<p>I included some commute hours. Obviously, I didn't include thirty-minute drives or anything, but I live in a relatively unpopulated states, so commutes tend to be major time wasters. For example, the closest place where I can get advanced music levels is a two-hour trip oneway. Essentially, this means that I have to get up an entire sunday afternoon every other week so that I can get strong musical training. Another example is speech, which usually requires getting up at five in the morning and commuting for two or more hours. Would these be considered legitimate hours of extracurriculars? I guess I had just assumed they would be.</p>
<p>I really believe that if the commute time is minimal, under 30 minutes, it should not be included; but for over the top, long distance travel times, why not include it?</p>
<p>In scouting, for the Eagle Award, as well as the Gold Award, the scout typically maintains a log of every related action, and the time spent on it; whether it be phone calls, research, travel time, making flyers etc.</p>
<p>In any case, go with your gut feeling. Don't add the commute just to pad the hours. No adcom cares if your EC took 100 hours or 500 hours. They are looking for passion. If you truly believe yor EC took up 500 hours of your life, you would be able to state that without questioning yourself.</p>
<p>This thread really bothers me. For the past 4 years, I have devoted every saturday from 7 AM to midnight to volunteering on my community ambulance. Now for those 17 hours I actually did stuff, ALL 17 HOURS. And during those past 4 years, I had maybe 10 saturdays where i didnt ride. </p>
<p>Now the hours ive totaled, which come to about 1540 give or take, are just my riding times. I didnt count my meetings, my training sessions, or anything else, because i didnt get anything out of those times and the werent what my EC was all about. The time that was meaningful was the 17 hours that I was helping people.</p>
<p>It bothers me that people are trying to milk the system so they can have more hours when in all honesty, they didnt do anything at all during those hours. Commuting time? Come on, lets be serious. What did you do during that hour you commuted. Catch up on sleep?</p>
<p>Also, whatever happened to doing things for the sake of enjoying them? I mean i look through these posts and see people doing all of these random EC's, and rarely do I see someone who has shown some true dedication who doesnt need to question if their EC is solid or if they have enough hours. </p>
<p>Consider this, if you really need to question whether or not you wanna add the hours you commuted, then what did you really get out of your EC? To me, it seems that you wanted an aesthetically pleasing item which you are trying to polish up by adding as many hours as possible to it. That to me is very wrong. I think it will only hurt you in the long run, you may be able to pass off the hours but I think colleges will see right through what you may have gained or learned from the hours you have written down.</p>
<p>i didn't include commute, but for a long trip, like a 4 hour bus ride i did. a normal trip, about half an hour isn't included.</p>
<p>Doogie, just because you "didn't get anything out of" your meetings, training sessions or anything else", that's a shame, but it was time that you spent on the EC and the application asks for that, it asks for hours/time spent. If you choose to interpret that to mean "hours spent where I got something out of it" that's up to you, but don't accuse other people of "trying to polish up by adding as many hours as possible" if they choose to interpret "time spent" as just that: time spent. If you went to a meeting, you spent time. If you sat on a plane for 6 hours to get to an event, it's time spent. It's time you could not be doing any other EC. That's the point--not to make yourself out to look like you put in 10000 hours on something, but to help the reader of the app see you in context. If someone has spent 500 hours on planes and cars over the last four years, perhaps that explains why there aren't 25 other EC's on the activity resume (like some people seem to have). Remember, if you are on a plane, you're not working the food bank. People with a lot of traveling time on their EC list won't have a lot of other things on that list. You can't do all those other things--president of this, and co-founder of that--when you can't be relied upon to make the meetings because you're always off somewhere doing that other thing that you do.</p>
<p>First of all, for MOST festivals there is rehearsal time AND performances. The EC would be listed as the combined time...not the separate rehearsal/performance time. For example...All State here is a two and a half day event NOT COUNTING THE COMMUTE. That would be listed as a such. HOWEVER, ny daughter did NOT list All State as an EC. She listed things like All State as "honors" not as an EC as All State is not ongoing...it's a one shot deal. An EC (in my and her opinion) is something that is ongoing like her participation in the Hartt School Precollege ensembles. She has 3 hours of rehearsal per week...plus almost 2 hours of commuting. We did NOT include the commuting. THAT is a fun time in the car with her buddies who are also in the Youth Orchestra. Sorry...not part of the EC experience.</p>
<p>I think this whole conversation is rediculous...it seems that morals are non existant</p>
<p>Doogie311 , I am in the exact position as you. If I included commute, training meetings, helping to stay longer and NOT getting extra hours for it.. I probably would have had a lot more.</p>
<p>yea its rediculous, why inflate your stats? Its wrong.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>should i include the bus ride to school as a class?</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Not as a class, but if someone asked you, "how much time do you spend on education-related activities?" you might include not just class time, but commute time, library time, homework time, etc.</p>
<p>The "weekly time spent" numbers are kind of wild guesses, anyway - not many activities are perfectly regular. Most have busy weeks, slow weeks, even times with no activity. I'd lean toward including the total time devoted to that activity, whether it was at a remote location, commuting, practicing or studying at home, etc. One purpose of the question is to evaluate how committed you are to that activity, and often there's "overhead" time required to participate. If you dropped that activity, you'd free up the entire time, not just the net activity time. So, at least for me, the time you devote to that activity is the total time.</p>
<p>I wouldn't obsess over this too much. As long as you aren't grossly misrepresenting things, you should be fine.</p>
<p>Dude a bus ride is in no way educational. It doesnt require too much brain power to sit in a seat, granted some thought is necessary to put on the seat belt...</p>
<p>It is obsurd to say that the time on ur EC includes your time commuting.</p>
<p>When you get a job where your pay is per hour, do they pay you for your commute? No, of course not...and if your commute takes longer then usual, they will deduct you too!</p>
<p>Doogie, one of the goals of going to college is to avoid jobs where you get paid by the hour. Everyone I know who has to travel out of town on business gets paid their full salary, even if they spent 22 hours on a plane going to a business meeting in Australia and 22 more hours traveling back. And if you spend Sunday preparing for your meeting, you don't get paid more. Nevertheless, it was all "time spent." Try to understand that concept. Time spent. You are fixated on a subset of "time spent." Yes, the time you spent gathering your rakes and shovels, purchasing plastic bags, loading the truck, and getting donuts and coffee for your crew isn't the same as the time you spent actually clearing the brush from the creek. But without it, the brush would not have been cleared. Understand? </p>
<p>It doesn't matter if the 4-hour bus ride to regionals wasn't "educational." Without the 4-hour bus ride, the basketball team can't play at regionals. You seem very determined to only see this as somebody trying to get away with something. That is indeed the thinking of someone who punches a clock. Trust me, the people who make the big bucks don't worry about that stuff. They don't care if you took an extra 15 minutes to finish your coffee on Monday morning. They care about results.</p>
<p>You missed the entire point of my post. My reference to an hourly paying job had absolutely nothing to do with the jobs one gets out of college. However, it DID have to do with the importance of the time you put into a job. </p>
<p>your 4 hour bus ride had nothing to do with results. Your performance had to do with results. If you want everyone to include the meaningless hours spent doing things then you are not gonna help your cause.</p>
<p>But hey, if you feel your way is correct, then I am always on call with my ambulance service, so should i multiply 24 hours a day by 365 days a year for 4 years and put that on my application?</p>
<p>What your post is essentially telling me is that your worried your activity alone doesnt show enough hours. So what you wanna do is fluff your hours so it looks like you have alot of time put in. Because really, if tyou were confident in your representation of the meaning of your activity to you, then time wouldnt be an issue to you now would it?</p>
<p>No, Doogie, I'm not worried about anything. I finished college in 1976. What your post tells me is that you just like to argue.</p>
<p>No, i just dont like dishonest people. And i was referring to the OP, btw.</p>
<p>The fact that several different points of view have been expressed in this discussion is good indication that the wording found on college applications is unclear. Arguments, many of them rational, have been made both for and against counting commute time.</p>
<p>Doogie, God bless you for your service to the community. The local ambulance crew has come to our family's assistance on more than one occasion, once saving my father-in-law's life. I send them a nice donation every year.</p>
<p>However, in your post #57, you seemed to me to be calling the OP a liar based on nothing other than their disagreeing with you on this issue. Perhaps that was not your intention, but that is how I read it. If you were thinking along those lines, please realize that some people get really annoyed by that sort of behavior and it can be a costly mistake to make in certain situations.</p>
<p>No thats not what i meant. I dont think the OP is a lier at all. I just feel its dishonest to include hours when people are, in a sense, just trying to fluff their application.</p>
<p>I have a strong feeling the OP knows that this may be dishonest or else he wouldnt be questioning whether or not he should add it.</p>
<p>But, thank you for pointing that out. I dont want to come across as making false accusation based on nothing at all.</p>