<p>I am a pure Japanese, born and raised in Japan and came to the us when I was a freshman. Then, the earthquake and tsunami occured on 11 March. So as soon as the summer vacation had begun, I went to Sendai pref. There, I realized that I lost one of my friends. And I decided to join a volunteer team organized by UCCJ(The United Church of Christ in Japan) Indeed, it was tough.( I dont want to write more stories because it is going to be long.) I worked three months straight, and I also joined the volunteer team during the winter break. </p>
<p>here are things I did.
-house repairment
-organize people from the us,(served as an interprer)
-create English ver. of the UCCJ BLOG
-create some videos
-fund raising</p>
<p>Now, how can I efficiently tell this to schools?
And I have more than 700 hours of community service and wondering if I should join the volunteer this summer again. Should I get 1000+ hours of community service? Or is that too much?</p>
<p>feltF5, I’m sorry you lost your friend, and it’s great that you put your energy into volunteer work that was meaningful to you. The Common App with have a section for you to list any activities you did outside of school. This section asks you how many hours a week, how many weeks per year, and which years you did the activity. You can list your volunteer work with UCCJ in that section. There is also a very small amount of space to describe the specific work you did.</p>
<p>Another option is to write about this experience. You have two choices on the Common App:</p>
<p>1) Write about your volunteer work for the activity essay. This essay is really just a paragraph, and cannot be more than 1,000 characters (including spaces) in length.</p>
<p>2) Write about your volunteer work for your main Common App essay. This is a longer essay (approximately 500 words). If you choose to do this, be careful, though. The essay should not be a list of things you did as a volunteer or a tallying of your hours. This essay is supposed to be interesting and entertaining to read, like a story or a scene from a novel. You could pick one event or scene from your experiences working in Japan and relate that. Or you could write about the moment when you decided you wanted to help, or heard about your friend. Make sure you pick something that reflects well on you - not necessarily by showing how selfless and hardworking you are, but maybe by showing that you are humble, willing to learn, able to admit to making mistakes, etc. Stay human, and be likable!</p>
<p>Do not write about the same experience (volunteer work in Japan) for both essays on the Common App.</p>
<p>As far as your question - “And I have more than 700 hours of community service and wondering if I should join the volunteer this summer again. Should I get 1000+ hours of community service? Or is that too much?” - I encourage you to join again if you want to. Do to just do it for the community service hours. No number of hours is “too much” or “too little,” for such an activity. Admissions officers just want to see that you are actively engaged in something meaningful to you during your time off from school. If you don’t go back to Japan, do something else that is important to you with your summer. </p>