<p>One of the college applications asks to list all community service activities with details (dates, description). My son did one major semester long community service which took up the majority of his hours. He also did some one day activities and cannot remember the specific dates of these few hours here and there. I suggested that he just write down the major community service activity. Is it ok to just put down the major activity?</p>
<p>You gave your son good advice. Colleges are not interested in a laundry list of activities. You want to list activities that show commitment or accomplishment.</p>
<p>The high school transcript states # of community service hours. I think my son was concerned about a small gap between the one major community service project (around 50 hours) and the extra hours on the transcript. Is it ok to leave out some one day here and there community service hours? I think the concern is it being “honest” to leave out a few activities? Thanks so much.</p>
<p>Some colleges ARE interested in seeing the breadth of efforts an applicant made in community service! Showing only the one biggest school-sponsored activity could be interpreted as no desire to do anything beyond that tradition or requirement.</p>
<p>D1 had a smiilar situation, one huge committment and a large handful of relevant smaller activities. If D couldn’t remember exact dates, she put the month/year. Her bigger problem was activities that recurred at different times of the year. In that case, she noted x hours and “senior year” or 2008-2009.</p>
<p>My daughter hasn’t calculated this number yet, but I’m wondering if the number she puts down (likely 1000+) will look too high. She has been quite active in our church youth group and Girl Scouts during HS, participating in 2 weeks of home rebuilding work each year (easily 50+ each week), as well as earning her Gold Award (65+ on just the final project), not to mention all the routine food bank & soup kitchen and daily tutoring last year, plus she just signed on to teach 1st grade Sunday school.</p>
<p>I think that he should show both. The one major activity shows his commitment and the other hours will show that he is willing to try new things or help others with projects. </p>
<p>I also think that we are tending to over-analyze everything.</p>
<p>I’d be inclined to show both. Find a general term to bunch the activities. “Food drives”, “neighborhood cleanup”, “Habitat for Humanity days” whatever they were, and for the dates put the number of hours for the whole year.</p>
<p>S1, who did community service on a lot of projects but no one big activity (total ~150 hours), just listed them and gave the total # of hours. S2, who had a couple of activities with hundreds of hours, went into more detail on those two and left out the one-day gigs.</p>