<p>As things now stand, I have absolutely nothing to list in the "work experience" section of the Common App... I assume this is bad. I do a lot of committed volunteer work and various ECs, but have never worked for pay. Tutoring at my school is limited to "peer leaders" nominated by teachers through some nebulous process. I scored 800s on my CR/W/Lit SATs, so I'm thinking maybe I could offer English tutoring, outside of school? How does that work exactly? How/what do I advertise, when I have no teaching credentials? I come from an Asian immigrant family and my parents never expected me to work or do chores--school is my job. I don't have time this summer or senior year for a min-wage job; I need flexible hours and I don't have a car (also live in the suburbs with nonexistent public transportation).</p>
<p>Parental tips on creative ways of gaining work experience?</p>
<p>(Actually, the perfect part-time job would be college consultant... I love researching colleges. But seeing as I have zero credentials or credibility, that's rather unlikely.)</p>
<p>I can tell you LOTS of people around here (including the ones that go to HYPSM) have no work experience. While it may be unusaual in your area, you’re not going to be the only one.</p>
<p>My son’s work experience was back in his HS freshman year when he tutored at a middle school. He skipped work between his Jr./Sr. years because he did a summer program at a university in the state. He had the same dilemma as you with no work experience on the Common App. I don’t know if it hurt him, but he was accepted to the college of his choice. I think if you are able to show you did something over the summer, you’ll have no problems with the application. If you think you need work experience, check with your HS to see if they offer peer tutoring, either paid or unpaid. You could do this over your senior year and put it on the app.</p>
<p>^ Peer tutoring at my school is run through and limited to “peer leaders”–which I have not be designated–so any tutoring I do would have to be outside school or “unofficial.” Thus, I’m not really sure how I’d advertise; most of my friends are high achievers who don’t need tutoring.</p>
<p>You don’t have to fill in every blank. Most college-bound students have no work experience. Most colleges don’t even consider things like ECs, work experience into admission consideration. What most colleges care about is gpa, courses, and scores.</p>
<p>If you don’t need to work, you are fortunate. Spend your free time doing what interests you.</p>
<p>k,
I don’t necessarily see the lack of working experience as a bad thing, when you have such committment to your EC’s and Volunteer work you mentioned. Your committed volunteer work/EC is probably already pretty heavy, which means no room for you to have a “paid job” to get working experience. Afterall work experience can be considered volunteering, you are just not getting paid.</p>
<p>With that said, if you are involved in a sport eg, basketball, swimming, etc, get your certification and become a life guard, referee etc. Somehow, I’m not worried about you having any issues in the admission process for NOT having info for the workexperience section…:-)</p>
<p>This is one of the areas that many Asian students seem to fall short of. If you have quality volunteer work experience I would not be too concerned however, I often see this lacking with Chinese and Indian students. I am also tuned in to the attitude of I don’t have time for a minimum wage job. It is an attitude that speaks for your time management skills as well as your work ethic.</p>
<p>How about babysitting? That would be work experience, and at least in my neck of the woods, it pays better than minimum wage ($10/hr even for young teens). You might be able to find school age kids who you could babysit and tutor at the same time. Kids I know who’ve wanted to babysit have put flyers in mailboxes and posted ads at the local grocery store.</p>
<p>Frankly, with your 800 scores and your not needing to work, if what you want is advice on how to impress colleges, you could do so by spending your summer volunteering by tutoring immigrants, children or other people who need help, but can’t afford to pay for it. You’d be of great benefit and also would learn many things about other people, yourself, and the world in general – things that would impress colleges, if you’re able to convey that info in interviews and in your essay.</p>
<p>I know Keix is no sports fan ;), so ref’ing, etc, is probably not an option. Both my boys have been working since seventh grade ref’ing and ump’ing. It’s a great part-time job as the hours are flexible and pay is pretty good around here.</p>
<p>If you’re really concerned about leaving that blank, I’d do the tutoring. Because the point is to have something on your app rather than to really make money, you could low-ball the charge. Around here, tutors make anywhere from $25-$60/hour depending on subject and level. All you’d need is one client to make it legit, and if you were willing to be flexible, like going to the elementary school and tutoring while the child is in the afterschool daycare program, well, piece of cake.</p>
<p>I know you are a strong candidate, so I’m not sure it’s necessary, although I disagree with NSM in that around here most kids I know work.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about your lack of work experience; it’s just one small part of your application and many students your age have not had a paying job. In fact, with the high unemployment rates these days, I suspect the percentage of college applicants without work experience is going to be even higher than usual this fall.</p>
<p>But do try to get involved with some volunteer/community service activities if you haven’t already.</p>
<p>All that matters is that you use your time productively. If you volunteer and do other meaningful things, it does not matter that you have no work experience.</p>
<p>Relax!!!
There is no penalty to not having work experience. You do have plenty of EC’s and volunteer experience to mention. My son had no “work experience” but lots of focused EC’s [all non athletic] that showed his interest and commitment to both school and non-school related activities and interests.</p>
<p>Since I “know” you from another more lengthy thread, I’ll also concur that a blank on this part of the application shouldn’t hold you back. Here, I’ll provide a suggestion that I wish my S would have run with. I forget what foreign languages you have skill with, but what I suggested to him (and it wouldn’t have been too hard, since a close neighbor down the street is tied in with the low income Hispanic community here due to her nursing admin job) was to tutor some lower income Hispanic students for gratis. For him, I suggested math. For you, perhaps English. If the teachers aren’t predisposed into providing you the “peer tutor” deisgnation (gee, what hoops do you need to jump through … our HS was thrilled to have my S on the math tutor roster) the least they could do is give you a strong reference for your own self-started tutoring service.</p>
<p>Here’s another EC volunteer idea, if you like bicycling. Get a group of students together and talk to the local fire department. Tell them you’d like to hook into the Community Emergency Response Team network. (We have these in SoCal for the obvious reason, earthquakes.) If you don’t have one, ask if you can help form one with the bicycle group. Betcha the fire guys will be impressed and offer you some training, too.</p>
<p>Okay, that’s my 2 cents for the day. Times up. :D</p>
<p>I think a lot of colleges use work experience in combination with or as an alternative to ECs. Some applicants have impressive ECs but little or no work experience. Other kids have few or no ECs but have logged substantial work hours to help support themselves and their families, or to save for college, or because they come from families and cultures that value work over leisure and regard most ECs as frivolous luxuries. A few have worked in positions of considerable responsibility, demonstrating a certain maturity and leadership quality in the process. </p>
<p>Most colleges aren’t terribly concerned with either ECs or work experience. Most of the elite colleges (the ones you’re considering) do look for strong ECs as evidence of well-roundedness, outside-the-classroom talents, and active “do-er” personality types—the kids they think will contribute most to a vibrant and interesting campus environment. But emphasizing ECs without considering work experience tends to introduce a systematic class bias in favor of kids from more affluent backgrounds who can afford a lot of pricey ECs and don’t have to work. As a result, many top colleges now focus on work experience along with ECs, and some now say they value work as much as ECs. But if your ECs are strong, I wouldn’t worry about it.</p>
<p>My daughter had no work experience but plenty of ECs. </p>
<p>My son had plenty of work experience but no ECs after his freshman year.</p>
<p>Both got into their first choice colleges.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about it. It’s not necessary for every student to have every experience that might possibly be listed on the Common App. It’s just necessary to have done something outside of school. Some people have done many different things – including both paid work and conventional ECs. Some are more one-sided. No big deal.</p>
<p>My D also has zero work experience, zero sports participation beyond 5th grade, and her main community service, if you can call it that, is singing in the church choir, which she enjoys, is probably more like an e.c. She is overloaded with e.c’s, some of which are expensive, and she has zero time during the school year for a job/volunteering, and the summer isn’t much better either. </p>
<p>It is what it is, and I don’t see how she can manufacture work or volunteer experience.</p>
<p>I suggest you should just present yourself to colleges as you are, and let the chips fall as they may.</p>
<p>momma-three: Is there a minimum-wage job that would let me work for 3 weeks this summer, take 6 weeks off right in the middle, then work for another 3 weeks before going back to school for a hectic senior year? Are there minimum-wage jobs–especially in this economy–that would allow me to work only weekends, and even then take off one entire weekend every other month? (Scheduling restrictions are caused by TASP, lack of transportation, and a significant division-level commitment to Key Club, respectively.) I’m not opposed to minimum-wage jobs–I’d love to earn spending money instead of awkwardly begging my parents when I want to splurge on something–and frankly, I’m not qualified for not-minimum-wage jobs.</p>
<p>Babysitting is a possibility, although I’m not the best with kids. I would love to tutor immigrants (or volunteer college counseling for them–I do that already for my friends). Sports are out as YDS so insightfully predicted; I don’t play any, don’t plan on playing any, and will be OK with however that affects college admissions.</p>
<p>My question for the wise parents here, though, is–HOW? None of my close friends work and my parents have no idea how this part-time job thing goes. What are some methods of finding people who need help/services? I do NOT have access to a car or public transportation, so it would have to happen at school (mom will pick me up but isn’t going to chauffeur me places), after-dinner at night (but I already do homework until midnight most days), or on the weekends when I can drive my dad’s car. I live in a middle-class surburb and probably wouldn’t be allowed to drive into the city even if I had a car (only child for 11 years, parents are…protective).</p>
<p>Situation is rather complicated. Chances are that I’ll just hope for the best without work experience–I do have strong ECs and committed community service in lieu–but I want to get some ideas for how to send out feelers. Applying for a regular job is simple enough in conception, but how does one “network” for informal-type jobs?</p>
<p>Honey, once again, relax. Your plate is plenty full [ TASP! Wow! congratulations!that program is HARD to get into!! ] and you do NOT need to try to find a job this summer in order to “impress” colleges! Your application will show you are busy this summer with involvement in your community [ Key Club] AND in your continued commitment to advancing your education [TASP]. You don’t have to try to be supergirl.</p>
<p>Absolutely agree with Northstarmom - tutoring underprivileged kids or volunteering at a non-profit ESL school for adult immigrants/helping with citizenship classes would be a great experience since you indicated that you’d enjoy doing these kinds of things. There is usually no shortage of ads on volunteermatch dot org for these types of positions.
Local libraries might have ads for volunteer tutors/homework helpers (e.g., our county library system has so-called “Study Zones”).</p>
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<p>Congrats on getting into TASP. I agree with you - it is hard to find those types of positions that would allow this type of flexibility. My D was lucky and managed to do just that - work for two weeks in her home state, then go back to her school for a job/internship, than she’ll be back working in our home state for two weeks. She had no prior work experience, just volunteering, and it did not preclude her from being a competitive college applicant.</p>