Volunteering

<p>I hear ppl doing 300+ hrs for college. Is more better, or does it just show that u got nothing betterr to do? Is it really worth having 300+ hrs. for volunteering? What is the limit?</p>

<p>It isn’t about hours; it’s more about what you accomplish for others as well as your own personal growth.</p>

<p>If you volunteer somewhere because you like it, and gain either enjoyment or knowledge from time spent there - go for the higher numbers. But volunteering where ever, just to volunteer and boost your hour count would be discouraged if you have another EC (which you enjoy more) to turn your time towards. But generally a solid amount of hours is a good thing, but if you are disinclined, there’s no reason to overdo it.</p>

<p>Having a job is fine too. Sitting on your A _ _, is not…</p>

<p>Volunteering looks good if you really help people or it exposes you to a unique learning opportunity…</p>

<p>thanks very much. i do like what i do but when I hear these people do a ton of hours,it feels like my work is inadequate in the eyes of the people who will glance at my resume.</p>

<p>Most colleges don’t factor ECs into admission, but admit students based on students’ academic stats. Most of the few colleges that do factor ECs, community service, etc. into admission are places like Harvard who can use such factors to pick and choose from among an overabundance of high stat students. What impresses such colleges are the results of your ECs, community service, etc., not the hours you’ve put into them.</p>

<p>300 hours are better than none, but tons of people do 300 hours of volunteering so it’s hard to stand out and look different. You have to do something interesting, but if you can’t, it’s better to do something.</p>

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<p>Listen to this. The hours you put into an activity are meaningless without any impact. Spooning out soup for 300 hours won’t impress top schools as much as the kid who raised 10,000$ for the soup kitchen, even if that kid put in only 50 hours.</p>

<p>Thanks for the advice…I dont think that any of my actions have really raised funding or anything, but I guess Ill try.</p>

<p>No one is suggesting that to impress colleges, volunteering has to raise money. What’s important to the relatively few colleges that care about things like volunteering is that your volunteering has had some kind of impact.</p>

<p>Consequently, volunteering for 2 hours a week for a year with a disabled child would be more impressive to such colleges than 300 hours of random volunteering with a variety of organizations.</p>