<p>Grcxx3 - I think living overseas is a different ball game, and I wouldn't group it with what I was talking about - the Africa fetishism of kids who go to work in an orphanage for a week or two in some razorwire compound in an relatively well off neighborhood of a central African country. I would think showing you lived overseas for an extended period of time WOULD be a plus in admissions, even if you didn't have all that much choice in the matter.</p>
<p>they need hours to determine how much community service your doing. Commitment. If you spend 1 hour a week practicing your musical instrument - unless your a god - that doesnt sound like music is a serious part of your life. If you do one 20 hour stint over the summer, thats just not the same as spending your whole summer - 200 hrs maybe - doing CS. </p>
<p>I think many CCers will be able to use their international experience as a boost in admissions - I just don't think that it is the best foundation for any application in the times we live in. (Since multi-based applications are becoming the thing now days. Being distinguished in one field isnt a 'carry' really.)</p>
<p>This Just In: Colleges are unimpressed by everything.</p>
<p>I'm just wondering one thing. Im a CNA and Ive had a job as a CNA (feed, bathe, clothe, shave, brush teeth of patients) and i wrote an essay about the effect of this job on me. Some people on the Essay forum are telling me that "being a CNA is not true commitment". Right now im telling myself "How would you know? Have you given a shower to a 65+ year old patient? Have you changed a senior citizens diaper?". What would think of me writing and being a CNA?</p>
<p>I think it's interesting, but it all depends on the angle you take in writing the essay. You could talk about dignity or something like that (see "Blindness")</p>
<p>I think a CNA is a very challenging job-especially for an 18 year old. I am impressed. Unfortunately in this status conscious culture it is too bad that the value of direct care workers is often diminished.</p>
<p>eh i hope it plays well it admissions.... considering not many 16/17 year olds have a CNA license</p>
<p>What about a volunteer organization? I'm in my school's Key Club and my city's Youth Commission, and both of them do scattered volunteer work around the community. How does that work into the equation?</p>
<p>I go to a small private school and we are offered many one time community service opportunities. When I made this known to college admissions interviewers,they awcknowledged that this is becoming increasingly common as many kids get involved with sports, or other activities that are time consuming... Also, this summer I spent two weeks in Costa Rica living with a family and helping in their village, and I made it known it all my interviewers that I had to pay all $2,000 plus any spending money, and many were impressed with the iniative.</p>
<p>This is why having an Eagle Scout award is good. Because they know there is a standard and yet you don't have to be petty and list hours or anything :P</p>
<p>Sometimes I am confused w/ this whole college process. What, just because a person decided to do a bunch of community service activities means that they dont care about what they are doing? Taking the time and effort out to do it should say alot. Regardless of the reasons for helping others, at the end of the day people are being helped regardless of how you look at it.</p>
<p>If colleges wouldnt push for volunteer services maybe ppl would aproach the issue differently, but for now I see no harm. There are a ton of kids who take the time to become involved and just because they dont see themselves saving the world by finding a cure for all diseases and ending hunger and poverty doesnt mean that they dont care. They are still helping others. </p>
<p>This simply proves that the college admins. want to make things more complicated. They too have forgotten the growth that occurs through community service work for students who never saw themselves helping others. </p>
<p>I think that's all I have to say...for now anyway.</p>
<p>A friend of my son's said he didn't have any community service hours, but I know he goes to India every summer, so I asked him what he did there (besides visit relatives.) He said he helped for a week after the tsunami. Bingo--community service!</p>
<p>But he didn't log the hours or have anyone (in this country) who could sign for him.</p>
<p>Even if they are unimpressed, I'm going to put it because its a huge part of my life. One of the only two times I've left the country, I went to an undeveloped country to build a school. it was only two weeks but it had a huge impact in me. I didn't speak a word of spanish, i had never swung a pick ax or lived around farm animals so it was a learning experience for me. I got really closed to my host family. i literally cried all daytwhen i left and to this day i miss them a lot. if that isn't good enough for a college, then its not the school for me, I'm not going to stress about it.</p>
<p>But I don't see why working in various places could hurt you. I'm president in a volunteering club and I've done 400+ hours of volunteering. Most of its tutoring but a lot of it is helping in my community. If someone calls me and invited my group to paint a shelter or serve at a soup kitchen or clean up a beach we're not going to say no. Why should we exclude good causes.</p>
<p>I agree that the process is so confusing. But dedication and service are good points and I would think that the more interesting the story and more it plays to the overall strength of the application the better.</p>
<p>sigh..
I teach English at rural areas in china for 2 years now..I didn't do this because of college application, I just want to help, since I'm chinese and is a graduated ESL learner. and now they will think I just want to impress them? I volunteer at local elementary school as a chinese teacher, and work part time to sponsor a twin orphan's education.. also volunteer at hospital for 3 years now..I guess my works are little random..but I loved doing those things.. -0-
I'm not involved in much clubs because I don't have much free time, but I'm in varisty tennis and doing well...I'm not in leadership things, just because I perfer to support leaders and take care things more.
oh well..
I feel sad now..</p>
<p>but I did so much volunteering on teaching areas...I just realized that now lol!</p>
<p>Hours are so easy to fake. </p>
<p>I've done community service in about 9 different places in my last four years, and I decided to put only 3 of them down on resume in the fear of looking fake and distracted. </p>
<p>As for going abroad for community service, I think it's a wonderful and lifetime-changing experience that people like llolybo who have never had the opportunity to get involved cannot witness. I've visited about five third-world countries abroad, and I've went out to help out in New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. Yes, they taught me eye-opening lessons that I could have NEVER learned by working at some soup kitchens in my town. But if you don't have the money to buy plane tickets, then don't do it obviously. Helping out in local hospitals might just do for you. </p>
<p>But don't rip on people who go abroad to HELP OTHERS, just because you don't have the money to do so yourself. It just makes you seem jealous and bitter. Whatever the original motifs are for those expensive trips, in the end, they ARE helping those in need, raising the awareness simply by showing up, and PUTTING THEM ON COLLEGE RESUMES at the end no matter how honorable the intentions were. We are all gonna put these up on college resumes. I honestly don't even know why I do community service. I hated it at first when my doctor father took me to some poor slums in downtown area and made me watch treat sick people. But now I do it, because 40% I feel obligated, 30% because I love people whom I can meet and connect with, and 30% college resume.</p>
<p>glassmask--don't be sad. It sounds like you did valuable work that will also benefit you in the future with teaching experience.</p>
<p>You didn't just choose a country at random and pay money to go there. You were well qualified because you knew both Chinese and English. Good for you!</p>
<p>I'm glad colleges are trying to weed out those applicants accruing CS hours only for college applications (around here we call them "service wh*res"). Unfortunately some kids who are earnestly trying to make a difference in the world will be caught up in the dragnet.</p>
<p>Recently a family in my community went abroad with a group. Like most groups the participants were required to raise a certain amount of money then flew in and did a project. The project they did was creating small family gardens. Each work crew was comprised of 5 volunteering Americans, 2 people from the national sponsoring agency, 1 person from the local agency, a translator and a bodyguard. No one in the group had any particular expertise in farming methods. Honest work, right? Yet I wonder what could have been accomplished with the $30,000 it cost for those 5 Americans to donate 5 or 6 days of work. Perhaps 1,000 local people could have been given the training and supplies needed to create their own gardens.</p>
<p>The mother kept talking about her child's fundraising efforts, but as someone else commented to me, it was clear the fundraising letters came from Mom. The child seemed to be dragged along in an effort to make him look good. As the child commented to mine, "My mom's making me do this."</p>
<p>I don't doubt this family had an amazing experience, but the trip was really more about them than the people they were there to help. Give me a kid who quietly puts in an hour every Friday at the youth center. That's the one who'll improve the world.</p>
<p>I don't see anything wrong with kids putting in community service hours as the opportunities arise. I do that myself. If anyone or any group needs my services, and I can help, I do so. I don't do it in a calculated way as I have no resume I am trying to build. My kids do the same; they spot help when they can.</p>
<p>My d's community service is, of course, in school things like Beta and NHS projects. However, her passion for years has been her committment to the youth ministry at church, doing everything from teaching two-year old sunday school for the past two years, teaching every summer in Vaction Bible School, hurricane clean-up, to going on mission trips since she was in 5th grade (domestic and international). And, since we've been fortunate in that our church pays a portion of every youth's expenses, it's brought down the financial committment for her. Yet, she's earned every dollar she's needed on her end -- in fact, she's currently babysitting and tutoring to earn the $1,000 she needs for this spring break's trip, which no college will know about as it's after all applications were sent out. I do get frustrated when I read about those who are solely padding, but I also fear that those, like my D, will somehow get caught in the sieve net.</p>
<p>zebes</p>