<p>I only have a few service ECs: volunteer at hospital for a year, monitor and help little kids do arts and other activities for a month(for free obviously), but</p>
<p>I have a couple more academic ECs: 2nd place in county physics competition(honors level), USABO semifinalist, U of MD chemathon (in a few months but I think I'll win something), will take USAChO(will probably get past first level at least), will take USAPhO(next year when I take AP Physics), and competitive internship at NIH (during summer and senior year).</p>
<p>How many service EC's is enough? I could probably do 2 more during the summer, or should I not worry?</p>
<p>depends on what grade you're in</p>
<p>Colleges prefer dedication to a few activities rather than superficial activity in many. I suggest sending rec letters from your supervisors at the hospital and the internship as a supplement. :)</p>
<p>One thing I've been reading and hearing from people in the know (adcoms etc.) is that level of service involvement is not nearly as important as community impact. It's easy to confuse those two things, but they're not the same. As an example of "community impact," I'd mention an old student of mine who started an ASL (American Sign Language) club as a freshman in high school (even though she was a recent immigrant to the U.S. with limited English), grew the club to 60+ members by her junior year, and created a major new outreach to the deaf community during her senior year. That's an example of powerful community impact--not only her school, but also several neighoring schools and organizations, were affected by the things she got done while President of her club. In my experience, that type of community impact is absolute money in the bank when you're applying to college (this student got into a top-30 school with something like a 3.3, for instance, something I've never seen before except with athletes and other flags). But you can see how powerfully it contrasts with the typical my-school-makes-me-do-sixty-hours-of-community-service-every-year level of involvement. Callous as it sounds, my experience (and what I read) suggests that adcoms don't really care how many hours you spend on community service; they are not impressed, especially not now that many schools are requiring community service. They want to see whether you can actually make a difference in some way, whether it's service, academics, or something else. </p>
<p>My immediate impression of your activities is that your academic ECs are somewhat distinctive, whereas your community service ECs are totally run-of-the-mill: almost every student I teach has a similar community service resume, but not all of them have academic awards like yours. I would put more effort into your academic ECs for college's sake. I would also continue doing the service projects, but for your own sake, knowing that it doesn't set you apart.</p>