop whatever they are doing to just sit there for a few minutes and ponder.</p>

<p>You have the hours and service that you have, you have the academics that you have, but its not sufficient to just inform colleges about them. Information doesnt mean anything - you need to use the information to convince and persuade, to make a case. If you arent willing to convince them that your 40 hour stint with a habitat for humanity thingy was a meaningful, defining experience, they are going to assume it isn't.</p>

<p>A car salesman doesnt sell a car, he sells himself.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I couldn't agree with this quote more. The fact that colleges now try to differentiate what is meaningful service and what is not does not inspire those who don't commit meaningful service to now all the sudden have passion, but instead just changes the way they go about marketing themselves. Who's to say a person who no passion cannot follow up a paid stint with a service activity at home and a person with true service passion cannot be involved in a long list of activities? Nothing changes except the way students market themselves, and going by such subjective methods to figure out who's doing what just isn't accurate. </p>

<p>People complain about the legitimacy of the SAT or the differences between GPA systems, yet no one seems to debate the subjective nature of ECs that is way worse than either.</p>

34

<p>I disagree about the paid-program community service issue. Don't we always love to see celebrities making use of their fame and wealth to help the greater good (e.g. Angelina Jolie, Hayden Panettiere, many more...)? They spend money on publicity and travel, sure, but at least they're DOING SOMETHING.</p>

<p>My friend happens to be part of a very well-off family, and she's traveled all over the world: building houses in Costa Rica, building schools in India and Tanzania... she's truly an inspiration. And she doesn't do it just to go abroad... she comes back with these amazing stories and new perspectives of how helping others has changed her life. </p>

<p>It's not to the detriment of problems in her own community. We're both part of many local community clubs and organizations. We help out at charity events together. So why criticize someone for seeking to gain cultural perspectives while they make a difference in the world?</p>

35

<p>
[quote]
They spend money on publicity and travel, sure, but at least they're DOING SOMETHING.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Doing what? I'd rather save the cost of gas than to fly people oversees to get their face in the paper. From an economical standpoint, it would be more cost effective to hire unskilled laborers from the local area to do the community service project for you. Would you rather buy a 1000 dollar round way ticket for 1 person, or raise 1000 dollars to hire 10 unskilled laborers for 10 dollars an hour, for 10 hours?</p>

<p>
[quote]
My friend happens to be part of a very well-off family, and she's traveled all over the world: building houses in Costa Rica, building schools in India and Tanzania... she's truly an inspiration.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Good for her, if only everyone could do that. Why not build houses and schools in her own neighborhood? It would save gas, resources, and time.</p>

<p>
[quote]
So why criticize someone for seeking to gain cultural perspectives while they make a difference in the world?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The same reason you don't need to pay 700 dollars for a plane ticket to China to eat authentic Chinese food, when you can just spend 3 dollars on gas to go to Chinatown. You accomplish the same end for a ton of money/resources, "international community service" is a waste and an oxymoron.</p>

36

<p>A applicant CAN make the international community service thing work, it just requires the right angle. I would say that the initial spark of NOT chalking your international experience up to "I love helping out", and instead talking about the perspective it gave you, how it got you interested in international economics and trade, or how you just plain love exploring new places and want to do that in college, would be a way to turn international service into a good plus. You have to prove that the experience has contributed something to the making of an interesting person.</p>

37

<p>I think it might work... but I'm too economical and I can't see past the utilitarian limitations.</p>

<p>To me, the fundamental theory of community service is to make the world better. However, spending a ton of valuable money in an inefficient protocol is the antithesis to community service.</p>

<p>If I had a 1000 dollar goodwill fund, I would rather not spend it on a plane ticket to Kenya, I am not an efficient laborer and the money will likely be wasted. I would rather pay others to do the work for me, which will help the local economy, save time, money, and energy. Or, I would spread out the 1000 dollars- 200 to donate to charity, 200 to start a local project of my own, 200 to buy supplies for an soup kitchen evening, etc. There is simply too much opportunity cost in an international service project.</p>

<p>International community service might work, but to me it just seems like a waste of resources. It has a good intent, but the means negate the value of the end. It seems like people who go on international service trips are just trying to justify a vacation.</p>

38

<p>lollybo, while I agree to an extent to your "economical" perspective, you seem to believe that most people go there to "justify a vacation". How do you know this? How can you generalize the intent of international volunteers? </p>

<p>Secondly, there is a difference between just donating the money to a country and going there yourself; knowing the hardships in countries is not the same as seeing it for yourself. There is a perspective and knowledge to be gained on any overseas journey and that in itself is the point many international volunteer programs are trying to make. To YOU it may seem like a waste of resources but other may enjoy helping people in other countries while gaining insight themselves.</p>

39

<p>
[quote]
lollybo, while I agree to an extent to your "economical" perspective, you seem to believe that most people go there to "justify a vacation". How do you know this? How can you generalize the intent of international volunteers?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Easy. If they want to help people, why not help people in their own community? The only net benefit that international community service gives is an opportunity to travel and see other cultures- which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if your goal is to help people, there are a trillion better, more effective, more humanitarian ways of doing so. Thus, many people who do international community service value travel over helping people, or just don't know enough about the process to make the best, most effective decision.</p>

<p>
[quote]

Secondly, there is a difference between just donating the money to a country and going there yourself; knowing the hardships in countries is not the same as seeing it for yourself. There is a perspective and knowledge to be gained on any overseas journey and that in itself is the point many international volunteer programs are trying to make. To YOU it may seem like a waste of resources but other may enjoy helping people in other countries while gaining insight themselves.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>To see people who are living with hardships, who suffer from institutional poverty, who are plagued with alcoholism, domestic abuse, and depression, I don't need to pay 1000 dollars for a plane ticket. I would have to pay 3 bucks for gas to drive to downtown St. Louis.</p>

<p>When I first came to America when I was two, my parents came over with two bags of clothes and 100 dollars. They had to pay for raising me, college tuition, and housing all by themselves. It was even worse back in China. I don't need people telling me that I don't have a multicultural, egalitarian perspective. I don't fall for galvanized fluff, I look for hard facts. The hard fact is that there is much more that the resources allocated to an expensive service trip can do.</p>

40

<p>I think the important thing is the follow-on from Nick017's clear explanation. When kids did community service trips to Africa because of their genuine interest, colleges saw the passion, like it, and gave them a boos in admissions. Students saw that and then put lots more effort into those activities than they would have (economists would say that they over-invested). When all students do them (well actually lots, not all), schools couldn't tell who was genuine and who was just doing it to get into college. Community service became not an activity that could help but became something of a floor. If you didn't do community service, it counted against you (but if you did, it didn't help). So, the pressure on kids ratcheted up. Nick traced through how this happens. But, the good thing is that finally, the schools are now saying, it's not a floor. Please don't do it if your are not genuine. So a little bit of the pressure might come off. And, that's a good thing.</p>

<p>After the initial flurry, I doubt that colleges cared whether your community service was in Africa or your home town -- Africa might have become suspect because they were trying to attract less affluent kids and the trip to Africa might have become a signal of affluence. The main thing is that one requirement has ratcheted down although lots of others keep ratcheting up.</p>