gibby
January 16, 2014, 11:16am
71
<p>After reading my comments about community service in posts #67 and #69 , a student pm’d me for confirmations outside of my own children’s experiences, so I sent them these articles.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/education/09communityservice-t.html?_r=0[/url] ”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/education/09communityservice-t.html?_r=0</a> ;
Bob Patterson, director of admission at Stanford, notes that not all students need to have done volunteer work. “Some applicants work 30 hours a week to support their families and don’t have the time to volunteer,” he says. “Others may just not be passionate about volunteering.”
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<p>[How</a> do Admission Committees Evaluate Community Service? - Ask The Dean](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/000125.htm]How ”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/000125.htm )
It used to be a big plus for college admission officials to spot community service on a prospective student’s application. Now, however, it’s almost the norm, especially at the more competitive colleges.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, the more selective a college or university, the more outstanding a volunteer endeavor must be to make a mark with admission officials. Just as 1,300 on the SAT will wow evaluators at one college and only a near-perfect score will be truly impressive at another, so too will the pickier colleges be flooded with more typical service endeavors (peer counselors, elementary tutors, monthly soup-kitchen servers) and the more elite institutions are looking for atypical endeavors or unusually high levels of commitment.
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<p>[Community</a> Service: How is it really valued? | College Admission](<a href=“http://collegeadmissionbook.com/headlines-we-hate-community-service-work-increasingly-important-for-college-applicants]Community ”>Community Service: How is it really valued? | College Admission )
While community service is wonderful, many students serve their community – their school, their peers, their families – in ways that are not linked to a specific organization or activity. In the current economic climate, there are many students who simply must work to help their families make ends meet, and those students are deeply engaged in that activity and may not have a moment to volunteer after working, studying, and attending classes. Other students who are musicians, athletes, entrepreneurs, or artists are deeply engaged in activities other than service, and their time commitment makes volunteer work almost impossible.
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