<p>200+ volunteer hours or 200+ hours working for money at an internship?</p>
<p>Whatever you can spin into a better essay. If you volunteer 200 hours at the library versus working 200 hours as a paid intern in the field you want to eventually have a job in, the latter is obviously better. Same is true if the volunteer job is in your field of interest and the internship is irrelevent to your interests and goals. </p>
<p>Colleges understand that not everyone has super rich parents who can pay for everything. If you need to work in high school to help pay the bils instead of volunteering at a soup kitchen or homless shelter colleges won’t hold it against you.</p>
<p>Neither. They are both worthwhile and both have value. What looks best on a college application are those things that you wantto do, not those that “look best on a college application.”</p>