<p>how many hours of community service would u consider "average" and how many would make it a plus on ur application?</p>
<p>Frankly it's so commonplace that it's like listing "Honor roll". This is nothing to stress about</p>
<p>Just do as many as you can do. I plan to have about 500+ hours by the end of senior year but that's just me. You should be fine with 100 but if you can do more do more. And if you can't do service because you're busy dont sweat it. Just do other extracurriculars.</p>
<p>I think many people guess on this too much, as in rounding to the hundreds place in their service hours. It's really a shame because it makes hard working kids who earned their service hours look "average" or just plain normal.</p>
<p>Call me naive, but I don't think service should be done for service's sake. Unless you have a really extraordinary number of hours after four years, I think that showing you're really passionate about a specific CAUSE and what you actually did to support is more important than the number of hours you write down as having worked. </p>
<p>And sometimes numbers are misleading. I volunteer as an assistant teacher, and my hours are only those spent in the classroom, but in reality, I often have to make lesson plans and grade homework, and that really isn't portrayed in the number of hours.</p>
<p>T26E4, I don't think that's true at all. If you have a service activity that is truly important to you (especially if mentioned in essays, recs, etc.), it could be a great EC.</p>
<p>Hours for the sake of hours may not be useful ECs though...</p>
<p>In Maryland, 75 hours are REQUIRED in order to graduate. But, only kids who earn 300+ get to wear the special groovy tassle at graduation. So, based on that, I'd say 300 is an impressive number. </p>
<p>But Maryland's counting is flawed. For example, kids start counting their hours on the day after 5th grade ends. So, a rising 6th grader can accumulate "service hours" if his summer child care provider verifies that he's a "camp helper." C'mon people. A 10 yo is not a camp helper. He's there for day care himself. That kid can easily earn 300 hours before he sets foot in middle school.</p>
<p>Yea, I think the whole get as many community service hours doing everything to look good for college applications thinking is really flawed and screws over kids who actually did something because they wanted to. I never counted my community service hours but I'm sure if I did and rounded to the nearest hundred it would come up to some BS number that seemed impressive... but I didn't even mention any of those things on my application cause they weren't really important to me, just something to do, so if someone is doing things just to fill up hours to get it to a number that seems "impressive" then those things also probably don't deserve to be on the application.</p>
<p>fhg: perhaps I didn't make my post clearer -- I'm not against students' doing community svc and recording their hours -- by no means. I think it is and will be a vital part of a young person's maturity and hopefully will form a positive outlook in the future.</p>
<p>I'm just trying to calm the OP's fears about stressing about whether 100 or 400 is more essential to his/her admissions chances. Like another poster said, many school districts require a minimal amount anyways.</p>