<p>Are colleges looking for formal experiences in businesses, or can "work experience" be as simple as working as a cashier in your parents' restaurant? (assuming you got paid) What about private tutoring? (also getting paid)</p>
<p>Where does volunteer work fall under? Is that an EC or is that "work experience"?</p>
<p>Thanks for the info!</p>
<p>Any kind of paid work experience including working for parents, babysitting for pay, getting paid for tutoring, working in fast food -- all can be put on your applications, and give you an edge over students who spend all of their free time hanging out with friends. Working a job, any job, demonstrates responsibility and maturity.</p>
<p>Just wondering: does "work experience" have to involve getting paid? What if you do something that isn't really volunteering or community service...but more like a non-paying job?</p>
<p>Isn't a non-paying job what "volunteering" is? </p>
<p>People may look on non-paid positions as a level below paid positions simply because your employer isn't really losing much by letting you work there.</p>
<p>My son's girlfriend works for her family's business - and it is WORK! Son also helps out when he is there. Neither of them get a paycheck, but they are working. She has to do this to the exclusion of many other activities she might like to get involved in. They certainly have the right to claim this as work experience and her parents would both vouch for that.</p>
<p>A nonpaid experience could be an "unpaid internship" if you are, for instance, working for no pay at a corporation in order to find out about the field.</p>
<p>If you are doing work experience for a nonprofit or similar organization, that's called "volunteering" or "community service."</p>
<p>Any kind of unpaid work -- internship or community service -- can go on your application. Don't worry that much about what specific slot you put it in on the application. Just make sure you describe it enough so the adcoms know what you did.</p>
<p>Working for the family business would likely be as valuable or more so as a paid job working for someone else. You often work more hours but more importantly you see the business from all angles, and learn the value of "teamwork" like few other experiences.</p>
<p>ok let me explain my situation i work for my dad, he pays me, but not a paycheck, would that affect my finanancial aid since im not reporting that i'm making that money?</p>