<p>Ok so I know volunteering is included on college applications, and I've done alot of volunteering through school, so on a college app would I include all of those hours and list them all out. Like for example, I volunteered 4 hours at an elementary school, 3 hours helping at a blood drive, etc. It's maybe 20+ events. So my question is: Do I include all of these on a college application? Might be a dumb question, but I just became a Senior (Class of 12) and I'm inexperienced with how college apps work.</p>
<p>Ask your guidance counselor, or your college guidance counselor in your school.</p>
<p>I have the same question! I have also done a lot of volunteer hours through various events and I’m not sure if I should list them all or just one that says something like Volunteer Service - X hours and then in the description, list the events/organizations.</p>
<p>My school is on summer vacation. Plus the counselors at my school suck and don’t have alotta time for 1 on 1 talks. We were supposed to have individual Junior conferences where they talk to us 1 on 1 about school, college, etc., but this year they made it one huge conference with every student there, so it wasn’t that personalized.</p>
<p>Ok cool glad to know I’m not alone on this haha. Can someone please answer our question? :)</p>
<p>Alright I will take a jab at it. </p>
<p>Colleges look for Extra Curriculars where you actually spent a reasonable amount of time in. Rather then putting a whole list of 50+ activities for around 1 or 2 hours, they like activities where you spent quality time in. </p>
<p>So for example, 4 years in Model UN, rather then 1 year in Model UN, 1 year in NHS, 1 year in chess. </p>
<p>So for the extracurriculars where you spent quality time in, put them in your app. You don’t really have enough space I presume to put all your activities in. However, im not that experienced so take my advice with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>I would put “volunteering” and wrote out the total hours in the extracurricular area, then detail where these volunteer hours came from in the additional information section. Agree with the previous poster that your guidance counselor should be able to help with this— this can even serve as an excuse to get to know the person a little bit :)</p>
<p>I thought that there were 2 separate sections on a college app for both extra curr.'s and volunteering? And I like that one volunteering idea and listing the amount of volunteering from each EC. For example, NHS - 23 hours, EHS - 8 hours, etc. Can anyone confirm if this is a good idea?</p>
<p>Volunteering is just one possible extracurricular activity. The common app does not have a special section to list your community service. In fact, I was accepted to Princeton/Yale/Wharton without listing any sort of community service on my application. It is by no means a requirement.</p>
<p>I put all my random volunteer hours under One school organization even if they weren’t through that organization</p>
<p>ok so do you think it’s better to just be like, NHS- 23 hours, or actually list the events I went to, ex. NHS - Blood Drive(5 hours), Tutuoring (3 hours), etc.?</p>
<p>I think u just say what you did and for how long.</p>
<p>like I used to read stories to my grandmother 2 days per week in the summer and i considered that comm service, but apparently some people dont…
but my counselor said if your volunteering, you should just go for it and list it</p>
<p>You’re stressing out about nothing. You can list 20 or 200 hours. Just get it near the ball park. Everybody volunteers so having some number isn’t going to distinguish you anyways. By no means list events and their hours. No one cares – especially in detail.</p>
<p>It’s akin to saying you were on the 8th grade Honor Roll. Really.</p>
<p>I definitely disagree with T26E4.</p>
<p>You couldn’t be more wrong about detail! Detail is EXACTLY what gets you into college. It gives life to your application. You say “Volunteering-100 hours” and that means NOTHING to adcoms. However, you say “Reading to my elderly grandmother-4 hrs/wk, 50 wks/year” and your shot of admission just increased tenfold! Why? Because you gave them more than a number to represent you by. You are now a real, breathing, caring, compassionate person who they will remember (at least somewhat) because you take time out of your busy life to spend with someone and make her feel special. It says a lot about your character. If you don’t add detail, you might as well cross yourself off the list. </p>
<p>I’ve read this stuff in numerous admissions books so this isn’t just my opinion…BE DESCRIPTIVE! Show them a real person behind the numbers!</p>
<p>thanks to drumwriter22 and everyone else that responded! You guys were a big help!</p>
<p>I totally agree with drumwriter on this one
my only experience with a similar situation was when I applied to high school I was torn between just saying i did 53 hours (Or however many) and saying 1.5 hours twice a week teaching kids at the local soup kitchen to read… in the end i realized its really a no brainier… you want schools when they read your application to think of you as a person not the sheet of paper</p>
<p>What colleges care more about is the impact of your volunteering rather than the sheer number of hours. What T26E4 seemed to suggest—and I absolutely agree—is that small mandatory volunteer works you listed in your original post for NHS and all are not significant enough to warrant so many spots on your application. </p>
<p>Notice that in drumwriter’s example, the person did something insignificant but it was for an extended period of time, a long term involvement that showed focus and commitment. In your case, reading the volunteer work you did gave me the same impression, as I believe it did to T26E4 and nothingto, that you were merely fulfilling hours without true commitment to the cause because the activities were so scattered. Yes, you want to provide relevant details, yet at the same time it’s important to tie together all the different elements so that the reader can see why you do what you do, so he doesn’t disregard it as unimportant resume padding.</p>
<p>xrCalico23: excellent job finding a middle groud there. I agree. You don’t want to just make it sound like you do all these one-time volunteer deals with no impact. perhaps one could combine several volunteer activities into one heading. say, “Health and Wellness Volunteering” and then continue on in the description section to say things like hospital volunteerwork, organized a run to raise money for breast cancer, worked at 2 blood drives, rallied against allowing smoking in public areas…etc. etc. That way, it gives adcoms a pictue of who you are, but doesn’t just look like meaningless small activites to take up space on your resume.</p>