<p>So last week I submitted my applications to the University of Chicago and UF, but I hadn't submitted my community service hours to my high school, and my sister is saying that now schools won't see that I actually did hours because it's not going to appear on my transcript. So I want to know, will me not having turned in my community service hours before applications were due screw me over?</p>
<p>No, as long as it was there somewhere in your application (like on the commonapp, you have to type the total time and hours spent anyway). All my school did was send grades - nothing else was on the transcript.</p>
<p>I don’t know of a single college or university where an applicant’s community service hours are an important part of the application.</p>
<p>Grades, test scores, teacher recommendations–these things are important. Essays are important, except sometimes at very large, very numbers-driven universities; even there, they often matter for honors programs, merit scholarships, etc. Extracurricular activities are sometimes fairly important, but mostly at pretty selective institutions. Community service hours in a college application? At most, they’re one kind of extracurricular activity, but not the only kind of extracurricular activity a student could be involved in.</p>
<p>Not that community service is without value. It has great value to the community being served. It just doesn’t matter all that much in college applications.</p>
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<p>[Community</a> Service Matters On College Applications | Ypulse](<a href=“http://www.ypulse.com/community-service-matters-on-college-applications]Community”>http://www.ypulse.com/community-service-matters-on-college-applications)
[Community</a> service matter when applying to college | Karen Dillard’s College Prep](<a href=“http://blog.karendillard.com/2011/06/09/why-community-service-matters-when-applying-for-college/]Community”>http://blog.karendillard.com/2011/06/09/why-community-service-matters-when-applying-for-college/)
[Community</a> service and college admissions: does it matter? - Washington DC College admissions | Examiner.com](<a href=“Examiner is back - Examiner.com”>Examiner is back - Examiner.com)</p>
<p>This is also what most of the people I have met say too. If gone about the right way, community service can do wonders to the community AND a college application.</p>
<p>Meep, I read those links. </p>
<p>Two of them report on the same finding by dosomething.org–an organization whose (perfectly laudable) objective is to get young people to volunteer in their communities. That’s not so much two independent opinions, as the same opinion expressed twice, and that opinion comes from a source with its own agenda.</p>
<p>Just about all of them say that colleges want to see applicants with significant, ongoing involvement in something. I still contend that the something could be community service, but it doesn’t have to be.</p>
<p>The DoSomething.org report says that community service ranks “in the top four factors,” along with GPA and class rank, standardized tests, and other extracurricular activities. (I find it odd that teacher recommendations are not on that list.) What the reports don’t say is the relative importance of those four things. Community service may be in the top four, but does it get anything remotely like the kind of emphasis that standardized test scores and grades do? I don’t think so, and these reports don’t say otherwise. Really, it wouldn’t make sense. What these colleges want first and foremost is to enroll students who will be successful students; their altruism may be an attractive quality, but by itself it’s not much of a predictor for academic success.</p>
<p>I agree that selective colleges and universities want to see that applicants are dedicated to something besides school work. I agree that sustained volunteer work would make a very good something. But it’s not the only possible something, and I remain convinced that it’s neither necessary nor sufficient for college admissions. In addition, I couldn’t say with any confidence that the kind of community service that the OP seemed to be talking about–recorded hours to satisfy a school-imposed community-service obligation–is going to carry any weight at all. After all, a school-imposed obligation isn’t exactly volunteerism.</p>
<p>Please understand, I am all for volunteering. I just remain highly skeptical that most students’ “volunteer hours” add much real value to their college applications.</p>
<p>There was a thread here this past summer (I think) started by an MIT Admissions officer. Basically my memory of it was that MIT doesn’t care about community service per se. (In other words the fact that you did 30 hours a year or something like that won’t make much of a difference.) However, if this is something that you have made a commitment to and it has been important, then it will be important to them.</p>
<p>^ Exactly. “Doing hours” says absolutely nothing about you as an applicant. A sustained commitment to serving with a particular organization or cause does. Just like joining 25 random school clubs doesn’t tell them much about you, but dedicating a significant amount of time and taking on responsibility and leadership in one club does.</p>
<p>Right, I didn’t mean to imply community service is the only activity possible, or carries as much importance as other aspects may, just that it would be significant * if * it demonstrates something key about the applicant - leadership, dedication, etc…(which, again, can be achieved with other extracurriculars). So yes, I agree, pure hours alone mean nothing, for the reasons pointed out above. </p>
<p>(hahaha my bad about the articles - that is embarrassing)</p>
<p>Huh…so we were actually on the same page all along? And I was picking nits? Sorry 'bout that, meep.</p>
<p>Same here man - I wasn’t too clear with wording.</p>