<p>Our child is going to be submitting college admission application tomorrow (regular admission) but he has many community service hours planned, after the submission, during the Thanksgiving break. Also, there are various community service activities already committed for the Christmas break. These will total up to 25 hours (conservatively) till December 31. Will it be correct and ethical to count 25 hours additional in the total EC hours if they are absolutely and surely going to be done and are ALREADY COMMITTED (especially, since the applications are going to be likely read only in January)? Or, are they asking to only indicate the activities completed till the day of submission? Just want to know what is the accepted practice and the right thing to do.</p>
<p>The 25 hours is not going to make an appreciable difference one way or the other as far as your son being admitted to college. However, keep in mind that willful misrepresentation can be grounds for rescinding admissions. If you are submitting today report what he has actually done.</p>
<p>Ditto, don’t include and it won’t matter that much. I think colleges really care most about activities or volunteering done on a regular basis over a long time, like years. Does your son volunteer every year during Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks? If these activities are important to him, they would show up on the application in some other way besides the number of hours anyway.</p>
<p>I agree with the first two posters. An extra 25 hours is not going to make any difference. If they have 60 hours, 85 is not going to be that much different. If they have 1,000 hours, 1,025 is not going to matter at all. Like what has already be said, tell the truth though I know for a fact that counting hours for my D was based upon guesstimations anyway.</p>
<p>I think community service can make a difference, but I wouldn’t put hours that haven’t been completed.
If he has a regular commitment during breaks that will be evident elsewhere, but if he doesn’t it will draw attention and look like he is playing catch up.
Many students don’t have more than the hours required for graduation from their high schools and they do just fine in admissions.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. His counselor (25+ years experience) advised that if he is going to be completing these hours then he can theoretically put them on the application but she will NOT recommend that since
(1) 180 hours are more than enough;
(2) If you put these extra 25-30 hours and for any reason you are NOT able to complete them than that is going to be a problem. </p>
<p>Of course, in my mind, he will absolutely and indeed complete them. In fact, he has far more hours planned during Thanksgiving and Christmas break, and 25 was the very conservative estimate. But, I absolutely see the point that 50+ hours can be misconstrued as catch up rather than the fact that he is truly interested in this activity. However, I do wonder in depth of my heart of what is the truth here? This is because he is doing this particular community activity <em>regularly</em> for last 10+ years (officially recorded with sufficient paper trail) but there was a slight lull in 10th and 11th (for genuine reasons). So, not really a catch-up in some sense but in another sense, yes, the hours in 12th can become significantly more than that in 10th and 11th.</p>
<p>So, to summarize or even rehash, that advise from his counselor just generated this question in my mind: What is permitted per the letter of law, and what is conservatively prudent. It seemed from his counselor statement that they both need not be same. Hence, I was just trying to confirm that. </p>
<p>If anyone has anything else to add then please let us know.</p>
<p>I really don’t think EC’s will make or break his application so why take a chance about what is permitted by “letter of the law”. There is no one standard for college applications, each school is its own private world. IMHO, I would spend way more time in having him write a killer essay and making sure his LOR are from teachers that will speak realistically of him and his positive attributes, not just be cheerleaders.</p>
<p>I see in your 2nd post you mention that he has 180 hrs, so I agree that 25 more will not make an appreciable difference.
However I can’t remember how many hours high schools require nowdays. 40? 200?</p>
<p>I also do not know how many hours high schools require now a days. And also what is the “norm” for the universities.
Does anyone know what is the range of hours expected for someone applying to universities like UC Berkeley if you have
a) Two varsity sports(9-12; and 11-12)
b) Other academic ECs with good achievements</p>
<p>Is 180 hours a good number or sub-par. Given that my child has almost NO school clubs (except moderate involvement in Key club). Everything done is on his own.</p>
<p>This is what is bothering me …? Paranoid and obsessed and fearful. Do not know whom to ask.</p>
<p>godparentof66 - hopefully your paranoia, obsession and fear is not evident to the applicant. If it is, it is making it worse for them, not better. Last year, I tried my best to hide all my emotions from my child. She was enough of an emotional wreck on her own.</p>
<p>My kids did not even put any of their volunteer hours on their applications- not because they didn’t have them, but because there were other things they wanted to put there- more meaningful (to them) EC’s vs. what their schools required.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine that 25 hours is going to make a difference. A competitive and interesting applicant doesn’t become less so over a couple of volunteer days over Thanksgiving or Xmas break. And a candidate who is not getting in doesn’t suddenly become compelling because of a few more volunteer excursions.</p>
<p>My kids school only required 60 hours of volunteer time (based upon their very strict criteria) which most normal volunteering that students got credit for does not count. She had 61 total hours. Now she had tons of other community work (for example: working the water station at the Marine Corps Marathon) that she did but her school would not give her credit for. </p>
<p>Just for the benefit of the readers: for whatever it is worth, my son went and talked to his counselor. And the response is that anything done till November 30 is completely OK to put on the application for UCs as that is the UC submission deadline. Based on what I have heard here, I am asking him to not submit his application till November 29 but he feels that the UC computers always crash at the deadline time …?</p>
<p>Our high school doesn’t require any volunteer hours. They wouldn’t exactly be volunteering if they are required. The National Honor Society required a very minimal amount, but my kids thought NHS was a scam and refused to play along. They had a quite a few hours since each spent a significant amount of time during the summer working at the Senior Center.</p>
<p>Sorry for being so dumb-headed and slow to understand. And redundant too :-(</p>
<p>The counselor is saying that everything done till November 30 can be put on the UC application. Is she correct? It seems that this thread is saying that this is not true and that if we submit today then it MUST BE number of hours completed till TODAY. I know my paranoia cannot be solved (these things are so deeply rooted) so I will will just rest much easier if he can get the committed volunteering hours for this week, but not wait till November 30 when the computers can crash. Can we submit it today and count the EC hours till the UC submission deadline per his counselor? Is she correct in her advise?</p>
<p>When it doubt take your counselor’s advice. Stop worrying. I cannot imagine a scenario where this is going to make one bit of difference in the end.</p>
<p>While I was not in the room, I am assuming that the counselor meant that you can count hours up until the submission. If you submit on 11/30, you can hours until 11/30; if you submit on 11/27, you count hours until 11/27.</p>
<p>Having said that, the difference of the hours done over 3-4 days will not influence the application positively or negatively. I would not risk waiting until the last minute to submit the application just for the sake of having a few extra hours to report,</p>
<p>@Skieurope: she said that we should submit it today but can ethically count till November 30 as that is the deadline for UC submission. (Assuming we know exactly what will be done and report it to the dot.) Since that is so contrary to what I am hearing here so I just wanted to clarify this. By what I am reading here, many of you are just as experienced as school counselors and I really respect your opinions. Hence I am asking this question to all of you. Is her advise correct per the norms? @blossom says that it may be so? Does anyone else know this for sure? </p>
<p>Yes, I know it makes a very small difference but I am unable to get this out of my mind. And we cannot write anything which is not true. SORRY</p>
SORRY</p>