Do UC's check community service?

<p>I'm not planning on lying but basically during soph year in high school, I didn't know that I was supposed to get the signatures from people in charge. So I have roughly 50 hours of community service that aren't recorded in key club. So should I put that on my application, or no?</p>

<p>Yes, you put it on your application. You’re not being dishonest.</p>

<p>But what if they ask for proof?</p>

<p>Just be honest and tell them you didn’t realize you had to have signatures, if you have them for the other years, I’m sure that would take your word.</p>

<p>I’m afraid that they won’t. Because honestly most of my community service hours are from my church, and I don’t have alot. this year is my junior year, and I didn’t sign up for key club. I’m planning on volunteering at the library after school 2 hours every weekday from now till senior year. So yeah I think those will be my only comm service hours from key club. Oh btw I got another question. Do you think 200-250 hours of community service is average or is it too little? I’m planning on applying to UCSD if that helps. Sorry if I got so many stupid questions.</p>

<p>I think that’s more than average really, not for sure though. I would volunteer more at places like a food pantry or tutoring kids. Something where it is impacting someone else, but that’s just what I enjoy.</p>

<p>Well we do offer tutoring after school at the library. I think i’ll be doing that too at the library. I also tutored a few of my friends, and helped them raise their F’s to B’s. I didn’t count the hours though because I wasn’t thinking about college when I was doing that. Can I put that on my application though?</p>

<p>Scandolous, I absolutely guarantee you that admissions counselors have vast experience sorting the liars and scammers from the sincerely disorganized volunteers. It’s actually in your favor that you didn’t record every deed, since a sincere deed of kindness is secretly performed. Your honest and kind nature should come through in your essay. Some things can’t be faked, at least not by a teen. Do put peer tutoring on your application. If you can get a teacher to mention that in their letter of recommendation it’s bonus points (you did give each teacher a sheet of “hit points” to cover, didn’t you?) . Treat this as a video game scoring points and you’ll do well.</p>

<p>Random volunteer hours mean next to nothing in admissions unless it was actually a meaningful experience. It’s on EVERYONE’s application.</p>

<p>There are other ways to verify hours if it would somehow come up… ex calling the places where you volunteered. And they’ll surely just confirm unless you claim a crazy number of hours from them. They don’t need to confirm through key club.</p>

<p>well for tutoring my friend, i’m hoping that they will not check it because really all I can give them is my friend’s # and I don’t think that they’ll trust my friend. Well I could give them their parent’s # but they don’t speak english… Well it’s just like 10-20 hours total so i’m hoping that they’ll overlook it.</p>

<p>You’re worrying over nothing!</p>

<p>Well I’m worried because I have very little community service hours right now, and i’m halfway done with junior year. And I have no special EC because I used to do a lot of clubs but not really involved with any of them. so far, I only got 1 year of tennis, 70 hrs of community service, play guitar for my church and leader of church band. I read some of the applications posted on here and I feel like what i’ve done so far look like trash compared to them. What kind of community service/ EC would you guys recommend? because I hate my key club organization and the members.</p>

<p>It’s a bit late to just “add” and EC to your life. You’ll be fine. Volunteering is not a big deal at all, whether or not you have it.</p>

<p>Consistently, message after message, has told you to calm down about the volunteer hours. Most colleges really don’t care despite the propaganda your HS tells you. If you apply to the few who do factor in ECs, then you need to be remarkable across the board. And your 50 hours of unverified, unsigned work as a soph will be a blip – colleges WON’T CHECK ON IT. Please relax.</p>

<p>Hasn’t the UC deadline already passed?
Anyways, you shouldn’t worry. There is a very small chance they will ask you to verify. They only ask 1% of the applicants for verification (I am one of them.)
Moreover, if they ask you to verify, all you need is a letter from the incharge of your service, or a high school counsellor.</p>