<p>I recently got a traffic ticket a few months ago and after going to court, I decided I will do Community Service to pay the ticket off. The judge gave me 33 hours of community service to do in my area, and heres my question.</p>
<p>Am I able to put this community service as an EC in my UC application? From this community service, I am given the option to tutor kids/help the elderly/clean the enviroment/etc. Will the UC accept this as EC? I'm worried it may look bad since I'm doing this to pay off a traffic ticket, but I also wanted to to do it for experience. I could've paid off the ticket but chose this route instead cause I figured I had to to community service sooner or later. And my last question will the UC even know that its to pay off a traffic ticket?</p>
<p>Truthfully forced community service isn’t really community service. Other people do it for the betterment of their community and, the answer is no i wouldn’t put in on your application</p>
<p>That’s not an accomplishment – it’s clever exploitation. You saw an opportunity to exploit your otherwise unfortunate situation and you took it. Would you have done community service had you not received the traffic ticket?</p>
<p>I would avoid referencing this on your application. Instead, reference anything you’ve done that’s self-initiated.</p>
<p>Yes you’re right, I think what I’m going to do is work beyond the 33 hours which the court ordered me to, and after those 33 hours are done that means the next hours would be truly for the community. Thanks for you answers!</p>
<p>I personally think your community service would count to some extent, although I would STRONGLY suggest you to be truthful on the application and let them know that you did the service to pay off the ticket. HOWEVER, you could then expand on this and explain that you could have paid this ticket off, but chose the community service because you felt you owed society back and were remorseful of your actions (how good of a job you do of making a convincing statement would depend entirely on you, of course). Your honesty would be appreciated by the admissions personnel and they may even give you some credit for being forthright. You might even go one step further and use it to your advantage by incorporating this in your essay somewhere to show the “lesson” you learned from this incident.</p>
<p>FYI, to reply to others who have posted on here, using this to his/her advantage is definitely not exploiting a situation, as long as they are TRUTHFUL on the application about the circumstances surrounding the incident. Do you really think all these others who come on these boards bragging and claiming to have joined a million different clubs have done it because of a sincere passion for what they’re doing?? Yeah right! :rolleyes: Maybe 1 or 2 %, if that, do it because they truly want to. Most of these people (including many I know at my community college) do this solely to embelish their applications.</p>
<p>Think of it this way, some high schools require students to perform 100 hours of community service to graduate; I haven’t seen that stop anyone from putting the hours on the UC application.</p>
<p>You have to work out with your conscience whether you should indicate you performed the community service to pay off a parking ticket. But remember that the UCs only require you to indicate the community service hours and you have no obligation to disclose under what circumstances you performed such hours.</p>
<p>OK, I was not exactly sure how one reports these items on the application. If it is the case that you’re under no obligation to disclose the circumstances of the incident, and all they want to know is if you performed community service, I would revise my suggestion and agree with the previous post - that is to weigh the situation and respond in a manner most helpful to you (while making sure you have satisfied your conscience)</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your inputs! I am glad that this situation may be beneficial to me as I originally thought. Today I performed 4 hours of service tutoring and reading to kids and it was a lot of fun. I’m having a great experience and I will surely work past the 33 hours I was suppose to do anyways; I may even add this experience to my personal statement. Thank you everyone.</p>
<p>Glad it may turn out to be positive, UCSDIsMyGoal. If you end up talking about it in your personal statement (a great idea), make sure you emphasize what a rare and unique experience it is and how much it’s unexpectedly affected your life. If you can do it with a straight face, you might also include how that traffic ticket was -the- turning point in your life, and looking back, you can clearly see that it was the work of the Lord.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, the Volunteer & Community Service section asks:</p>
<p>For what organization did you volunteer?
During which high school years were you involved?
How much time did you devote to the organization?
Briefly describe the organization and your responsibilities.</p>
<p>You are not required nor prompted to explain WHY you are volunteering.</p>