<p>For my summers, one summer I spent a lot of time giving guitar lessons to sick kids at Ronald McDonald house and even got a guitar donated to it.</p>
<p>Another summer I went to Costa rica to help build schools for sick kids (it was an expensive school trip though...)</p>
<p>and this summer I'm doing a lot of stuff with EyeCare for the homeless in houston.</p>
<p>I wasn't doing this for the college app, it's actually really fun, cool, and rewading.</p>
<p>but I've been reading that the colleges want to see consistency for all 4 years or something like that.</p>
<p>All of my summers had to do with helping less priveliged people,
but I wasn't really very consistent working with just one organization. Is that going to count against me, my "inconsistency," even though what I did with my summers is all linked to a common theme (I also did stuff like this during the school year too).</p>
<p>actually, I think these will deffinitly work in favor of you. sure, it's not the exact same thing each summer, but that's boring. you did something each time that helped a different group of people, and you should explain that on your application.</p>
<p>God, you've ruined your chances at any good school by doing what you did -- three different activities over three summers; what, were you nuts? Didn't anyone tell you before? Man, are you screwed!!</p>
<p>Psh! Helping other people? With different organizations? Colleges only care about community service if it's done with the same organization! They don't care about the fact that you helped people all four years, they only care that it's "consistent." Duh! Man, look forward to community college.</p>
<p>This is ridiculous. Of course you're fine. And this forum is becoming almost repulsive (not your fault, trust me) in that it breeds such an epidemic of paranoia and worry among its members. I ONLY have 500 hours of community service. My chances are shot! People need to get a grip. Even the elite college adcoms would probably be freaked out by some of the posters here.</p>
<p>Colleges are not expecting that you will do the same thing for 4 years. They know that h.s. is an excellent chance for exploration. There will be activities that you'll drop and will add as you become more aware of the kinds of activities that you enjoy.</p>
<p>The relatively few (Yes! With the exception of varsity athletics like football and basketball, most colleges don't factor ECs into admission. At most, ECs are factored into merit aid) colleges that factor ECs into admission want to see some depth in the ECs. This means that they want to see more than club memberships (which typically indicates only that a person has paid membership dues or showed up for a meeting) or scattered hours of the kind of community service that indicates that a person was trying to get hours, not trying to make a difference.</p>
<p>Your service seems wonderful. Seems like you like to work with people to make a difference, and have done that admirably and consistently.</p>
<p>I was thinking about writing my essay about my relationship with the menatally disabled kid I was partnered with during Challenger little league (we help little kids play baseball).</p>
<p>We became friends, and eventually he started calling me "mr. john" and then I started to examine whether or not it's actually non-mentally disabled humans who are the mentally disabled ones, as my challenger buddy was friendds with everyone and never was jealous or said a single mean word, while humans are prone to hate, jealousy, etc.</p>