<p>When you write down your previous job and volunteer hours/commitments/experiences for college apps, how do they know if you are lying or not? I mean I wouldn't lie about something like this but is there a way that colleges check the validity of your claims? And also is there a method you (experienced cc members who have been through the college app process whereas I obviously haven't) recommend to record service hours, such as a website or something? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Bump, anyone?</p>
<p>I think volunteer hours are widely misunderstood. I highly doubt adcoms would weigh two competing apps and compare hours as they might compare GPAs or test scores, as in: “Let’s see, Sally Smith has 122 hours at the soup kitchen, but Tommy Taylor has 89 hours at the library. Let’s go with Sally.”</p>
<p>It’s not the hours that matter; it’s the impact of the service. By impact, I mean both the impact on the volunteer’s growth, and the impact on the community.</p>
<p>One of the best volunteer projects I’ve seen was the kid who founded a “Visiting Musicians” club at his school. He sought volunteers from the school band and orchestra and organized them into groups to visit and perform at local nursing homes and senior centers. It took relatively few hours, but it showed leadership and it impacted a lot of people, both students and senior citizens.</p>
<p>My guess is an applicant with 40 hours of that type of service would be better received than one with 300 generic “hours of service”.</p>
<p>They don’t care much about the hours. If you look at decision result threads, there’s people with 50 hours that get accepted and people with 600 hours that get rejected.</p>
<p>If you vastly overstate your hours, that’s a problem. However, a realistic estimation is not a problem. They’re not expecting you to have the exact numbers of hours. Personally, I’d think you were only doing it for the apps if you had a precise number (e.g. 56.5 hours). If you give an approximation, it puts the emphasis on you doing the activity rather than on you recording hours.</p>
<p>Colleges usually confirm your major claims or anything that seems suspicious, but won’t investigate trivial things, especially when they have a minimal effect on your application.</p>
<p>Thank you both for your clear answers! I know that stats and ECs vastly outweigh volunteer hours, I was just wondering if there was a certain method of recording your hours that people may recommend.</p>
<p>I use my planner daily for my assignments, so when I did hours I marked them on that day in my planner, then totaled them up. That was for IB CAS, though, which needs a total number of hours.</p>
<p>For my common app, I guesstimated the weeks per year and I knew the hours per week. I didn’t provide a total number of hours.</p>
<p>If you like Excel, it can be useful for recording your hours, as it’ll do all the math for you. That’s what I’d personally recommend if you want a more precise count.</p>
<p>Thanks, I try to keep tabs on my hours in my planner too! So does this mean that applicants who haven’t volunteered at all can say they had 100+ hours? That’s a little disappointing.</p>