<p>My daughter is super busy with her AP classes, club and high school sports, and a part-time job. She is finding it very difficult to find free time for volunteer work. I want to advise her to drop national honor society since she is having such a hard time meeting the minimum volunteer hours requirement and not to worry so much about volunteering. I read a lot of posts on this website from students who seem to find the time to do so much and wonder where they find the time. My daughter is very efficient with her time and there just isn't any more time for much volunteer work. She sleeps very little as it is. </p>
<p>So my question is, will colleges look unfavorably on her for not doing much volunteer work in high school? </p>
<p>Oldest had 2000 + hrs of community service.
She wasn’t in any clubs ( or rather perhaps 4-h counted? Im not sure because i wasn’t the one keeping track)
She was in sports, and also in theatrical & musical productions.
Basically her time was spoken for. Free time was actually her volunteer job & where she saw her friends, she didnt have a paid job although once she turned 18 she was able to get a pretty good job with her volunteer work experience.</p>
<p>I dont think your D needs it, she already seems to have several worthwhile activities.</p>
<p>My kids did not join NHS, because they thought it was stupid and they don’t like filling out a lot of paperwork. For both the major volunteering they did was helping out at the senior center one summer. The oldest helped with the computer lab and some other computer related things helping them create schedules. The younger one gave some concerts, taught an origami class and helped out at lunch time. Younger son also did a little bit of work for the neighborhood association and older son did some computer related things that helped out various labs. We didn’t want that part of the Common Application to be completely blank, but I don’t think most colleges care that much about the number of hours. I think more important in my kids’ cases is that both did activities that were related to their interests. Older son was Mr. Computer Nerd, younger son had written about the origami and the historical investigations of the neighborhood association work.</p>
<p>My D was in NHS, was even vice president, but it doesn’t mean she had a lot of community service hours. She played 2 school sports and a summer club team. Overall she had little community service hours but got into many very selective LAC’s. I think it depends on the school, but if yours has a part time job in addition to her other activities, I don’t think it would hurt her chances most places. The overall picture is the most important - academic record, essays, and recommendations, in addition to activities.</p>
<p>Our daughter spent her time in AP classes, part time job, 1 seasonable club, and was not into sports. No community service. She had a good GPA and sat/act scores. I was worried once I joined CC she wasnt going to make the cut to most schools.
She maganged to get into 4 of the 5 colleges so far. One college hasn’t gotten back to us yet. So far, she has been given two merit scholarships, which we didn’t even expect. We haven’t gotten all of the financial aid packages in yet from all of the schools.
Don’t worry.</p>
<p>My D did tons of community service, but my S did none. In addition, he was not a joiner … just his band, but not school stuff. I told him it would probably hurt him in college admissions, so he was aware. He chose not to do any, and I am sure it contributed to him being waitlisted at UMich. He had a 33 ACT, 3.9 gpa, tons of AP’s. He got into other schools, though, and has been happy. It didn’t “hurt” him.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids had much community service to speak of. They only applied to State U’s and were accepted to all. S1 quit NHS. He didn’t enjoy it at all and didn’t have time to do the Comm. Service stuff on weekends because of his part-time job. When he had a interview for a large scholarship (ROTC), the interviewer was more interested in S1’s job responsibilities than any community service projects.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids did much community service – none with a motive of building up brownie points for college admissions. No counting of hours. They both had excellent EC’s, with awards for these activities. Combined, they got into 11 of the 12 colleges to which they applied.</p>
<p>So my answer to the OP’s question “will colleges look unfavorably on [my daughter] for not doing much volunteer work in high school?” is “not necessarily.” Some colleges like to see lots of volunteer activity; others look for distinction where they can find it (the classroom, leadership, athletics, debate, journalism, musical performance, etc. etc.). Your daughter needs to make her own case based on her academic performance and individual record of achievements. She doesn’t have to drone out hour after hour of volunteer time to have excellent college choices.</p>
<p>My daughter did lots of volunteering but it was over the summer (volunteering at a summer camp). She was too busy during the school year with her academics, working on the school paper, taking piano lessons, and being an avid reader.</p>
<p>Everyone told us that without EC and Community Service our daughter would have a hard time getting in anywhere. She was accepted into 5 schools and wait listed for 2 more.</p>
<p>@NeverEmptyNest: If your daughter is happy with the depth and breadth of her extracurricular involvement, then it shouldn’t matter what colleges think. She should choose what she wants to do. Let the admissions chips fall as they may.</p>
<p>Every year I hear about high school students who are unhappy with the results of the college admissions process. They feel slighted because they “worked so hard to get into college X.” The implication is that they were involved in multiple extracurricular activities that they didn’t particularly like. Sad.</p>
<p>What we have seen is that volunteer hours aren’t that important for admissions, as long as there is dedication and commitment to other activities. Where they do seem to be important is in applying for some merit scholarships- some are dependent upon significant community service work.</p>
<p>Agent, no EC, she had 1 summer job, some volunteering at a soup kitchen that was part of sleep-away camp and the community “Relay for Life” (in my opinion very minimal). No sports, no clubs. Her grades were B+, no SAT and a decent ACT, no AP classes. She got into West Chester, Towson, Virginia Commonwealth, William Paterson (safety) and Caldwell College (safety #2); wait listed at University of Vermont and Drexel and who knows what Temple is doing (folks around here are fed up with Temple). She chose Towson. </p>
<p>Now granted these are far from top schools, however, they aren’t that shabby either. Friends and family had us crazy that she’d never get anywhere. She will get a good solid education at Towson, after 2 years there she can apply to their nursing program or choose another health field.</p>
<p>I will say that her essay was really fantastic. One school advisor told us “I don’t care what you did and where you did it, just send me your grades.”</p>
<p>Our daughter’s high school mandates community service. I don’t know how much. Our daughter did something for our church, got them to sign off on it, and she was done. She hasn’t done anything else for community service nor is she planning on it. She has a ton of in depth EC’s and a part time job. Her school’s guidance counselor mustn’t think the service matters much because she’s trying to get my daughter to apply to Duke. Don’t know that she’ll get in but GC must figure she’s a serious contender to even suggest it.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. I am going to advise her to drop it. She is involved in 1 community organization that she will continue with for the rest of her high school years, but the hours from her involvement with that organization aren’t enough to fulfill the minimum NHS requirement. She also doesn’t have time for much volunteer work during the summer. She is involved in a year round sport that requires many hours of training. She’d rather spend the few hours she has between training sessions catching up on sleep and hanging with friends, and I really can’t blame her. Hopefully the colleges she decides to apply to will understand. She is passionate about the few activities she is involved with and will be involved with them all 4 years of high school. That should count for something. </p>
<p>@Leapmom - This is encouraging news and I’m glad your daughter had a good choice of schools. Spygirl is the typical oldest child, overachiever kid. Her resume on Naviance is 12 pages long! But she does everything because she loves it. Her school requires 80 hours of community service for graduation, 120 if you want a cord. I think she’s hit the 160 mark already. Spykid is the opposite. He’ll do the minimum and be done with it. He has one long term EC which he enjoys and various sports. It’s a relief that he doesn’t have to be superman to have a wide variety of choices.</p>
<p>@neveremptynest - I agree. High school should be enjoyable and students shouldn’t enter college already burned out.</p>