<p>I just finished 100 hours at a library. Is that enough commitment or do I still go on? I could do 300 in total by Junior/Senior year.</p>
<p>In College Applications do you have the option to put in the amount of hours you did?</p>
<p>Depends. Do YOU want to do more volunteering?</p>
<p>^This. You shouldn’t be volunteering for the sole fact of boosting a college application.</p>
<p>You guys are silly. Like any EC you guys do aren’t followed by a thought of college.</p>
<p>I would like to see what 90% of the students would do if EC’s weren’t needed at all for College.</p>
<p>But I will take your advice.</p>
<p>Quantity of volunteering doesn’t matter much. If you like volunteering at the library, keep going. But 100 hour vs. 300 hours isn’t a big difference.</p>
<p>Yes, I do keep college in mind, but I do things that I enjoy. I volunteer in stuff that involves the arts because that’s my passion. Having inconsistencies in your volunteering only looks bad because it appears that you shallowly volunteered just to boost your college chances. Admissions can detect that…</p>
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<p>I’ll start.</p>
<p>My ECs look exactly the same.</p>
<p>But other than that, I agree with this 100%.</p>
<p>You can’t volunteer SOLELY for hours. The point of volunteering is to make an impact on your community, and if you don’t like to volunteer then you probably aren’t doing much. I remember when I first volunteered at a nursing home in order to make my resume look good. But then, I started liking and enjoying it. Now instead of just doing bingo and talking with residents, I help to organize car washes and bake sales, etc. </p>
<p>Your passion for volunteering will appeal to universities more than simply a bunch of hours. That’s why a lot of students embed a lot of their volunteering experiences into their essays: to show that when they volunteered, they actually got something out of it.</p>
<p>Well, if you are just “volunteering” a la shelving books then it probably won’t be significant regardless of how many hours you have. If you are organizing and leading projects…</p>
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<p>Uhh… I play the piano. And I started when I was ~6 years old. I doubt that I would be thinking of college at that premature age.</p>
<p>OP–
If you volunteer only to pad your application, you’re doing it wrong. I volunteered at the library, but totally forgot that I was supposed to log my hours. I had fun working there, and I forgot it was a volunteer job. I went in on days I wasn’t scheduled to, just to offer help. I ended up logging only about a quarter of the hours I worked because I kept on forgetting that it was for my application and because of all the extra hours I went in. </p>
<p>Do something that you like, that makes you forget about the application.</p>
<p>I’ve never logged at of my volunteer work because I’ve been doing it since Middle School and I knew nothing about the college application process then. On my rough estimates (reeeaaalllly rough) I’m getting between 500-900 hours total just on what I’ve already done.
300 hours is good but there are a lot of people who have done much more than you and me. So admissions probably won’t really be wowed by it. They’ll like it but what’s more important is if you actually like it.
All of my activities would be the same, I’ve never joined anything for an application boost.</p>
<p>My app asks WHAT you learned and what impact you made and how it helped. It doesn’t ask for numbers (which is a trap and indicator you just wanted credit if you mention a number). Its the thought that should count. Sad that nobody understands the true essence of volunteerism anymore. =(</p>