<p>how do colleges see how many community service hours you have worked? is it on the transcript or should I put it under the extra-curiculars part of the application?</p>
<p>you put it under extracurricular</p>
<p>colleges most of the time they probably won't check unless you did an outrageous amount of hours or something out of the ordinary i think</p>
<p>oh really?</p>
<p>do they want you to send in a log of your hours? I don't like how they do that weekly hours thing on the common app, because I'm all over the place lol.</p>
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<li><p>Most collleges admit the majority of their applicants, and don't consider nonsports ECs as factors in admissions. If nonsports ECs are considered, it's for merit aid.</p></li>
<li><p>The highly select colleges that have such an overabundance of high stat applicants that ECs are considered as admissions factor care far more about the impact and achievements of your community service than how many hours you did. A student who had, for instance, started a successful fundraising program; tutored a disadvantaged child over a period of time, making a difference in the child's life (as documented by either the students essay or an extra recommendation by the child's parent); created a community service organization or project that really did something (an example: Getting one's school system to build a Habitat house) -- these kind of achievements would impress top college far more than hundreds of hours of random service such as answering phones or picking up trash.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The top colleges want students who'll come to their campus and be active participants in organizations -- demonstrating leadership, etc. Those colleges want people who'll eventually make a big difference in their communities after graduation. Consequently, people who simply spend hours doing what they're told aren't going to impress the colleges even though the community service that those students did may have been valuable to the organizations served. It's great when people pick up litter. That certainly makes a difference. However, Harvard isn't looking for students who'll just pick up litter during college or after they graduate, but people who'll organize lots of people to spend many hours volunteering.</p>
<p>So what would you say to schools like, say, top UCs? What's their view on ECs? How heavily is ECs (such as community service) seen in the eyes of top UCs' adcoms?</p>