So there’s a club at my school which is part of a larger organization (think deca, etc.) and I won the gold medal in volunteering at the national level. However, I do know there’s something called the PVSA (the Presidential Volunteer Service Award) that I can also potentially receive. The problem is, it’s not set up at my school and in order to set it up I have to talk to the club adviser who happens to be rude and short when talking to students. That brings me to the question— is it really that important? I mean, will it make a tangible difference on my resume, or is it sort of like a pat on the back? I’ve heard colleges are starting to lean more towards community service projects, and I’ve been volunteering with an organization for over 200 hours in the past year because it’s really meaningful and important to me. Getting recognized for what I do would be awesome but at the same time… I don’t want the award to be meaningless. What do you guys think?
If you get recognized may be nice, but what you do is way more important than any award your receive for it.
@MangoLover11223 I would totally consider it worth it, for a couple reasons:
- I researched the award, and I would consider any kind of presidential recognition to be a positive thing. I do think that it would make you stand out on college apps/resumes, as there will be few other applicants with the award
- It shows that not only did you do an impressive amount of volunteering, that others recognized it and that they felt it was valuable
- It would make an excellent addition to any future college essays that you want to write about your experience with volunteering
TLDR; I would totally go for it, I think you’ll regret not applying and it seems much better to have to leave things off a resume/college app because you don’t have enough room vs. not having enough things to write about.
Go for it.
And congrats, and thanks, for all of your volunteer work.