Help, no community service

<p>Okay, I'm a junior and i realized that i barely have any community service, i only have national honor society. I have other extracurriculars, but they are not related to community service. Is this okay?</p>

<p>Doesn’t NHS require community service hours?.. </p>

<p>Yes. I do community service for NHS, but its very little and not permanent. For example, one week, we might volunteer at a book drive, the next, we might help out around the school. It’s not like i am a volunteer at a soup kitchen or anything. is this okay?</p>

<p>I’m basically asking if its okay to not have any community service if you have other ECs</p>

<p>yes, it’s okay. What matters is that you’re involved in some activity, show commitment, responsibility, initiative, and passion.
It may be better if you took charge of <em>something</em> for NHS, perhaps a tutoring activity that you’d initiate, organize, staff with peers, and participate in from now on, but overall colleges don’t want to see 15 activities (in fact you’ll only have space for 10) they want to see a few, well-chosen, where you’ve shown who you are and been the best you can be. :)</p>

<p>Most colleges don’t weigh comm svc or any ECs. What schools are you targeting?</p>

<p>Keep in mind that out of the 3,000 or so 4-year colleges in the US EC’s are important for admission at only a small fraction. Perhaps the most selective 100 or so. You can see what factors matter in admission at schools you are considering by looking at their Common Data Set filings. Most students worry needlessly about EC’s when they’ll play only a small factor or not even be considered!</p>

<p>Even if ECs do matter at the schools you are thinking about, there is no requirement that you “have some community service”. That is one of the rumors that seems to make its way around the HS lunchroom, that if you haven’t shown that you “give back” you are out of the running. Yet Stanford, to give but one example, says

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<p>I think that as my children have gone through the college app process, there was more of an emphasis on service when applying for scholarships than there was in the actual college apps themselves. The colleges seemed more interested in what you did overall and what activities you were most involved in, whether they be sports, music, theater, science-related, etc. Some scholarships (both college funded and privately funded ones, big and small, national and local) sometimes explicitly are given for service work or accomplishments.</p>

<p>As long as you have ECs you are fine. Schools are not looking to have students who all do the same thing – some work, some do sports, some do community service etc. It is all good.</p>

<p>I am aiming for top 30 schools, cornell, northwestern, USC, etc i know these schools care about EC just wanted to make sure if it was okay to not emphasize community service</p>

<p>Thanks guys</p>

<p>If you have a healthy amount of other ECs, it shouldn’t matter too much. You have limited time to do things. </p>

<p>However, if you have very few ECs, it could hurt.</p>

<p>You still have time, why not volunteer a few Saturdays for something you feel passionate about?</p>

<p>Not all volunteer activities are long term. You’re going to get some here and there, a few hrs here, a few hrs there. Need more? Go to a homeless shelter and ask can you volunteer in the office, or in the kitchen. They are always looking for help. </p>