<p>What do you guys recommend for the minimum hours of volunteering to do in high school? </p>
<p>Like for an Ivy League school or some school like Stanford, how many hours do they usually expect to see?</p>
<p>i know that it's competitive and all, but i've gotta be honest with you, doing volunteer work for the sole purpose of getting into college is pretty slimy</p>
<p>Minimum? there's no minimum...</p>
<p>honestly, i know everyone's been telling you this or w/e, but do what you feel is right; so you feel like you actually had an impact on the community. Community service is for us to give back to the community, not just to accumulate hours for college applications.</p>
<p>Yea i know, I wasnt intending it to be that way. You should volunteer on the basis that you are helping people out, giving back to the community, and preparing for the future.</p>
<p>But comon, everyone at my school (we have Key Club), from what I hear, like no one at my school even cares about volunteering. They are just doing it to get hours beucase it "looks good on transcripts" Infact when they volunteer they really dont help out, they just sit around for 5 hours or so and do their homework and then say they got 5 hours (im sure we are not the only school).</p>
<p>I was just wondering this because I havent volunteered at all (going to do alot in the next few weeks before USAMO and AP tests) during my first 1.5 years at high school (since I was concentrating on other things like grades, AIME...), but I was just wondering how many hours would be sufficient enough so I could spend those other hours trying to prepare for other things?</p>
<p>I know it sounds cheesy, but its not like I will, aftering getting 50 hours or so, stop and never volunteer again just becuase i got 50 hours.</p>
<p>So basically, lets reward the question, how many hours do you guys volunteer in high school?</p>
<p>Some commitments seem to count for more hours than others..for instance my daughter did a coat drive for an AIDS alliance. She did it because it was a point in HS that her age limited who would actually let her volunteer. It was a United Way based org that seemed to really appreciate her efforts and wrote an outstanding letter of recomendation.
It also coincided with getting nominated to NHS, just by chance when they seemed to really scrutinize the actual community service done by students , and the lame attempts to make yourself look good for college.
The truth is, it takes just a little time to really make a difference in someone's life . Just make sure it is sincere and it is a cause you truly believe in.</p>
<p>uh..i did 100 hours starting junior year for the presidential service award. thats all i could fit into my schedule along with my limited opportunities.</p>
<p>If you're volunteering for a cause you actually care about (which is the only reason for why one should be volunteering), then you could rack up up to 200 hours (freshman - summer as a rising senior).</p>
<p>Anything that shows commitment and genuine interest, no matter how many hours you've done, will be looked on favorably by colleges.</p>
<p>
[quote]
doing volunteer work for the sole purpose of getting into college is pretty damn slimy
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</p>
<p>You take AP classes you don't enjoy for the sole purpose of getting into college; does that make you slimy?</p>
<p>^^ i believe you should only take AP's in two cases:
a) you're interested in the subject
b) you were recommended.</p>
<p>i just think you should volunteer to serve the community. not to rack up hours. but after you volunteer for the right reasons, there's no reason why you shouldn't put it on your application.</p>
<p>personally, i took a community service trip last summer to another country- i did an amazing homestay and i loved it. my group also built a computer lab for the village we were staying in. altogether, i got around 100 hours within a two week period, and more importantly, it was an very rewarding experience</p>
<p>a lot of church's offer great programs too. I know several church's in my area commonly do service trips to build houses around the country. i've never gotten to do one of these trips, but i always wanted to (btw you don't need to be religious to go on them)</p>
<p>p.s. thanks for re-wording your question ;)</p>
<p>I'm taking 5 APs and I took all of them because I liked the curricula and wanted to learn, thank you very much. A couple of them have been disappointingly different than expected, but hey, what can you do? (AP Bio has been better than expected though. Ever seen the insides of a cat? I have!)</p>
<p>That being said, I also did very little volunteer work because, frankly, I don't want to sit around and do anything I hate for hours on end, let alone without compensation. I couldn't find anything in my area that interested me (except volunteering in a hospital, but I only learned about it this year and it's only during summers), so I didn't do that much. I'm not a terribly emotional person, and it just bugs me when people chastise me or insult my character just because I'm not doing some menial task for hours on end (like doing a telethon for NHS or somesuch).</p>
<p>I did go on a church mission trip (back home to DC, where I lived as a kid), and I helped my friend do her Girl Scout Gold Award project, which was a Reflection Circle that's right outside the school. I do volunteer work that affects me and that interests me, and that's it. I'm not going to judge people who do go the extra mile even when they don't really care, so I would expect the same courtesy in return.</p>
<p>@ilk; I hope you didn't study for those pesky SAT's, because if you did I bet it was just to get into college. I also hope you didn't join any clubs for leadership positions or even contemplate taking SAT II's in subjects you don't thoroughly enjoy.</p>
<p>Volunteer whenever. I don't think it matters WHY, just that you do it and you do it well (not just signing up, slacking off, and then quitting). And I'd say ~100-200 hours is pretty good but there's no 'minimum'.</p>
<p>I think it is pretty pathetic to volunteer just for the sake of getting hours. Also I can't believe people actually record hours for pretty much just sitting around doing homework.
Plus I don't think just having hours will impress any colleges. I think you have to show that you really enjoyed volunteering somewhere and that you weren't doing it just for hours. College admissions officers aren't stupid and they can tell the difference between a student who did extensive volunteer work at only a couple places and did a lot of them there and one who was simply trying to get hours.</p>
<p>
[quote]
doing volunteer work for the sole purpose of getting into college is pretty damn slimy
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't see why it's slimy. You're helping your community, doing more than you would have if you'd followed your "true" wishes and not volunteered! You benefit in getting an admissions boost, and the people you're volunteering for are benefitted too. <em>shrugs</em></p>
<p>Personally, I started volunteering to get hours, stuck with it for a while though I wanted to quit, and now I really like what I do and wouldn't quit. I wouldn't have had this opportunity if colleges didn't want hours. In fact, lots of volunteer organizations only exist because of high school volunteers, who are often influenced by college. It's a totally benevolent system.</p>
<p>Now, I do find sitting around for 5 hours doing nothing and then recording it as community service to be a bit slimy. I wouldn't do that.</p>
<p>IMO, volunteering to get hours is better than never volunteering at all.</p>
<p>...exactly what I wanted to say but 10 times shorter.</p>
<p>I fail at being succinct.</p>
<p>500 hours .</p>
<p>Haha, I agree with lunar :)</p>
<p>i never said you shouldn't do ANYTHING for college. obviously you take tough classes and standardized tests, even though you don't enjoy them.</p>
<p>i'm just saying in my own, personal opinion that you shouldn't volunteer for the sole purpose of getting into college. i know i wouldn't want people like that at whatever school i end up attending. </p>
<p>my advice to the OP is to find some volunteer work that you are interested in and work for that. in fact, if you have a certain cause you are passionate about, that will come off better to adcoms than spending hundreds of hours doing something extremely generic</p>