<p>Do your schools record your exact volunteer hours? What if your schools don't? Is there still a point to include the total number of volunteer hours completed in the 'chance me' threads if the university admission officers have no way to verify or even to see them?</p>
<p>My school doesn’t. None of the clubs do. It’s all on an honor basis. I’m not sure if colleges expect an official record.</p>
<p>Then what’s the point of doing ~1000 volunteer hours when one does it just for the sake of college admission? The admission officers won’t know that he/she has completed ~1000 hours, right?</p>
<p>I guess they just trust you about it… Sorry I can’t be more help. I just do it because it’s the right thing to do so I’m not worried :P</p>
<p>I remember seeing some kids from D’s graduating class touting their 100’s of volunteer hours and knowing full well it didn’t happen. I wish there were a standard way for this to be recognized. It’s so unfair to the kids who really do serve the hours.</p>
<p>At my children’s school, students must complete a form and have it signed by a representative of the volunteer agency in order to receive credit for volunteer hours. I think those numbers appear on the students’ transcripts.</p>
<p>Secret’s out: universities never check on your vol hours – 99% of them don’t care either.</p>
<p>[Soup-Kitchen</a> Volunteers Hate College-Application-Padding Brat | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source](<a href=“http://www.theonion.com/articles/soupkitchen-volunteers-hate-collegeapplicationpadd,1422/]Soup-Kitchen”>Soup-Kitchen Volunteers Hate College-Application-Padding Brat)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.theonion.com/articles/closing-of-homeless-shelter-leaves-collegeapplicat,2461/[/url]”>http://www.theonion.com/articles/closing-of-homeless-shelter-leaves-collegeapplicat,2461/</a></p>
<p>T26E4, you do realize that the article is from “the onion” (a news satire website) right?</p>
<p>Yep. I hope the OP does as well. But my sentiment is the same – colleges don’t check and most don’t care. Students obsess. The articles are humor poking fun at students’ views of ECs.</p>
<p>As someone who completed 12,000 volunteer hours, I can assure you that everybody acts with complete integrity when reporting. Doing otherwise is disgusting.</p>
<p>^But in what section of the application will you be able to report the hours? Does your transcript show them?</p>
<p>
12,000 over 4 years of high school is more than 57 hours/week. Is there an adcom at any college who wouldn’t laugh at that?</p>
<p>Volunteer hours, listed by themselves, mean nothing unless the rest of the application demonstrates a strength that those hours should have developed in the candidate.</p>
<p>Transcripts don’t have slots for vol hours, happysunnyshine. It’s self reported. And yes, liable for exaggeration or outright lying by applicants.</p>
<p>Correspondingly, little weight is given to that number you and the other tens of thousands of HS seniors next year will write down.</p>