My girls both did Girl Scout Day Camp every year for years, which was 35 hours in one week, early in the summer, which was nice.
Regarding volunteer hours, D20 hasnât found many volunteer opportunities in our community for people under 18 years old. Perhaps itâs a liability thing? @lkim10 my D is also in the same boat - sheâs so busy at school with her other extracurriculars that she doesnât have enough time for NHS or other school activities with built-in volunteer hours.
New to the forum. DD20 in IB Diploma program. The stress of junior year is a real thing!
My D20 is in two sports as well. When her seasons are over she volunteers as a coach for younger kids in her sport (gymnastics, diving) and is the manager on the boyâs gymnastics team. Then, she has a significant volunteer/service trip over the summer each year that she has to help organize and fund raise a little bit during the school year.
That said, I wouldnât worry about NHS @Octagon. At all. Not. One. Bit.
Not suggesting any on this thread is doing this but how many people âfudgeâ volunteer hours? I always see on What are my chances thread volunteer hours that stretch believability.
@Nicki20 - I think there are definitely cases of volunteer hour inflation. My S20âs friends have done those overseas service trips and received credit for the entire program - including hours asleep, at the beach relaxing, etc. I think AOâs are most likely aware of it because it just seems so blatant.
@Nicki20, I hear you. I think itâs all about the timing/organization that is beyond a kidâs control.
D doesnât do sports, so she has time to do the following:
- 2-4 hours a week as assistant tennis coach for little kids (and a bit of exercise since again, no team sports)
- 2 hours a week at an immigration clinic (very convenient since the class she helps out meets at night 6-8 pm)
- 1 hour a week on weekends autism mentoship program at a local library, so short commute
- 8 hours (full day) every few Saturdays at an immigration event
- in the summer, she volunteered as a tennis coach for 20 hours a week, which was quite easy 8 to noon, but if sheâs already been 16, they would have paid her instead, so that would have been a job.
So the hours do add up. One of the problems with volunteering though is that most places allow/need help only 1-2 hours of volunteering a day (and often during weekday) and if you spend another 1-2 hours commuting there, it takes out just too much time.
Also, when kids list the hours, I wonder if they list only high school or middle school as well. At our aviation museum, a great kid I know has volunteered since he was 13 or maybe 12, every weekend 6-8 hours (two mornings), by early high school he already racked up 700 hours. Yes, he may not include those hours in common app, but if he gets a recommendation letter from the museum, it would say he volunteered for the last 6 years and contributed over 1000 hours of his free time promoting aviation, working with little kids, etc.
S20 has just one long lasting volunteer activity and that is the EMT. He does relay for life each year, but it is a short event. He started Dec 2017 on a 5 hours shift each Sunday plus 2 hours meeting/training per month. He spent 150+ hours (not counted as volunteering hours) last summer completing his training course, ER rotation and certification. After that he switched to a 4 hours weekday night shift. It can be a lot longer than 4 hours if a call happens right before the shift ends. This is year round and with no breaks except when he is sick or away on vacations. He will have a decent amount of volunteering hours even without the 150+ summer training. I think there are a good amount of kids volunteering at the squad, but I am not sure how many actually put in the efforts and commitment to become EMT certified.
@Nicki20 I wonder about this as well. We live about an hour outside a major city in an affluent area. There are just not a lot of volunteer opportunities for our kids. D20 also doesnât have her license. So for example, the closest Hospital to us is 20 minutes away. So it would take me 40 minutes round trip to drop her off and then another 40 to pick her up for volunteer hours. And they only offer 2 hour weekday shifts. I also have 2 other younger kids that I have to get to and from all of their activities. We have a food pantry in town but they almost always have too many volunteers and our animal shelter wonât take kids under 18. Our HS eliminated volunteer hours as a grad requirement several years ago as kids were really struggling to find things to do so many were fudging their hours. I honestly donât know how kids on this site do so many hours, esp in their freshman & sophomore years when they canât drive anywhere. I know there are some volunteer things they can do at home or on a computer but otherwise it almost seems like it would be the parents full time job to get them to and from all these activities.
Also wondering does volunteering make up for a lower GPA and test scores?
@Nicki20, definitely not, to your question above (#4429), except maybe in truly exceptional circumstances.
Almost certainly yes, to your question about kids fudging service hours, though I absolutely am not talking about people in this thread.
Here are two really important things to note: Generally speaking, the kinds of volunteer service that actually impress any holistic admission team in a differentiating sort of way are 1. service that connects in an important way to other aspects of the applicantâs story. That can cover a lot of ground, of course. And 2. service that the applicant has some agency in, as opposed to showing up and doing what someone else is telling them to do. Did the applicant see a need and work to meet it in some way? That can stand out.
Itâs not that volunteering at a food pantry, e.g., isnât valuable and worthy; of course it is. And it does speak to an applicantâs understanding that itâs important to do for others / help out in oneâs community. But 5000 hours of that vs 40 hours is not a differentiator. Itâs just a good thing to do.
Second, for many schools, you can go look for yourself at where they rank the importance of volunteer work. Itâs section C7 in their common data set.
And this has already been said upthread, but @Octagon and others, NHS is another thing thatâs nice, but not at all necessary. Some schools have it and some donât. (Some have Cum Laude Society and some donât.) Schools that do have NHS can customize it in whatever way they want, and college admission teams know that NHS at one school can look completely different from how it looks at another, in terms of the bar to get in, the bar to do what that chapter calls âservice,â and so on. It is not going to be a problem not to be a member of NHS.
@MAmom111 Age limit is a real problem. Most of the places near us require a minimum of age 16. D17 was younger in her class, she has to wait until Junior year to volunteer at our local specialty hospital. S20 is older in his class, so he started early sophomore year. For us, everything is at the town center, just 5 minutes away! We are very lucky!
@Nicki20 I donât think any ECs make up for lower GPA. Arenât test scores less important to begin with?
I think they are looking at how you spend your time when you arenât in school. Most applications ask how many hours per week for extra curricular activities, sports, community service, etc. They are trying to get an idea if you can balance life and school.
It was brought up as it relates to volunteering, but are there C20âs who will go off to college without a driverâs license? itâs crazy how many kids in our HS have âno interestâ in getting one. Is it because parents and friends drive them everywhere, or do they think Uber/Lyft will be even more ubiquitous in the years ahead? I do worry, but glad that both Dâs got their license as soon as they could.
@bigmacbeth, basically I agree that driving is a lifeskill, at least for now, and kids should learn to do it. Out of my three, I had one super reluctant, one eager, and one somewhere in the middle. We made them all learn.
On the other hand, there are lots of kids who live in areas where public transportation is abundant and easy to manage (and sometimes even reasonable in cost). Itâs easier to see why they donât feel the urge/interest.
Itâs definitely different from when I grew up, though.
@bigmacbeth I brought up that my D20 doesnât have her license yet. In her case she was in a bad accident freshman year and needs another ankle surgery at the end of this school year to hopefully get full mobility. She wanted to hold off on her license till after that was done.
@whataboutcollege My D20 started kindergarten early and skipped a grade. The having to be 16 for meaningful volunteer hours is going to bite us some. As she is wanting to go into nursing and our hospital wonât let her volunteer until she turns 16 (halfway through senior year). For now she is limited to church activities and NHS group activities.
About the volunteering - how do students keep track of the time they put in. In DS20âs school, there is no formal method or volunteer requirements. He is not in NHS. But he does volunteer separately - in something that he is most passionate about - robotics and competition math. He goes to 2 different middle/elementary schools to mentor/coach younger kids in competition math (mathcounts) and robotics programming. The teams he coached actually did really well in respective competitions. He put in a significant amount of time in this - the problem is that there are no formal hours recorded anywhere. He is doing it for the last three years and really loves it.
Is there something in the common app that he can give the number of hours? or how can he claim this genuine effort/time he put in. Any relevant advice will be helpful. TIA.
@hs2020dad There is nothing formal needed for the common app, either. The only semi-formal proof I ever remember is for joining NHS, and that was just a signature by someone in charge, and total hours. The common app asks for a description, any position/office held, the grades the student was in while participating, how many hours/weeks spent. No further proof necessary.
Thanks for mentioning the common data, I havenât seen that before. The thing for us is that my daughters first school choice is a safety school as far as getting in so the volunteer thing is a non issue for that. The issue for her is she really wants to get into the honors program and there is no real way to know what the exact criteria is for that. I wish they had a common data form for that! Her GPA and SAT scores are very good for the school and her ECâs are many and varied. So the two unknowns are her essay for the honors program and how they will consider other items like volunteer. She is going to start doing more this summer and into next school year, I guess there is nothing we can do to go backwards so hoping it wonât hurt her. In hindsight we should have made it more of a priority and we looked into options often but between her very busy and inconsistent schedule and me also needing to balance other daughter, my job and everything else it just always got put offâŠ