High number of SSL hours has any impact ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have an 8th grader and we're struggling to get hours. I'd love to know how your child got 150 already. We do 2 hours each weekend. Because of his age, I have to accompany him.

I feel like the schools hand them out constantly. 10 hours for outdoor Ed, 10 hours for something else related to their history class. Bringing in bags for a project, hours. They’re not even helping the community. I get that it’s good for kids whose parents can’t take them to do hours, but as long as your kid turns in all his hours as he goes along and keeps an eye out for opportunities, you’ll be fine

Exactly. Honestly, I think the entire thing is unconscionable anyway. Volunteering because you are forced isn't volunteering. It's forced unpaid child labor in many circumstances. The requirement for unpaid work also has no connection with any particular class and shouldn't be a requirement for graduating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My sophomore has about 200 hours from various places. The impact is on her personality…she has had different experiences and has developed empathy beyond what I think we could have taught her. So don’t think about what those ssl hours can do for your kid, think about what your kid can do for the community.

I agree. SSL opportunities allowe my kids many new experiences outside of the classroom/school. It's been good for them to be out in the world. One will likely get to 260, and the other will be at around 200.

Over 50 hours were built into the school curriculum [30 in middle school and a little over 20 in high school (so far)]

[Anonymous]

I think it’s good and personally think it should be made more meaningful so kids actually have something to reflect upon. They should invite in politicians and nonprofits to help kids see this as both leadership and community responsibility.

[Anonymous]

There are supposedly some college scholarships out there for a high number of hours, but neither of my kids, who both had double the number of hours required for the tassle at graduation, found any (they didn't look very hard)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My sophomore has about 200 hours from various places. The impact is on her personality…she has had different experiences and has developed empathy beyond what I think we could have taught her. So don’t think about what those ssl hours can do for your kid, think about what your kid can do for the community.

I agree. SSL opportunities allowe my kids many new experiences outside of the classroom/school. It's been good for them to be out in the world. One will likely get to 260, and the other will be at around 200.

Over 50 hours were built into the school curriculum [30 in middle school and a little over 20 in high school (so far)]

Sadly, my son didnt get any for outdoor ed because they "didn't do that activity."

[Anonymous]

Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC, a 7th grader has around 150 hours of SSL so far. I read on MCPS that 260+ hours of SSL in senior year will be awarded. Beyond that, will that have any impact in school or college admissions. His friends have already over 400 hours and I would like to understand what impact it has. Could anyone enlighten please

No and anyone telling you otherwise has no idea what they are talking about.

+1 There is an award at graduation for 260+ (used to be 300) hours. Won't help at all with college admissions since application really only looks a HS and the award is not given until graduation.

The impact is the kids is volunteering and giving back to something. That's the impact.

[Anonymous]

Our child graduated from MCPS in 2022 with 1500 + SSL hours. No doubt in my mind that those hours, along with 4 years of high school leadership activities, is what got child accepted to UMD. Many classmates with higher GPAs and more AP classes were rejected. Universities (even huge ones like Maryland) need students who will participate in campus life. A high number of SSL hours shows commitment to involvement in one’s community. It matters. We require all our children to complete at least enough SSL hours to earn the “purple tassel”. Colleges are so wildly competitive these days, strong academics just are not enough.

[Anonymous]

How does someone even get 1500 hours? Did they do a bunch of summer counseling?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our child graduated from MCPS in 2022 with 1500 + SSL hours. No doubt in my mind that those hours, along with 4 years of high school leadership activities, is what got child accepted to UMD. Many classmates with higher GPAs and more AP classes were rejected. Universities (even huge ones like Maryland) need students who will participate in campus life. A high number of SSL hours shows commitment to involvement in one’s community. It matters. We require all our children to complete at least enough SSL hours to earn the “purple tassel”. Colleges are so wildly competitive these days, strong academics just are not enough.

T5

Similarly, one of my kids had just under 1000 hours. However, the point is not the logged hours, it's the volunteer work itself. IME, at this level individual students are dedicating time to one specific activity, so it's the specific volunteer work that gets played up in the application as it's one of their major EC's. So, if you have a kid who is doing a big sport or musical instrument, etc, probably they wouldn't have time for this. For my kid, they were accepted to a T5 LAC and the acceptance letter specifically mentioned DC's dedication to service. So, it can help, but it's not about just the hours, per se.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have an 8th grader and we're struggling to get hours. I'd love to know how your child got 150 already. We do 2 hours each weekend. Because of his age, I have to accompany him.

One of my kids did Difference Makers in MS.

[Anonymous]

Georgetown University selects based on academics and community service, and says so on its website. So for that type of university, a large, verifiable of volunteering will help, but the student also has to write an essay to articulate why this was important to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our child graduated from MCPS in 2022 with 1500 + SSL hours. No doubt in my mind that those hours, along with 4 years of high school leadership activities, is what got child accepted to UMD. Many classmates with higher GPAs and more AP classes were rejected. Universities (even huge ones like Maryland) need students who will participate in campus life. A high number of SSL hours shows commitment to involvement in one’s community. It matters. We require all our children to complete at least enough SSL hours to earn the “purple tassel”. Colleges are so wildly competitive these days, strong academics just are not enough.

Just want to note here that UMD, and most state Us, do not ask for a large volunteering commitment, contrary to Georgetown and some other institutions where it's basically a requirement. In the above PP's case, it acted as a hook because the number of SSL hours was noteworthy. But most kids who get into UMD just have the "normal" amount, plus high stats and other ECs. My son was accepted to UMD Honors and a scholarship with 80-something SSL hours, 4.67 wGPA and a dozen AP courses. He had no ECs apart from a dog-walking and boarding business during the pandemic, plus fostering dogs for a shelter that did not give SSL hours... so we don't know how that played into his admission, since none of it was verified by a third party - it could have been entirely made-up, UMD had no way to check.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have an 8th grader and we're struggling to get hours. I'd love to know how your child got 150 already. We do 2 hours each weekend. Because of his age, I have to accompany him.

My kids earned a lot of hours by participating in service activities at our church as part of the youth group. Projects like drives for supplies for the homeless, cooking meals for a shelter, crop gleaning for food pantries, etc. Once they hit high school there were week long trips in the summer to repair houses or run youth camp activities in Philadelphia. If you don’t belong to a faith community, look at websites to see if something near you is active in those types of trips and see if your kid can join one.

The other big place my kids racked up hours was teaching kids to swim in the summer as part of swim team.

[Anonymous]

OP well done to your kid. The impact is normally if they've shown commitment over the years, to one cause (one or two) that has a particular meaning to them / their potential career, if at all possible. Volunteering at the same church every weekend for 5 yrs, that kind of thing.

To the poster looking for hours for their 8th grader there used to be some very good programs offered during the summer camps at the following places

Kid Museum Bethesda
Sidwell Summer
Landon summer

Both my kids were able to fulfill their minimum req'd hours for graduation by the end of 6th grade, which was helpful given Covid hit them in the middle of 7th grade.