How many volunteer hours do colleges want?

What counts

• Unpaid work for a registered nonprofit or a public agency, like a library, hospital, food bank or park.
• A supervisor who can confirm the hours.
• Your school’s own rules: some programs and honor societies have their own list of what qualifies.

Depth over hours

On the Common App, each activity gets a few lines and the hours per week and weeks per year. Two years at one place, with a bigger role the second year, reads better than ten places for a day each.

Keep a record as you go

Log the date, the hours, what your teen did and who supervised. In Pennantist, your teen logs each shift, and the supervisor confirms by email with one click, no account needed. Pay-to-join programs are marked, so you can tell them apart.

Texas

Texas has no statewide volunteer-hour requirement to graduate. Some districts, programs and scholarships ask for hours; check your campus’s own rules.

Questions parents ask

How many volunteer hours is good for college?

There’s no standard number to reach. The University of California’s application gives volunteering its own category and tells students it’s looking for quality, not quantity. Steady hours at one place say more than a big total.

Do colleges verify volunteer hours?

The University of California does. Each year it picks applications at random and asks for documents that back up the activities listed. Common App counts materially misrepresenting a role as fraud, so keep a log and a supervisor’s name for every place your teen serves.

Do volunteer hours count as an extracurricular activity?

Yes. Common App’s activities section is for work, hobbies, clubs and community engagement, and the University of California lists volunteering and community service as one of its six activity categories.

How many volunteer hours does National Honor Society require?

There’s no national number. Students are chosen through their own school’s chapter, which sets its requirements for service, leadership and character, so ask your teen’s school for its published selection rules.

How do I log volunteer hours in SchooLinks?

In Lamar CISD, course choices and volunteer hours are recorded in SchooLinks. Ask your teen’s counselor how your campus wants hours entered, and keep your own log with dates and a supervisor’s contact too. More on Lamar CISD