Volunteer hours

<p>How do the admissions people know how many hours you've volunteered at different places?
I've volunteered about 300 hours as an Assistant Coach for a youth football league, and I would like the colleges I apply to to know actually how much time I put into that. On the applications, though, it doesn't always ask how many hours you spent participating in an activity. (I know the Columbia app doesn't have that.)</p>

<p>So I was just wondering how to convey that to a school.</p>

<p>Thanks for anyone with feedback.</p>

<p>If they don't have a spot for it on the app, then they don't care how many hours you put into it. What you actually did is more important.</p>

<p>What do you mean, what I actually did?
How am I supposed to show them what I actually did?</p>

<p>If you're not allowed to indicate how many hours you devoted to something, how would they know it wasn't something I did just once?</p>

<p>You could probably pencil it in, i.e. Activity: _____ (300 hrs)
Or write an essay on it and you can include what you want about the activity there</p>

<p>Under your ECs, you also can do things like Volunteer work: 2 years, tutoring an elementary school student twice a week; one year as a museum docent.</p>

<p>As mentioned before, you can focus your essay on an activity, too, and/or include a letter of recommendation from the teacher or other adult who supervised your volunteer work.</p>

<p>I agree with the person who said that impact, not # of hours is what's important. Tutoring someone every week for couple of years indicates impact. Raising an amount of money through a bikeathon or similar activity indicates impact. Getting your club or other group involved in regularly volunteering to do something like build a Habitat house also demonstrates impact.</p>