<p>Not too surprising.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.news.wisc.edu/12070.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.news.wisc.edu/12070.html</a></p>
<p>A snippet of the article:
"The high schoolers Friedland, along with sociology doctoral candidate Shauna Morimoto and other students, interviewed held an overwhelming belief that volunteering would be a key to college admission. </p>
<p>"Resume padding is a symptom of the extraordinary pressure put on young people to achieve a college education, and the very explicit understanding that a college education is a means to a decent life in the middle class," the study found. </p>
<p>Many young people said that their motive in becoming involved was to make a stronger case to please college admissions officers - regardless of whether they were applying to an Ivy League school, a state university or a technical college. "</p>
<p>Incidentally, to me this also indicates that the relatively rare students who do community service out of genuine altruistic interest do stand out in admission pools.</p>
<p>That is what I've seen as an Ivy interviewer, too. Incidentally, a good interviewer can tell the difference between resume dressing and a student who truly had an altruistic interest.</p>
<p>And, from what I've seen at Harvard, the college in general is good at finding students with a genuine interest in service. That's why the Phillips Brooks House (campus' headquarters for volunteer service) has been for decades one of the most popular extracurricular activities on campus. Students don't get credit for volunteering there, and there's no community service requirement for graduation. However, it's a rare student who does no community service while at Harvard. </p>
<p>Many of the students also create their own service activities, which provide a major outreach to the loca community. No one forces the students to do those things.</p>
<p>Agree about Harvard's program and their admissions recruitment of students heavily involved in community service.</p>
<p>Just to be fair, I think we should acknowledge that even the most die-hard community service student activist is probably not blind to the fact that the experiences can lead to opportunities down the road, whether that is college or grad school admissions or career options. And, that there is nothing wrong with that.</p>
<p>volunteering for selfish motives can also lead to a desire to continue for altruistic motives if the experience turns out to be rewarding.</p>
<p>Not terribly surprising. Similar studies have shown that resume padding is common at all levels and in all fields, from entry-level jobs to Division I Coach to politicians.</p>
<p>No surprise. But, whatever the motive, if they are actually putting in the hours, someone is being helped. My 14 y/o complains bitterly about getting up on Sat mornings to drive 2 hours to the Scout camp one county north that was devastated by hurricanes, but every campsite they clear, every wall that gets painted, every trail that is repaired, is one that wouldn't have been fixed if he had not put in those hours.</p>
<p>Hold the phone. "Padding" is not referring to the practice of lying on the resume, ie claiming activities that did not exist, or listing an activity that student signed up for but didn't really participate in, or listing 20 hours per week at volunteer agency when in fact student only spent 2 hours per week. </p>
<p>By "padding" they simply mean the volunteer work was undertaken not out of a desire to make the world a better place, but to increase their own chances of getting in to a better place. And yes, I see most of the readers understand this. My son believes there is no altruism anyway - we are all motivated by self interest, even if we volunteer because it makes us feel good. </p>
<p>The "study" could use a better editor:</p>
<p>"We further
hoped to purposively sample across these multiple
networks, in order to demonstrate in some depth
the quality of connection and disconnection of
young people to these networks, and further, to
gauge the meanings that young people themselves
ascribed to these attachments." huh??</p>
<p>"volunteering for selfish motives can also lead to a desire to continue for altruistic motives if the experience turns out to be rewarding."</p>
<p>I agree. The research the article also speaks to this issue.
"
Friedland quotes an African-American student named Jackson who recognizes the various motivations of his fellow students. Jackson sees some students acting out of a genuine sense of altruism, while others are doing it for college and still others who want to get paid for their efforts. </p>
<p>'But, if you get them out there to actually meet these people and then they'll start to see the benefits of it and the rewards of the community,' Jackson says. 'They'll start to develop relationships with other people. It's not just viewed as community service anymore. It's like you're making a friend or something. You are helping someone out.'"</p>
<p>Oops. Should've read the article first. I took "padding" the way it is typically used in the resume world.</p>
<p>As a student, this doesn't surprise me at all. It's a shame though that volunteering, in my personal opinion, is becoming "programmed goodness" - especially at schools with a service requirement, rather than what it is meant to be - from the heart. </p>
<p>Many kids I know volunteer, and somehow magically began volunteering their junior year after the counselors suggested it. It's wonderful to volunteer, but I think that too many students do it for the wrong reasons.</p>
<p>Does the end justify the means? Yes.</p>
<p>The joy that an old lady gets from a young high school student talking to her for 20 minutes at her retirement home is more important than the slight boost of 20 minutes of community service the student gets from the experience. Plus, it would be almost impossible for a student to be negatively influenced by doing "too much community service."</p>
<p>The end most certainly does justify the means.
Last year my daughter decided she needed to do some community service for "her college apps". There is a local organization that had started up a program where local teens would shovel snow for the elderly and disabled. The teens were promised a minimum of 10 hours service credit. She figured she would shovel a couple of inches of snow throughout the winter and get an easy 10 hours. Well, she called and signed up on a Tues, was assigned her "senior" on Wed and on Sat we had the "blizzard of 05" where 19 inches were dumped on NYC. Sun morning she got up early (a feat in itself) walked the 5 blocks to the womans house, and spent a couple of hours shoveling. The woman opened her door just as my was done, and with tears in her eyes thanked her profusely. She then took out $20 to give to my D. D said she could not take the money since this was a volunteer job, but the woman stuck the money in her pocket and wouldn't take no for an answer. My daughter comes home, sits down and hands me the $20 asking me to write a check to the Red Cross for the Tsunami fund. Then she says that when she saw how grateful the woman was she felt so good about doing it. She has now signed up again for this winter and also told me that if she goes to a college where it snows she is going to try and start a similar program at her school.
In this instance everybody won and my daughter learned a lot about herself.</p>
<p>What's wrong with my kids? They wouldn't do a damn thing they didn't want to do to get into college -- well, they did have to fill out the applications, write essays, take tests, but that's it. "Volunteer?" They did little community things just as part of being in the community (spring cleanups, etc.) but nothing that they'd put on a resume or application. And guess what? They got into fine colleges.</p>
<p>
[quote]
By "padding" they simply mean the volunteer work was undertaken not out of a desire to make the world a better place, but to increase their own chances of getting in to a better place.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>How about padding to get out of a place? Our public school district requires a minimum of 40 hours of community service in order to graduate. There's always the mad scramble by seniors every spring to complete the requirement. You're right, qwerththejedi, "programmed goodness" has been the result. Forced volunteerism can have a counterproductive effect. I've actually seen more kids turned off than I've seen turned on to community service by our district's mandate.</p>
<p>My daughter's IB program has a minimum number of service hours required to stay in the program and graduate. All of the upperclassman warned her of this requirement and how hard it was to do this while you're satisfying the academic IB requirements. By the end of freshman year, she probably had enough service hours to graduate and never found this requirement a burden. When we were going through her resume for college apps, there actually were a lot of things she left off: "it was only one weekend", etc. She plans on continuing her volunteer efforts as an undergrad.</p>
<p>I've always preferred the carrot to the stick. Our school district doesn't require community service, but does give graduation credits and recognition for these activities, based on documented hours. Of course my S is having none of this -- he loves his volunteer activity and doesn't want to "soil" it by even giving the impression that he does it just to get a graduation credit or an award that he can put on his resume. Aaargh.</p>
<p>My kids have enjoyed community service continuously since they were very young--7 or 8 years old--long before they had any idea that it would be a "good thing for college apps," indeed long before they had any notion that they wanted to go to college. </p>
<p>I'm really sorry that some view community service so cynically.</p>
<p>I'm really sorry that some view community service so cynically.</p>
<p>Indeed. My children are homeschooled. They have served in our community since any of them can remember. My wife and I started visiting nursing homes, where we read and sing to the folks. When our first child was born we began taking her as an infant with us. That was 17 years ago and now each week she visits alone to read, sing and spend time.</p>
<p>The problem with this is that it sounds very self-serving to put it on an application. My daughter applied to Harvard EA (deferred) and forgot to mention it simply because it has always been a natural part of her life. She has tutored in our community since seventh grade and just barely remembered to mention it because it occurs naturally for her. It seems in her mind Community Service means participating in an institutionalized setting. I think part of the problem is that the application asks if she has won any awards for her ECs when awards were the very last things on her mind!</p>
<p>About eight years ago she started carrying out the garbage, cleaning the lawn and carrying groceries for a woman a few houses away from us who is too sick to do many of these things. My son also picked up the job and has been doing it for about three years (my 13yo is also involved now). They have served at the womans house probably two times a week for eight years. My daughter failed to mention it because it just never occurred to her. How do you record such a thing anyway? My son recently was invited to apply to Telluride and never mentioned this or any of the dozens of things he does in our community. There are a lot of single mothers in our neighborhood, for example; and my son is always doing something for them. It just never occurred to him that he was serving the community because what he does is just what he is supposed to do.</p>
<p>I think I have made a big mistake. I should have been watching for this and prepping my kids for the time when they would need to be a bit more self-serving. I think it is fine, nevertheless. My daughters stats are quite exemplary, and I am sure she will continue her work at some great school. But I dont think she put her best foot forward for Harvard (which I dont really think is a good fit anyway).</p>
<p>Like you, I am also very sorry to hear of a cynical approach toward community service, but I certainly can understand why it exists.</p>
<p>So what if its cynical. If someone spends hours helping someone to pad a resume, everyone is helped. And if 1 of ten kids finds a true love of helping others because initially they did it to look good, well all the better.</p>
<p>Most kids think AP CALC is not that useful, but it looks good. </p>
<p>Everyone does things for selfish reasons, but so long as people are helped, its a good thing</p>
<p>cgm,</p>
<p>Great point!</p>