Oops.. Guess I forgot the “vanity” in the title.
With out saddling them with a pile of debt.
My son’s school requires 40 hours over his 4 years of high school. He helps out with technology at various events, like updating computer displays, running a video camera, etc. He’s already earned over half his required hours and gets to have fun to boot.
I agree that it is ridiculous, but luckily we were able to find him something productive to do, no liberal spin stuff, and it gives him IT experience.
This is a mandate in California high schools. I had my daughter do hers at our church. It is the governments effort to turn everyone into a community organizer or sympathetic to them. I found offensive ten years ago and still do
Totally get it.
My youngest was volunteering at church....
swim team
going to the junior college for her junior and senior year
(that does save on college)
7:30- 5 and then 5-6 hours of home work......
It is horrible but for just a season.
What she did was petition the principle and stated her pint that church work WERE volunteer hours.
She sited laws and regulations........
He accepted her petition, which included mission trips.
Mother/father never give up encourage her to push forward.....and if all fails jounior college solves many problems.
(psst out daughter graduated from a private Christian college at 20, because she pushed.......saved us a bunch of mine)
ping private Freepmail if you want details
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Hard Work University
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I haven’t tried to get any kids into college lately, but I’m told, and I’ve read in the Wall St. Journal, that what elite schools REALLY love is if the kid comes up with their OWN service project, plans it, coordinates it, makes it happen, sees it through, writes it up in a nice neat way that can then be submitted to the school (or better yet, post it in a blog, to show other kids how to replicate the same service project, if it really is useful in some way). So instead of kowtowing to their liberal BS ideas of what a service project should be, why can’t she come up with a good conservative project? (Though perhaps she shouldn’t *label* it as Conservative if she doesn’t want their heads to explode! LOL!) Maybe something to help armed services families, or to promote adoption instead of abortion, or ... um, can’t think of any others right now but it’s late and I’m tired. I bet you and your daughter could come up with several more good ideas. Don’t let them stuff your daughter into a pigeonhole! Have her make her own pigeonhole! LOL! :)
I'm just glad I didn't have to mess with that BS back in the 1980s.
Same thing happened at my HS, and it was a prerequisite. But don’t fret as your daughter will be fine. No sane, normal 18 year old takes this liberal crap seriously unless you are a frothing at the mouth Obamaturd. My “community outreach” (that was it was called) was volunteering at the local cop office.
And I didn’t volunteer because it was a cop’s office. It was because there were a lot of hot girls there from the university who also volunteered. ;)
The issue is “decent school.” Basically either your kid has straight As and is going to get into Harvard or you should not waste your money and time or worry about her getting into a lower level “decent school.” The second tier private schools like Duke for example get you nothing that you won’t get from the best public university in your state.
Good schools are getting tired of receiving applications where it’s clear that the student is playing a numbers game to get so much of this, so much of that, etc, etc.
Now they’re looking for students who really care about something and demonstrate it. They want to know that you have a passion, that you’ve committed the time and energy to pursue it, and that you have some record of achievement.
They’re looking for leaders, not for people who follow a recipe.
High grades and high test scores are the most important thing. Volunteer hours are easy to creatively manufacture from stuff most teenagers already do. School clubs have their ow projects that work to meet these requirements. If our oldest son can manage to accrue volunteer hours, then anyone can. He is NOT college material. He does like to work hard at manual labor though. Girls are less likely to do that. Our daughter’s counselor came up with plenty of volunteer hours for our daughter via tutoring, promoting school language programs, and even working/running the snack bar for another school’s baseball team. Daughter used her skills (languages) to meet her volunteer quota. The snack bar stuff was extra. This worked out well with baseball leagues. Parents hate to work the snack bar.
While I think this volunteerism requirement is stupid, it is easy to do and usually something most teenagers do anyway through church activities and school activities. All the homeschoolers we know have no problem documenting volunteer activities that they do.
The hours are pretty typical for Asian schools. My 11 yo Thai niece has about the same schedule and school is only a 5 minute drive away. Other kids that have to take a school bus get up before dawn.
BTW, I never hear any complaints about the hours from her or her friends.
I performed 200 hours of ‘voluntary’ service in high school. Made no difference to the 2 universities I attended. So, why do it?
I spent tie tutoring 1st-2nd grade ‘urban’ youths who said ‘de’ instead of ‘the and worked in a soup kitchen with convicts. I didn’t get anything out of it.
Wait until they are forced*volunteerª at abortion clinics to graduate
community service hours were required when I went to school many yrs ago
Consider this. College is rapidly becoming a very bad investment. In time and money. Unless she hopes to be an engineer or MBA or something that will pay.
Mandated volunteering is just free labor
Children should be able to volunteer for things they support and believe in
And both Dems and GOP support a lot of these EduCommunist programs.... No Child Left Behind...Goals 2000...CommonCore are all bipartisan
Find a college/university that does not push free labor
Wonder if they’d count helping out around the house.
“Clean your room or no college for you”
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Hi, MacMattico! Yes, the SSL is a pain. My son refers to it as “socialist slave labor”... meaning they work and don’t get paid. Our state (MD) requires 75 hours but everyone “knows” that many colleges want more. I do believe 300 is the magic number to aim for (and some get into the 1,000+ range for scholarships). Of course, this would have been relatively easy if she started in middle school. If she didn’t, there should be pre-approved SSL jobs online or via your school. If not, any nursing home usually would adore high school kids to simply interact with the patients. She will have to get a TB test but one of their nurses will do that if you prefer. Weekends may be a great time for her and she can just assume every Saturday can build up hours. Does you school have its own volunteer club? If so, that serves two purposes: they get the SSL and it can be put down on her college application as belonging to a school club.
Do I agree with it? Absolutely not. However, “it is what it is”. Look at it as simply something to check off and be done with. If your daughter is starting late (meaning Junior year of high school), contact her guidance counselor or the person that approves the SSL. Have either a nice telephone call or request a meeting and ask them to guide her to get the 300 hours. Some hours are simple to get.. others are a PIA. Hope this helps.. Mom