What type of volunteer work do colleges find most appealing?

Applying to College
1

<p>Let me first apologize for my incessant questions, but I've decided to get down to the nitty gritty aspects early in high school (I am still a Sophomore) and, of course, volunteering is not something that one can put off until October of Senior year. </p>

<p>That being said, I have several questions regarding volunteer work and how colleges view it. Currently, I spend about 7 hours per week (all during one day: Saturday from 9 AM to 4 PM) at a nursing home, not affecting the medical aspect but more generally helping out and helping the residents. I also plan to, in the near future, begin devoting a part of my Sundays, as I do not attend any religious service, to volunteering at a local hospital. I'd like to also note that while of course I do this in part for academic benefit, I specifically chose the nursing home over, say, the nearby food bank in what I'd like to think of as altruism. </p>

<p>But to the point, I am not entirely sure that when I apply to college, I'll be set on devoting my life to medicine. Yet, the specific work I do is almost entirely focused around just that. Moreover, while commitment is definitely an appealing quality, is it looked positively upon to spend the majority of my time in one or two locations? Finally, and let me preface this by mentioning that I do understand that volunteering is not about tracking hours, but alas it seems to be asked for all the time, what is generally seen as a number indicative of devotion?</p>

2

<p>The few colleges that factor ECs into admission – and those only are top colleges like Harvard, which use ECs to select from their overabundance of high stat applicants – don’t care what your community service is. What they care about is what you accomplished in your service, and how the service affected you. They also care far more about what you accomplished in the service than how many hours you put in.</p>

<p>For instance, a student could do 1,000 hours of “service” at a nursing home by watching TV with the residents.</p>

<p>Another student could spend 25 hours organizing and delivering some kind of special program for the residents. This would be more impressive to colleges that care about such things than would spending 1,000 hours doing virtually nothing.</p>