What is a good amount of community service hours to have before you graduate?
I know scholarships like Bright Futures require 100 hours but I don’t know what the normal amount is for other scholarships. I hear of people on this site having over 500 hours but that seems a bit extreme.
I’m about to start volunteering at my local animal shelter and if I do the minimum of 2 hours a week, then I should have about 184 hours by the time I graduate. Is that a good amount, or should I do more?
College applications won’t ask how many volunteer hours you have (though some scholarship applications might, and they might be required to graduate from your high school). Your ECs can involve community service, but they don’t have to. The Common App will ask you to list each of your ECs (up to ten) and an estimate of how much time you spend on each one. Colleges care about ECs that show focus, dedication, commitment, and accomplishment. The specifics of your activities (e.g., where you volunteered) don’t matter as much.
Quote from a Yale admissions officer ([source](http://questions.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/qa-college-admissions/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=4)):
“The thing we are looking for outside the classroom is not a series of check boxes on a resume; we’re looking instead for a high level of engagement or leadership in whatever it is that the student cares about most. For some students, community service is at the forefront of their extracurriculars, in which case we pay a lot of attention to what they have accomplished in that area. For other students, some other passion or interest holds primary sway, and we evaluate the engagement in that area. We know that very few students can fully engage more than one or two primary activities at a high level. Though it is fine for a student to have varied interests, a significant number of students make the common mistake of spreading themselves too thinly in a resume-building exercise.”