<p>A friend told me that if you leave the work experience section of the CommonApp blank, that it looks bad to colleges?</p>
<p>Is this true?!</p>
<p>I have worked hard at community service and volunteering throughout highschool, being the President of the Community Service Club and working to create an innovative tutoring program through my church, for none of which I have earned money. If the colleges see this, then would it be ok to leave the work section blank?</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, if you already devote your time to your clubs and community work (and love it), work is not necessary. For many top colleges, work is either as important as volunteer work, or even less important. (In rare cases, it’s not considered.)</p>
<p>bump…10char.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, it looks like most colleges will “consider” work experience but “strongly consider” EC’s. So it’d be good to have both, but I wouldn’t stress AT ALL about not having work experience, unless you are also lacking in EC’s.</p>
<p>Tbh I consider any type of work to be ‘work experience,’ whether it’s paid work or not, so I would just put down the places where you volunteered.</p>
<p>A question related to work experience.</p>
<p>I worked as a tutor’s assistant in the summer of 2006, right before 9th grade started. Technically I wasn’t in 8th grade anymore, but high school didn’t start yet. Should I put it down?</p>
<p>I think so…I count all my volunteer work from that summer towards high school</p>
<p>so should i put any volunteer experience in the EC section, or the work experience section?</p>
<p>I think it says exactly work that is paid. And, yeah, I agree that it shouldn’t matter if it is a paid job or not but what can we do? 
I guess colleges are interested in paid work experience when evaluating fin aid. Many students work in order to save money for college.</p>
<p>I have a lot of work experience but not as much community service…I worked 4 days a week all of junior year. I will only have at the most 55-75 hrs of community service by the end of high school. Will my work experience offset my low community service?</p>
<p>I guess so</p>
<p>Cllgecrazy1020,</p>
<p>Your community service hours are probably fine unless that’s your only EC. If your family is low-income and you’re working 4 days a week, it’s a bonus that can start to make up for a lot of factors. Otherwise, it just shows responsibility.</p>
<p>what if you worked for a family business but were still paid in cash? would they count that or would they want to see the w2s and checks?</p>
<p>Just be honest… I think most schools consider Work about the same as a Good EC.</p>
<p>does working in a parent’s home business company count as work experience? my friend does that but she said she doesn’t get paid to do it. i think she is going to list that as work experience (i mean its definitely not community service…). is she right in doing that?</p>
<p>diligency92 - If she works at it why wouldn’t it be work experience? She can always explain it in an essay or “other” section.</p>
<p>does an unpaid internship count as work experience?</p>
<p>It says PAID work on the CommonAp so if you don’t have any PAID work experience it’s going to be left blank.</p>
<p>what about something for which I’ve received neither money nor volunteer hours?</p>
<p>you got ripped off james. And can you guys stop asking these types of subjective questions??? None of our answers are reliable.</p>