<p>about a year ago everyone was freaking out about their community service hours, now people are saying it doesnt really matter. WHICH IS IT??</p>
<p>Most schools have community service as a graduation requirement. If you've never done any, that's bad. But 20 hours at a soup kitchen won't make or break your application.</p>
<p>it makes you a decent human being, if nothing else</p>
<p>My school requires 50 hours to graduate. It varies district to district though.</p>
<p>My school doesn't require or necessarily encourage anything of the sort. We've got a couple student organizations that do community service--Key Club and National Honor Society. I never really did much community service. In 11th-12th grade, I did a little over the 20 hours a year required to be a NHS member in good standing; I would have done more, but there were limited openings and I knew that other people needed the hours more than I did, so I didn't always sign up for the volunteer slots I could have filled. </p>
<p>I'm going to spend several months of my gap year working with a volunteer organization in Ecuador. They need it more than my largely white, middle-class community does. </p>
<p>As far as community service being a de facto requirement for college admissions... hm. It makes you look like a human being. It is certainly a worthy, if pretty typical (depending on the project), way to spend your time. But under most circumstances, it's not something that will make up for major shortcomings elsewhere on the application. </p>
<p>But the reason we should be doing community service is not to get into college. It should be to make an impact on your (or another) community... to touch others' lives... to gain understanding... to make use of your talents, skills and personality... to meet people... and if not that, then to put a salve on your feelings of guilt and worthlessness. ;) Whatever.</p>
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it makes you a decent human being, if nothing else
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</p>
<p>Ya stacking books at a library makes you a decent human being. Right. It'd probably depend on the kind of work you're doing.</p>
<p>I'm sure that college adcoms can tell if you're doing it just to please the colleges or if you're actually doing it because you love the community.</p>
<p>In short; if you don't want to do community service, don't. Find some other way to help the community, perhaps more indirectly.</p>
<p>I asked an admissions person at an elite college this very question several years ago. Her reply was that they are looking for students who are committed, involved and show leadership. Community service is an excellent way to demonstrate this, but not the only way. I asked the question specifically because my son was very involved doing other things that were important to him and he didn't have the time or the interest in trying to fit in one more thing. Community service is not required by his high school. The admissions person said that his lack of CS would not be a problem because he was heavily involved in his major area of interest. </p>
<p>My middle son had quite a bit of CS through Scouts. He ended up with his Eagle award. For him CS was an integral part of his overall primary interest area.</p>
<p>Third son also had no CS. He was heavily involved in 2 major interest areas. He graduated from HS last springs and was accepted to some highly ranked schools. </p>
<p>If CS is of interest to you then do it. If you don't have a strong area of interest to put on your application, then you should spend your time trying to develop that rather than just doing CS to have on your resume.</p>
<p>does volunteering for a political campaign count as community service? or running a large event that raises money for an organization?</p>
<p>Listen...the difference between doing no community service and 25 hours is nothing.
But doing 300 hours in a 3rd world country is something.</p>
<p>You do not need community service in particular to get into a good college. However, it is a good EC to do.</p>
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does volunteering for a political campaign count as community service? or running a large event that raises money for an organization?
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yes.</p>
<p>
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But the reason we should be doing community service is not to get into college. It should be to make an impact on your (or another) community... to touch others' lives... to gain understanding... to make use of your talents, skills and personality... to meet people...
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all of you crazy CCers out there asking "how many hours do i need?" need to read this. CS will make a significant difference if you are wholeheartedly interested in it and not doing it to fulfill a requirement. the same with all of your EC. do them because you like to do them, not because they're gonna get you into college.</p>