<p>I have a decent amount of ecs such as founding 3 clubs and holding leadership positions in all of them including Honor Society.</p>
<p>I have around 20 hours of community service</p>
<p>Is community service really important in college admissions. I looked at the UW application and there was no real space for community service or extracurriculars so how do colleges even know.</p>
<p>Appreciate Feedback.</p>
<p>They become a big factor for most selective admissions because students look to differentiate themselves (a “hook”). </p>
<p>The are also a bigger factor for some scholarship apps that are looking for leadership. </p>
<p>For less competitive schools probably not as important. </p>
<p>Is UW University of Wisconsin ? Which schools are you looking at ?</p>
<p>ahhh seahawksfan. Sorry should have guessed Washington.</p>
<p>Thanks for info.</p>
<p>By UW, i meant University of Washington, Seattle.</p>
<p>I am looking at some selective schools as well such as JHU, WUSTL, UCLA, Stanford</p>
<p>Can you chance me here mitch.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1547160-jhu-ucla-uw-chance-please.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1547160-jhu-ucla-uw-chance-please.html</a></p>
<p>SeahawksFan, there are about 2500 universities and 4-year colleges in the U.S. With that many institutions, you gotta figure there’s going to be some variation, right?</p>
<p>Most of those universities and colleges aren’t very selective. If you meet their academic criteria for admission, you’ll be admitted. Those schools don’t care one whit about extracurricular activities. But, not entirely coincidentally, hardly anybody on College Confidential ever talks about them. When’s the last time you saw someone post, “Chance me for Northwestern Oklahoma State”? (No offense intended, NWOSU Rangers.)</p>
<p>A relatively small number of those universities and colleges get more applicants who are academically well qualified than they have room for on their campuses. They don’t have enough beds in the dorms, enough desks in the classrooms, enough space in the libraries, enough professors, etc. They need some way to choose among the students who are academically suitable, but since they’re all academically well qualified, academic credentials aren’t going to be helpful. This is why some colleges and universities care about your extracurricular accomplishments. Knowing already that they can populate their campus with students who are good enough academically, they have the luxury of creating an interesting mix of races and cultures, of socioeconomic backgrounds, of scientists and artists and historians, of jocks and musicians and debaters and social activists, etc. They use your extracurriculars to help them build an interesting class from among the applicants who are academically suitable.</p>
<p>I don’t know of any college or university that cares about community-service hours specifically. I know a lot of high school students believe that community-service hours matter. It’s an urban legend. The only exception is this: if you’re applying to some selective schools that care about extracurricular activities and accomplishments, and if you’re trying to portray yourself to them as a do-gooder, then and only then the amount of time you’ve spent doing various kinds of good might be relevant. But even then, what you’ve accomplished will be of greater interest than the number of hours it took you to accomplish it.</p>