Someone told me that in order to be accepted to Ivy League caliber schools, you MUST have at least 40 hours of community service hours per school year, and those hours MUST be received in gradual increments and not like all at once (ex: a two-day trip to Africa would not count because it’s just a one-time event and not continuous)
Can someone verify this? Thanks
Harvard had no community service hours requirement. Don’t believe everything you hear. Use the college’s website to obtain information like this firsthand.
As @skieurope points out, Harvard has published no such requirement, and I know of no other school that has a CS hour requirement.
Even so, it’s a valid question. Theoretically, a school could have this as an unofficial, unpublished requirement. But my kids have friends with much less than 40 CS hours/yr who’ve been accepted by, off the top of my heard, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Duke, and Brown.
I’d file this one as a myth.
Agreed. My kids had absolutely no community service hours on their resume – zero, zilch, none – and it didn’t stop them for being accepted to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Pomona, Northwestern, Wesleyan, Vanderbilt and several other colleges.
FWIW: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/education/09communityservice-t.html
“Someone” is passing along baloney to you.
My two sons each did 40 hours over the course of four years (not per year), didn’t bother to note that on their applications, and got into Harvard.
Another thing I’d like to add: hours mean next to nothing. My kids were both commited to their own self started CS projects and both were nationally recognized as Prudential Spirit of Community Award winners. But neither reported their CS hours on their college applications; they were never asked about hours; and both were accepted to their first choice schools.