<p>I am Catholic, but I volunteered at a Buddhist monastery for my friend’s aunt’s event. However, I don’t have any proof of the hours and I don’t think the actual monastery would have my volunteer hours…I’m kind of scared to put this volunteer service on my application since it’s kind of hard to verify, but my other services are just one time things (Heal the Bay, Tree People). I volunteered at a cat shelter for a few weeks, but that’s not really unique or anything, since I didn’t do it for a long time. What should I do?</p>
<p>Volunteering is volunteering, if it’s legit then don’t worry about it. Although I wouldn’t put anything that you only volunteered for a couple of hours (<20).</p>
<p>I’m totally in a similar position except the hours are undocumented - i’m still not sure if they’ll audit you if you actually say that the hours are undocumented. Anybody else been in this situation before?</p>
<p>No, schools generally don’t verify volunteer hours, employment history, extracurriculars. There’s an assumption that you’ll be honest on your application.</p>
<p>I often wonder about the motivation behind those that offer up answers to factual questions that are wrong guesses. They could have read the post, said to themselves “don’t know the answer to that one, someone else will take it”, and moved on. Instead they jump in with a wrong answer. Don’t they feel a sense of responsibility towards those who might rely on their wrong answers? Or do they just think that if the poster doesn’t bother to look up the answer then they deserve what happens for relying on anonymous posts that are wrong?</p>
<p>The OP is wise to be concerned about being able to prove ECs. Exaggerating or inventing ECs is an issue that plagues colleges, and the UC system has taken strong steps to prevent it.
The</a> bold is in the original, BTW.</p>
<p>According to Mssun, who used to post on this forum, the UC general verification rate is about 10% of applicants and in addition each campus is free to select additional students.</p>
<p>sorry, dodgersmom, your post #4 is wrong. UC validates everything on an a random sample of apps… (we had a neighbor kid who went thru it a couple of years ago…)</p>
<p>I stand corrected . . . and I’m impressed that the UC’s would spend the man-hours necessary to complete this verification process.</p>
<p>Yes, OP, you might be audited but that’s no reason not to put something true on your application. If you volunteered at the monastery, list it. If you do get audited, have your friend or the monks vouch for your work. Prepare a statement for them to sign and offer that as proof. You aren’t falsifying anything, so don’t let the fear of an audit prevent you from presenting the best, most honest picture of yourself to the UCs.</p>