Okay, I’ll be applying to the Ivy League come next fall. And i have a question about volunteering status. Like, what actually “counts” as volunteering hours, and about how many I should have.
Right now, I have approximately 40 hours.
10 are verifiable from the Algonquin (my town) Historical Society where i clip newspaper articles, lol.
another 13 are from an ACT tutoring thing I did at my school where I tutored low scorers on the ACT so they can do better.
the remaining ~17 or so are from non-verifiable sources. Specifically I was tutoring my friend in math for the ACT over the past few weeks. Does this sort of volunteer thing actually “count” or is it something i’d have to work into my application in an alternate way (mentioning it in the essay)?
furthermore, how many more hours would i need in order to “be competitive” on my applications to HYP, cornell, and stanford?
and off on a tangent, my tutoring raised her score 7 points in math. yay!
<p>It is my impression that Volunteer work is actually not as significant as we have previously been taught. On collegeboard.com's college search profiles volunteering is very low on their list of important factors concerning a student. </p>
<p>While I do not know how many hours would consider you competitive, I know that 40 is not enough. I have over 200 from working in mostly 8th and 9th grade in video club. Also, there is as vile thing in my school district called the "dance marathon" in which if you donate 50 dollars and stand in a gym for 10 hours you get 30 hours of volunteer service. So if you've done this since 6th grade (middle school's first year) you have a whopping 210 hours for doing nothing but having monetary funds and dancing in a gym for 70 hours. It's ******** I know.</p>
<p>If you are a Senior next year, pick up some volunteering this summer. I am going to join Habitat for Humanity for the summer and pick up some more hours and name recognition. You could try a battered women shelter, animal shelter, homeless shelter, tutoring center, or Habitat for Humanity (which is redily accessible online). </p>
<p>If you cannot volunteer more, your forty hours will be considered and will definitely be better than the 0 hours a lot of students will be turning in. Good luck.</p>