<p>I volunteer at my local campaigning office, where I phone bank and going door to door to conduct surveys. I heard from somebody that colleges do not count political work as volunteering hours. Is this true?</p>
<p>I would count it as an EC but not volunteer work (IMO).</p>
<p>I see. Just out of curiosity, why don’t you consider it as volunteering work?</p>
<p>Categorization in either is irrelevant. Either is equally viewed. And the vast majority of US Colleges don’t evaluate either.</p>
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That’s not necessarily true. I’ve seen volunteering listed separately in some CDSs.
Very True.</p>
<p>IMO I don’t consider it volunteering because it’s not a charity or 501 C3 organization.</p>
<p>I think it would be a mistake to call all volunteering charity work, but thanks for your opinion.</p>
<p>I also would consider it more of an EC. Volunteering implies doing something selfless and not getting anything out of it. But if you’re working on a campaign it’s probably fair to assume that you’re trying to help YOUR side win. If they win, you benefit through politicsl leadership you agree with so it’s not as selfless as volunteer work is usually seen as.</p>
<p>I think it’s fair to call it community service/volunteering work. You can benefit in some way for your service and it still counts. For example, if you volunteer to pick up litter from a local beach, you benefit from having a cleaner, safer beach. It’s still community service. And while the OP will benefit from the policies of your candidate, they won’t benefit from “political leadership”, as I doubt a high school volunteer will play a leadership role in the candidate’s administration. If you have a college application that asks you to list community service, list the name of your organization (“Smith for Congress”) or whatever and the admissions office will judge it in that context.</p>
<p>^I tend to agree. There aren’t many other names you would give to people who come in on their free time to do grunt work other than volunteers. And also, I don’t think many high school students like myself even have political stances or are doing it for political reasons.</p>
<p>I agree with Lagging. the political work is a legitimate EC, but it’s not volunteering. Your aim here is to help your side win, not working for something that could be unbiasedly considered “good.” For example, volunteering at a hospital is almost universally considered to be a good thing. Whether siding with a campaign is good or bad is subjective. And you’re personally getting something out of it (seeing your side win, even if you aren’t awarded with political positions).</p>
<p>@devrybound believe me, many high schoolers have political stances and some do get involved based on those stances</p>
<p>@devrybound why did you ask the question when all you do is disagree/argue with everyone who doesn’t agree with you? 3:1 ratio for EC vs service. It probably doesn’t really matter what you put it as, but IMO comes off as a little self-riteous for it to be volunteer work. If it was a one-time thing maybe it owuld be more understandable to not count as an EC (therefore default to volunteering) but because you seem dedicated it would make more sense as an EC.</p>
<p>Stressedoutt put it maybe a little better. When I said “political leadership” I meant that you would agree with more of the executive decisions made. Your party would be in charge and generally you’re part of the party because you agree with them more than the other guys. You directly benefit more than, say, feeding the homeless.</p>
<p>Yes, it is volunteering! You could argue it is not community service, since it is not for a charity or other 401(c)3 organization, but that does not mean it’s not volunteer. An unpaid internship is also a volunteer position, though it might or might not be community service, depending who it is for. If you volunteer for the animal shelter, and help get word out about a proposed ordinance related to stray animals, are you no longer a volunteer?</p>
<p>The trick is to understand the difference between volunteerism and community service. If the application asks for volunteerism (unpaid work), list what you did for the campaign. If they ask about community service, find somewhere else to list it.</p>
<p>@lagging - if you reread my posts over carefully, you’ll see that I haven’t disagreed with anybody even once, at least not regarding the question I had asked.</p>
<p>Also, don’t think that I’m trying to defend my own wishful thinking. technically, i was hired as an intern, and will put as so on my college apps. I was just wondering why some people don’t consider it to be volunteer work.</p>
<p>Campaign work is absolutely volunteer work. And can be hard work which requires a great deal of commitment to an idea bigger than yourself. What colleges are looking for in listing volunteer work is are you willing to commit yourself to something for a greater good, be it to end food shortages in your community by handing out cans of beans or by working to elect people who you believe will end hunger world wide through their actions.</p>
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<p>Limiting “volunteering” to this narrow definition eliminates whole swaths of things we normally consider volunteering. Being a Boy Scout Leader, church activities, heck there are even people who considered Mother Teresa’s mission to be wrong.</p>
<p>^^ Yep. I think volunteering can be a broad spectrum of different things. The most important thing to remember is that volunteering is just freely offering to help someone or do something.It doesn’t matter what motives someone has for doing them, it’s still volunteering.</p>
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<p>I have to disagree with you there. I work 4-5 hours a day 3 days a week endlessly making phone calls to cranky old people. I get no personal benefits from doing this besides the occasional free lunch meals.</p>
<p>For the record, I believe the whole country will benefit if my candidate wins, but that’s not the point. I will not personally benefit from my candidate winning. Yes, I will derive a sense of satisfaction if my candidate wins, and it will save me from having to throw ping pong balls at the TV for the next four years, but other than that, I won’t benefit in any way except by the knowledge that I’ve improved society in some way.</p>
<p>I take offense at the suggestion that I’m not really a volunteer, or that what I do isn’t service. I don’t have a cushy job. I worked full-time over the summer as a volunteer for this campaign and still work four days a week, three or more hours per day. My only reward is an occasional special event where I might work for 8 hours, in return for which I get to stand against the wall in the overflow room and maybe hear a tiny part of a speech if I strain my head. I make hundreds of phone calls a day. I sometimes spend hours going door to door, always in 90 degree heat and sometimes in the rain. And I’ve probably registered hundreds of voters–how is that not a community service? If someone can volunteer for their church, which might promote views that are as controversial as those of any political party, and call it service, why shouldn’t I be able to do the same for my work for a candidate I believe in?</p>
<p>no one saying that working on a campaign isn’t hard work. I think a lot of people here see it as a good, legitimate EC. “volunteer” and “good EC” isn’t synonymous. </p>
<p>I think working on a political campaign is a great thing to do, but I don’t consider it volunteering, because there is an aspect of it that’s for you. it’s like how you wouldn’t say donating money to a campaign is the same as donating money to charity.</p>
<p>anyways, OP, obviously this is debatable, but the answer doesn’t really matter. it won’t change the way you present it on your app. and colleges don’t care whether you have volunteering as an EC anyways. they just want legitimate ECs which you are dedicated to, and this counts as one, whether people count it as volunteering or not.</p>
<p>I still don’t see how I personally will benefit from my work for a political campaign any more than other volunteer work would. It’s true that this election will affect me personally, as it may affect factors like how I pay for college, whether I can find a job, etcetera, but that’s not why I’m volunteering, and I don’t know a single campaign volunteer who does what they do for selfish reasons. I do this because I believe in my candidate and what he stands for. Even if I were in a position where his positions wouldn’t directly affect me, I would still do this for the betterment of society.</p>
<p>Besides, volunteering can benefit someone personally and still be considered a community service. If I clean litter off my streets, I benefit from a cleaner street. If someone were to run a marathon to fund medical research they could benefit from, I’d still consider that community service. If I volunteer to improve my local library, I would benefit from it but it’s still community service. If I volunteer to paint a mural in a public space, I benefit from its beauty as much as the next person. If I volunteer for a program that helps at-risk youth that results in a markedly reduced crime rate, I benefit from having fewer criminals around. If I clean up a lake and then swim in it, I benefit. But all of these things still serve the larger community more than any one person, so they still count as community service.</p>
<p>And there is really no parallel between donating to a campaign and volunteering. Money buys a certain amount of influence over an elected official (although some are certainly more beholden to large donors than others) whereas volunteering almost never does. Trust me when I say that in approximately a year of volunteering, the total of my personal benefit has been a couple of free bumper stickers, a White House Christmas card, tickets to a couple of campaign stops where I could almost maybe catch a glimpse of my candidate’s face, a free Starbucks as a thank you from a staff member for entering his data, and plenty of heartfelt thank-yous from supporters. My sister volunteers at an animal shelter once a week and gets more “perks” than I do.</p>