<p>I'm an international student and I was wondering how much time US students spend on volunteering every year.</p>
<p>NOTE: every year.</p>
<p>I've seen answers like 2000+ which is hard to comprehend. Unless for 4 years, but 500 hour a year is still a little intimidating for my standards (I involve in clubs very very much and have interships in the summer)</p>
<p>I think the answers will vary widely. My sons had one main gig they enjoyed over the summer, spending 100-120 hours on it. Ds1 was a Scout and accrued quite a few hours that way. And then there are Natl Honor Society-required hours, but that’s only about 30 hours a year and those summer hours can count toward some of those. I’d say ds1 spends about 200 hours a year volunteering.</p>
<p>how much you want to. Volunteering for the sake of an application comes off as fairly obvious. Do as many hours as you want</p>
<p>No colleges require students to have volunteered to be admitted. Most colleges factor volunteering into merit aid – at most. The relatively few colleges that use things like volunteering for admission are places like Harvard, which have so many applicants with high stats, that they can afford to use ECs, service, etc. to pick and choose from among such outstanding applicants. </p>
<p>When it comes to volunteering, what colleges like that care about is what you’ve accomplished by volunteering: how you affected others’ lives; how much money you made; what tasks you implemented, not how many hours you devoted to volunteering.</p>
<p>Since 8th grade I’ve enjoyed volunteering at my local public library for about 2 hours a week. That, combined with other short-term volunteer commitments I take on usually amounts to 120 hours/year.</p>
<p>Honestly, I don’t consider volunteering a big part of my life (or my application), and I don’t plan on putting any hours down on my app. </p>
<p>For some, there are other parts of their application and their lives that are much more meaningful than scattered community service hours (though I do know a few kids that are remarkable philanthropic–organizing Habitat builds, planning yearly Relay for Life walks). A few hundred undevoted hours is very easy to see through. </p>
<p>Where I have seen community service work effectively on an application is if a) it completely dominates a student’s extracurriculars or b) as a supplement to an incredibly time-consuming activity like debate, since service hours can be done outside of the busy school year and debate/whatever season.</p>
<p>Good points, glassesarechic. The volunteer work that is just done for the sake of being impressive seems a bit fake. If you decide to do a certain volunteer activity, it should be something that is actually relevant to you and that you actually want to do. I know a few people who dislike little children but they tutor because it gives them service hours. If you are going to do something like tutoring, do it because your heart is in it.</p>