Is community service important to get into universities?

I would say it is very important to have community service in high school for when you apply to a college. You can get into a college now with no problems, but if you want scholarships, you need to have some community service. From what I’ve heard, you should aim for about 15 hours of service per semester of high school starting your Freshman year.

I know that Stanford, Washington University (St. Louis, I’m assuming?), and Berkley all look at your community service record.

It is one of the “big” questions on scholarships these days.

I beat out a student for a scholarship who played sports, was active in school clubs and activities, was head of his class, and scored two points higher than me on the ACT. The only differences in our status was that I didn’t have any sports, had a two point lower ACT Score and I had over 400 HS hours of community service where he had none.

The schools want someone who is genuine; who will give back to the community in the future. Qualities such as leadership (as in your clubs Pres. VP, etc…), community service, and good grades are really what they need to find. Community service, especially something related to something you care about(say helping serve lunch at the nursing home where a relative is recouperating) or your future career(say volunteering at the Humane Society if you wanted to wrok with animals), shows them that you really are that genuine person they want.

Keep in mind that a large portion of a University’s income somes from sports. Sports, while they are great for keeping you fit, and giving you the determination you will need in life are really not that important in the admission of a student unless they have proved to be excepionally good at the sport, and then they are given a scholarship for that school.

I would say if you haven’t started applying to colleges yet, it wouldn’t hurt to do a little volunteering.

Some things that I have done include helping with the community recycling pogram, read to shildren at str hour at the local library, help out at the local Head Start(preschool), deliver food baskets to the needy at Christmas, delivering meals on wheels, and volunteering in my high school laboratory.

It is a good idea to log the hours you help ut at each place and ask the person(s) in charge to sigh for your hours so you have a record. (I had to present proof of my hours for my scholarship).

Good Luck!

Feel free to contact me with more questions.

Yes, it is very important. You needn’t have millions and millions of hours, however.