Question on community service

Sikorsky
Sun, 06 Nov 2011 16:46:44 +0000

I don’t know of a single college or university where an applicant’s community service hours are an important part of the application.

Grades, test scores, teacher recommendations–these things are important. Essays are important, except sometimes at very large, very numbers-driven universities; even there, they often matter for honors programs, merit scholarships, etc. Extracurricular activities are sometimes fairly important, but mostly at pretty selective institutions. Community service hours in a college application? At most, they’re one kind of extracurricular activity, but not the only kind of extracurricular activity a student could be involved in.

Not that community service is without value. It has great value to the community being served. It just doesn’t matter all that much in college applications.