How will colleges react to 3,000 hours of community service?? Will they be shocked? Positivity or negatively? Since 7th grade I have been volunteering at a therapeutic riding program, 4 or sometimes 5 days a week for 3 years, 1 or 2 days a week for last year and next year, plus many more hours in the summer. Do you think it could weigh in scholarship wise too? Thanks!
They will scratch their heads and ask, “When did this applicant have time to go to school?”
Was the volunteer work a way to get free riding time for yourself?
Don’t report the hours from middle school. On the application, they only care about 9th-12th grades.
In my town, there is a therapeutic riding place where my best friend’s daughter volunteered; her hours were not in the thousands, but still impressive and of course she wrote her essay on this. She swears it got her into the small liberal arts college in the south that she loves. Her academic record was a solid B with SATs in the 600’s and the equivalent of two APs. She was pretty much shut out of every selective and v selective university in state. But she did well with small colleges. I think 3000 hours will not get you into any college that you couldn’t have gotten into with 300 hours.
@Nerdyparent, when I think about how often I went, I really don’t know lol!! And
Agreed. List only HS hours, though you can describe your longtime commitment elsewhere.
Skeptically.
300 hours is good. 3000 hours says that you prioritize volunteering over academics, plus there’s a credibility issue.
You better have a recommendation from someone had the therapeutic center who’ll be able to document what you did.
Count only the hours from 9th to 12th grade. 300 is already very impressive.
If you have tippy top stats (32 ACT/1400 CR+M) it’ll put you in contention for the service-based scholarships that some universities have (Bonner scholars, Stamps…) Look at Centre College, for example.
If you divide it out over 5 years, it is about 50 hours per month. That isn’t unreasonable. Just report the high school hours. If it has crowded out all other ECs, it will make you seem pretty one-dimensional.
Yeah, I’d tone it down. As several posters have said, reporting thousands of hours isn’t going to help you more than hundreds of hours, even if you are going into a related field. And, it raises questions.
They may think you’re just a horse nut who included the hours she just hung out.
You need to ensure you have some balance in what you did- in the hs and in the community. And anything that moves you closer to you possible major. I think that’s the rub, not appearing to be so intensely devoted to one activity that they can’t count on you to take part in a variety or experiment with new interests. You really need to step back and assess the rest of what you did. That’s what they’ll likely do.