In today’s hypercompetitive college admissions landscape, high school students are constantly pressured by a massive list of requirements: high grades, extracurricular activities, leadership roles, internships, and, of course, volunteer hours. While volunteering is absolutely a noble activity, the growing expectation for students to log tens or sometimes even hundreds of unpaid volunteer hours raises an important question. Is volunteering today more about building character, or is it just another box to check on a college application?
Many schools and scholarship programs promote community service to foster empathy, social responsibility, and civic engagement. Colleges also highlight volunteer work as a way to gauge a student’s commitment to their community. However, as college acceptance rates continue to fall, students feel increasing pressure to accumulate more and more impressive resumes, leading volunteer hours to become another metric in the college admissions pipeline.
“Most students treat volunteering as just another thing they need to do for college; like I’ve seen people with hundreds of hours of volunteer work, and they only have done it for college admissions,” said junior Terrence Wu.
The fundamental issue with requiring volunteer hours is that it detracts from the very idea of volunteering. While colleges don’t outright require volunteer hours, some high schools do for graduation and many clubs require volunteer hours for continued membership. When students engage in service solely out of obligation rather than out of a genuine desire to help, the experience can become meaningless. Students simply go through the motions, seeking out the most convenient opportunities, such as virtual volunteering, where generally less effort is required than in-person events, to fulfill their hours rather than engaging in truly impactful work, such as volunteering at food banks or hospitals, things that would majorly impact the community.
As Temple City High School student junior Brian Wang put it, “Honestly, volunteer hours at this point are less about helping the community and more about checking off boxes for graduation. Since Temple City requires 50 hours of volunteer work to graduate, a lot of other students just do the bare minimum without putting actual effort into helping.”
Furthermore, the requirement disproportionately affects students who already face packed schedules. Those who have important commitments, such as part-time work or those with family responsibilities often already struggle to keep up in school while balancing other commitments. For some, volunteering becomes less about personal growth and more about survival in the college admissions race.
Junior Sofia Perez said, “Getting volunteer hours for things like clubs is very pressuring, I do think they are important to have, but sometimes it’s hard to attend volunteering events because of my schedule.”
Volunteering can be a catalyst for personal growth and help the community, but it needs to be driven by genuine interest, not coercion. Volunteer opportunities that focus on careers that students could consider pursuing would benefit and interest those volunteering. If the goal is to create compassionate and community-focused individuals, we must rethink how we approach volunteer requirements. Instead of reducing volunteering to a mere section of a college application, we should create opportunities that encourage meaningful community engagement, like volunteering at homeless shelters or food drives, that encourage students to truly care about their community.
