<p>does anybody know what this is, or if it will help me get into a good college?</p>
<p>The</a> Congressional Award - America's Award for Youth</p>
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The Congressional Award is a public private partnership created by Congress to promote and recognize achievement, initiative, and service in America's youth. The Congressional Award provides a unique opportunity for young people to set and achieve personally challenging goals that build character and foster community service, personal development, and citizenship.
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<p>Honestly, I have no idea how much it affects college admissions, but honestly something like this should be done out of your interest and not just for college.</p>
<p>actually-believe it or not- i started this in 8th grade and I'm just about to finish it, and i was just wondering if it had any weight on my app.
i never started this with the intention of beefing up my image if thats what you're talking about</p>
<p>I did not mean to carry that kind of connotation, my bad. Just the way you phrased your question kinda made it seem like if it was for college.</p>
<p>Yeah, you should put it down though - from reading what it is about, it shows commitment and challenge. What medal did you get, out of curiosity? Gold?</p>
<p>Yeah, Gold</p>
<p>It doesn't do anything for your college app. Why? Because you detail your community service anyways. It's just another "feel good" award that's not actually a real award because there is no competition.</p>
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It doesn't do anything for your college app. Why? Because you detail your community service anyways. It's just another "feel good" award that's not actually a real award because there is no competition.
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<p>It's not just another "feel good" award. If you read the requirements for achieving something like Gold Medal, you would notice that one needs to work quite a bit to earn the medal. You need community service hours, a new challenge to go to (exploration/expedition), personal development, physical fitness, and many many hours. </p>
<p>This obviously takes time, effort, and challenge and you learn from many different/new experiences. Hence he's been working on it since 8th grade (although I don't know what grade he is in now). </p>
<p>I think this does show something about the person, although I don't think it's incredibly significant in affecting a decision.</p>
<p>It doesn't show anything about an applicant that the community service section doesn't. You can slap on a "Congressional" label, but colleges know what it is.</p>
<p>I'm not saying the community service wasn't worth it. I'm saying the award is simply a "hand me this, I'll give you that."</p>
<p>wait...are you saying that community service awards aren't helpful? because that could seriously kill my applications...</p>
<p>my main EC is my community service and I've been internationally recognized too (not the congressional award like the OP)...obviously, I would still do my service, because I started it four years before I even thought about college, but I thought that my awards could count for more (I'm not going to mention them here--privacy issues--but I really thought that I could get some kind of edge with them)</p>
<p>The awards won't help out much more than the community service itself, unless it's really an amazing one. It's not like they'll say:"400 hours of service? Pscchh. Wait, it says that those hours came with an award! OMG!". If they're not impressed with your community service the award won't seem like much, and if they like the community service the award isn't gonna make them like it much more.</p>
<p>I'm not saying that community service awards won't help you, only that some will and some will have no effect. If you've been internationally recognized then, and if your application shows the THEME of community service it will definitely make you stand out in that aspect. Nothing, of course, will replace grades or tests, but if you have been genuinely committing a lot of time and effort to a number of organizations, colleges will pick up on that.</p>
<p>Now, that being said, if your teacher reccs or counselor reccs or essays don't continue that theme, colleges will likely dismiss it. Make sure your counselor recc at the very least mentions this.</p>
<p>Yeah that's going to be the theme of my application for sure...there's no other theme to choose from</p>
<p>Hey, sorry to like bring this topic back from the dead, but a book I was reading said "[the Congressional Award] looks stunningly impressive on a college application, as it's a national award, and relatively few apply." </p>
<p>And yes, I've heard of it and have been doing it for about a couple of months, and trust me this isn't just "another "feel good" award that's not actually a real award because there is no competition." It takes a minimum of 840 hours plus two years and is relatively difficult to accomplish, as 13,000 students are registered for it and only about 250 receive the gold medal each year.</p>
<p>It probably does not look "Stunningly impressive", as it is based on objective criteria and not subjectivity. Not another "feel-good" trivial thing, but certainly not anything extremely impressive. If you're not really motivated or have strong interest in community service and etc, you shouldn't really go for it IMO.</p>
<p>Does anyone know how many years, minimum, this award takes to complete? Thanks!</p>
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