<p>I'm top 3% at my extremely competitive school. 2200 SAT. 790 on SAT II Math II and Physics. One problem, I don't have any volunteering hours. Is this going to matter a lot?</p>
<p>It probably depends a lot on which schools you are applying to</p>
<p>Pretty much only schools that are ranked top 50 nationally. HYPSC, MIT, Caltech (those are reach). CMU, UCLA, Berkeley (matches, at least I think so.)</p>
<p>I think your lack of volunteer hours may hurt at HYPSC and MIT. I think you should be fine for the other schools b/c only the very top universities look heavily upon community service.</p>
<p>can you define heavily? as in, should I bother applying?</p>
<p>“We neither privilege nor ignore community service. The thing we are looking for outside the classroom is not a series of check boxes on a resume; were looking instead for a high level of engagement or leadership in whatever it is that the student cares about most. For some students, community service is at the forefront of their extracurriculars, in which case we pay a lot of attention to what they have accomplished in that area. For other students, some other passion or interest holds primary sway, and we evaluate the engagement in that area. We know that very few students can fully engage more than one or two primary activities at a high level. Though it is fine for a student to have varied interests, a significant number of students make the common mistake of spreading themselves too thinly in a resume-building exercise.” - Jeff Brenzel, Yale</p>
<p>[Q</a>. and A.: College Admissions - Questions/Answers Blog - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://questions.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/qa-college-admissions/]Q”>Q. and A.: College Admissions - The New York Times)</p>
<p>Yeah, I think you can compensate for your lack of community service if you have 2-3 other ECs that you are very dedicated to. Otherwise, those top schools might be a pretty big reach unless you have stellar academics, a hook, or something of that sort.</p>
<p>Top schools are a reach for nearly everyone, even those with community service, and especially for those who do community service only for the sake of a college app, which can be very transparent.</p>
<p>A visiting regional representative from Princeton said that community service is treated like any other EC. Forced and minimal involvement is frowned upon (shows lack of dedication, “stacking” for resume, etc) while deep commitment and achievement is applauded.</p>
<p>Volunteering is like any activity–if you volunteer, don’t be fickle and transparent about it. If you don’t volunteer, don’t worry; hopefully you invested your time wisely with other significant extracurriculars.</p>
<p>thanks for the solid advice guys.</p>