<p>I'm working at a church camp far away from my home this entire month. There is no cell service, aside from my weekly day off. I'm definitely going out of my comfort zone, as I'm essentially, well, "slave labor" as a crew member. </p>
<p>Anyway, I totaled it and it's 650+ hours from start to finish! This is fantastic, but will colleges look at this with skepticism?</p>
<p>Why would they be skeptical? It’s a new experience for you, and it’s certainly commendable that you’re pushing yourself to be away from home and take on new responsibilities and whatnot, but it’s not really all that unusual a thing for a teenager to volunteer at a summer camp.</p>
<p>So, how does this look on a college application? It looks as if you found something productive to do with your time during the summer. You volunteered to staff a summer camp. That’s way better than playing video games all summer or watching reruns of The Simpsons on the TiVo all summer, but it’s not dramatically different from having any other kind of summer job or going away for some other kind of residential summer program.</p>
<p>The number of hours is largely irrelevant. What matters is making a significant commitment to a particular organization or cause.</p>
<p>This is a great way to spend your summer, but don’t think your 650+ community service hours are going to do much for you. What’s important here is that (1) you spent your summer productively, and (2) you made a strong commitment to a particular community service organization.</p>
<p>I agree that this really isn’t that different from having a summer job (i.e., one you get paid for).</p>
<p>It may be greeted with skepticism. Volunteering within your own church won’t be seen as stepping out of your comfort zone. Some may see it more as a mini vacation, getting to hang out with your church friends in a camp setting.</p>
<p>To claim 650 CS hours for this strains credibility. Every waking and sleeping hour of you camp experience is serving community needs?</p>
<p>Tell that to someone who’s done “real” community service. Adcoms know the difference.</p>
<p>Well, yes, claiming 650 hours does seem like padding. After all, a 30-day month contains only 720 hours; a four-week camp session could contain at most 672 hours. It seems disingenuous to claim community-service for the time one spends sleeping.</p>
<p>But it really doesn’t make any important difference, because colleges don’t really care about the tally of applicants’ community service hours.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the OP should list this volunteer experience as “one month” or “four weeks,” and not bother with the number of hours anyway.</p>
<p>Lots of kids work at summer camps. You’ll have a great time and probably learn a lot about yourself, which is whats really important. For this to really matter to your application, you’ll need to write about the experience in an essay and explain why it is significant.</p>