Q&A with Steph: Volunteering as a High School Student

Steph: In my experience, this is one of the most significant challenges that students face when it comes to volunteer work. I typically encourage students to start by reflecting on what already excites or motivates them. Are you passionate about coding? Environmental conservation? Robotics? Teaching? Starting with something that makes you tick is a good way to not only utilize your volunteer work as an opportunity to explore your core passions, but also to narrow your search amidst the wide variety of options available.

From there, I tell students to look for opportunities within three primary areas: first, their school network. Morning announcements, bulletin boards, teachers, guidance counselors, and club advisors are all great resources for finding volunteer organizations that are seeking new participants. Next, students can tap into their personal network. Because the best volunteer opportunities are often local, family members, neighbors, coaches, or friends may have connections that will lead to fruitful volunteer opportunities. Finally, if a student cannot identify the right opportunity through these avenues, they can search online using platforms such as dosomething.org, volunteermatch.com, and idealist.com. Some towns or cities also have websites, listserv emails, and online portals where organizations advertise their needs.

Steph: Volunteering is critical for college applications, but how you approach it matters more than the number of hours you log. Admissions officers aren’t impressed by a long list of random activities—this type of list conveys that a student sought superficial opportunities for the sake of padding their resume rather than truly using their passions for good. Instead, students should seek to demonstrate initiative, commitment, and alignment with their core passions through their volunteer activities.

Students should first and foremost pursue depth of involvement over a significant period of time, which will allow them to make a meaningful impact in their organizations. Generally, I recommend students stick to one or two long-term commitments, rather than spreading themselves thin across half a dozen volunteer activities. Impact takes time, and sustained involvement leads to leadership roles or the chance to initiate new projects, both of which will make a student’s volunteering stand out on applications. Additionally, students should note that they will likely develop the same kinds of skills—from project management to leadership and teaching—across a range of organizations, so it doesn’t necessarily offer a strategic advantage to participate in more than two.

Importantly, a student’s volunteering should also support their hook and align with their core passions. For instance, a student interested in medicine should volunteer at a children’s hospital or a local health clinic rather than helping run a sports clinic for elementary school kids. Sustained, relevant involvement like the former supports their “hook” and tells a compelling story.

Steph: Ivy League and top colleges are primarily looking for volunteer experiences in which students have assumed a leadership role or spearheaded a unique initiative (whether within an existing organization or by starting their own organization). When it comes to leadership, students should keep in mind that their contributions should be measurable and evident; they should be able to quantify and demonstrate how they assumed leadership and actively contributed to the organizations they are part of.

Taking the initiative to find a creative solution to a problem in your community through volunteer efforts can be one of the most dynamic and effective ways to make change. I’ve worked with students who started peer mentorship programs, organized speaker series on mental health in their communities, or partnered with nonprofits to create tools like an app allowing arthritis patients to connect with doctors. These initiatives stood out on their applications because they showed the students’ commitment to bettering their communities through their passions, as well as their compelling ability to mobilize others to affect change.

Steph: In short, as early as possible. Students can start as early as seventh or eighth grade, but should be particularly intentional to identify opportunities and begin getting involved during their freshman year. Making meaningful impact and connections requires momentum over time; the sooner a student starts, the sooner they will begin to distinguish their guiding passions, take on leadership responsibilities, and learn about how they can expand their reach. That being said, younger students should be conservative with their time in the beginning—it’s better to get familiar with your schedule and contribute more over time than to realize you have overcommitted and have to scale back.

Lastly, while starting early is ideal, junior year isn’t too late to start volunteering if you haven’t already. However, many students who begin volunteering later in their high school careers dive into a wide and unconnected array of activities trying to make up for lost time—this simply isn’t an effective strategy. Even if you are starting your volunteering during junior or senior year, you should plan to engage meaningfully with one or two organizations rather than superficially with a dozen.

Steph: The two primary areas in which students can discuss their volunteer experience are the Activities List and the essays, but students should be tactical about what aspects of their volunteer work they highlight on each. The Activities List is the place to reflect the quantitative, numerical impact of your volunteer work. This is where students should include punchy, eye-catching stats that might read more like a list of resume items if included in an essay. For instance, you might quantify impact by saying that you spearheaded the donation of 200 books to an elementary class with 50 students or that your fundraiser raised $50,000 for hurricane relief in your beach town. How you choose to list these numbers should also be strategic—for instance, if you recruited three friends to join your six-person team of volunteers, you could say that you increased volunteer participation by 50% during your tenure.

The personal and supplemental essays, on the other hand, are spaces to flesh out the narrative in a compelling way. Here, students should focus on the qualitative aspects of their volunteer work. What challenges did you overcome? What did you learn about yourself and others? Most importantly, these essays should connect your volunteer efforts to your future major, career, and the kind of community member you hope to be on your future college campus. Ultimately, reflecting on your volunteer work should lay the foundation for your academic, professional, and personal journey in college and beyond.