<p>Okay, so I have some volunteer hours and my question is, how do I record it? For example, if I want to put on my college application that I have a certain amount of volunteering hours, how do I put it? Do they have a special section just for volunteering and community service? And if they do, how do they know if we're not lying about our hours, I'm not saying I was going to lie on my college app, but I'm just curious, how do colleges know how many volunteering hours we have? Thanks!</p>
<p>Community service goes on the extracurricular section. You shouldn’t just say “250 Hours” but rather put the most important volunteeri experiences you had and then fill out the hours per week, weeks per year section.</p>
<p>Also, you do not need to prove your volunteering experience on the common app. It’s the honors system, so please just be honest! They (the adcoms) don’t have time to check the validity of your EC’s, so it’s really up to you to be honest. </p>
<p>Best regards,
- Mike</p>
<p>The thing is, colleges don’t know how many volunteering hours you have. When you dig through tens of thousands of applications each year, there’s no way to check them. But volunteering has been cliche for some years now so they would probably just look to see that you have them. It seems like everybody applying to top colleges these days has hundreds of volunteering hours but like I said, there’s no way of validating those claims. </p>
<p>While colleges may not find out that you lied on your application, it may come back and bite you someday. Here’s a link to a student who tried to do that on his Harvard application and later for the Rhodes scholarship application. Admittedly, it is the extreme case, but it is the most notorious example:
[Ex-Harvard</a> student accused of living a lie - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2010/05/18/ex_harvard_student_accused_of_living_a_lie/]Ex-Harvard”>http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2010/05/18/ex_harvard_student_accused_of_living_a_lie/)</p>
<p>While I agree that a small percentage of entries in the EC section get checked, it does happen on occasion and can easily torpedo the applicant. When I was in school, a classmate listed “Regular member of Dean’s Club” with a significant number of hours associated with it. Dean’s Club was the term we used for detention/punishment, but he figured the title sounded impressive so he listed it.</p>
<p>Turns out an adcom called the school to inquire as to the nature of Dean’s Club. To make it even worse for the poor kid, the biggest gossip in school was waiting in the reception room when the secretary received the call from the adcom. Needless to say, he was rejected from that school but at least everyone had a good laugh about it.</p>
<p>Ok Thanks!</p>
<p>I turn in my hours at school and they go on my transcripts.</p>