<p>Starting from ninth grade, I've kept a record of the community service hours I've done. I only record the time spent at the event. However, I'm talking with a couple of my friends, and they're also counting the amount of time planning the event as community service hours as well. Take this hypothetical example:</p>
<p>You're the president of Key Club. You work with, say, your local children's hospital for a carnival. You spend 6 hours getting everything ready (contacting members, working with the volunteer coordinator at the hospital, updating the Facebook page and the Key Club website, distribute flyers, etc.) The actual carnival is 2 hours. What do you write down as a record of your work? Would you say that you have 2 hours or 8 hours of community service from the event?</p>
<p>I’m putting 8 hours, because everything counts. Technically, the work you have done in preparation is still part of your EC/community service. I mean, counting the preparation, I have 2300 hours, but without it, I would probably only have 700 or 800 at the most, and I definitely put 2300 hours worth of work into it so, that’s what I’m going to go with.</p>
<p>I would add the prepation, since that’s really where the blood and tears comes in. Still, an exact log of the hours isn’t as important as your impact. Someone who spends 3,000 hours in a smattering of Key Club activities is much less impressive than someone who spent 25 hours organizing a fundraiser that raises $50,000 for cancer research.</p>
<p>Oh, this is mainly for scholarships and such where they explicitly ask you how many hours of community service you’ve done. It’s not really for college apps (I couldn’t think of a better place to put this, since the scholarship forum is kind of dead.)</p>
<p>I think we’ve reached a general consensus here - thanks for the responses! Really appreciate it (:</p>