Community Service?~ How screwed am I?

<p>I'm going to be applying to colleges this fall, and although I'm involved in several clubs and organizations in my school, I have ZERO community service hours (death). Moreover, I barely have any time to do anything significant during this summer since I will be attending PA Gov School of the Sciences in a week and then traveling to Nigeria after that (for 3 weeks). Am I totally screwed? None of my other ECs are all that great either (a handful of school clubs, dorm prefect, math tutor, a few school-based/language/PSAT awards, maybe an AP one as well, and one regional science one), but I am still an Ivy-hopeful (pretty good GPA and test scores). Should I scramble to rake in like 50hrs in the 2 spare weeks I have left in the foodbank (or some similar organization), or does it really make that big of a difference in the admission process (having 0 versus like 50 hrs)? </p>

<p>Advice greatly appreciated~</p>

<p>My personal opinion is that you shouldn't do something just to pad your college app (adcoms are pretty good at detecting that). If you really want, you should go and volunteer at the foodbank. If it's just for college apps, put more focus on other stuff (ECs) than volunteer work.</p>

<p>Chance me please. I'll give you an imaginary cookie! ^_^</p>

<p>You should definitely do some community service. What you can do to cover up, is write in the essay how you were changed somehow and that led you to start doing stuff for the community.</p>

<p>~ =/... anyone else? I am getting two contrasting views here...</p>

<p>If you put in 50 within a short time and if you're not specific about it you should be just fine.</p>

<p>if you want to have a chance getting into your desired colleges, then you do community service. Wether it's from the heart or not doesn't really matter, that's the reality of the situation.</p>

<p>Yeah, I hate community service most of the time because it sometimes stresses me out, but fortunately my library offers to allow 16+ kids to put away books without having to talk to people. If you have a nearby library maybe you can get the same deal, you'll probably have the oppportunity to volunteer there for as long as you want to without ever having to tell them or anyone...</p>

<p>don't do community service just for college apps it reflects poorly on your character. The ivies are not the only schools to apply to, go look for others. </p>

<p>If you are that intent on gaining admission, then do some service.</p>

<p>If it weren't for apps, I wouldn't have done community service--i'll be honest with you-- but I found that its alright at the library or with friends. Maybe you should get a group to volunteer with you at the foodbank....they could take shifts working with you as you would get to 50 hrs.
if you do decide to volunteer, I wish you luck!</p>

<p>^ I'm not sure anymore. I know for a fact that I'd just be doing it for the app, but I'm also scared that adcoms could see that... but basically EVERYONE has some hours (most of them for the app... there are some nice people, but common, be realistic), and I don't want to be at a disadvantage...</p>

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<p>lol... I was planning on doing some foodbank stuff sophomore year w/ my friend, but it didn't work out =/... now I'll have to do it alone if I do anything at all =/</p>

<p>P.S: I wanted to volunteer at a library SO BADLY... but the closest one to me is a 15 min drive (I can't drive yet)... and it's HUGE =/... not a small, cozy local one where you just catalog a few books and chat with the librarians...</p>

<p>Like I said, bring some friends along. It worth a try, give it atleast ten hours to see, you might just love it and find it worthy enough to talk about in your essay.</p>

<p>when applying to colleges, how exactly do colleges see that you only loaded up on hours for the application? when stating your hours, do u have to state when u did it?</p>

<p>^ good question, I'm starting to wonder the same thing.</p>

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<p>thanks for the advice ceeli~ :)</p>

<p>you're welcome.</p>

<p>And, yeah, if you're not specific about it, you'll probably be all set...</p>

<p>I did some community service as part of HS graduation requirements, but I didn't list it on my application (6 hrs/week for 5 weeks for one summer didn't seem worth noting). I got into 6 of 7 colleges I applied to (waitlist at the final), including a few USNWR top 20 and probably the most competitive school for admissions this year. On the other hand, I got two amazing extracurricular activities and some other clubs I didn't care much about (I joined mostly to hang out with friends).</p>

<p>If you don't list community service on the app, you could give colleges the benefit of the doubt that you did service but didn't think they were important. On the other hand, if you list something that you spent only 20 hours total, colleges know you haven't done much service.</p>

<p>To respond whether you should do the community service, do it if you would enjoy doing the service and you gain something other than writing it on your resume. Whether or not it would help your resume would depend on the overall strength of extracurriculars.</p>

<p>However, I'm sure the lack of community service put me at a huge disadvantage when applying for outside scholarships. Most local scholarships care more about community service than grades or other extracurriculars.</p>

<p>^ thanks... I'm not sure I'll do it if I can't get up to 75/100 hrs or even get anything out of the experience... I'm going to look at my schedule and see what I can do ~</p>

<p>Commuity Service hours are usually listed in your transcript but I think students do community service for merit scholarship applications as well, lots ask for community service.</p>

<p>Community service on transcripts...strange that I've never heard of that before. At my school it would have to be entirely self reported....</p>