Anonymous wrote:

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.

I second that.
Each county has a different criteria as to the eligibility of SSL hours. For example, my DC (MCPS) joined a church-based youth orchestra with weekly practices and earned a few SSL hours for playing at two concerts a year. In the meantime, their peers from Carol county got SSL hours for all the practices (2 hours a week) in addition. I doubt if UMD would check the difference.

Anonymous wrote:My 7th grader got over 50 hours this past summer from the City of Gaithersburg by attending a SSL camp. She’ll be doing the camp again this summer. Next summer she is going to be a counselor in training which will earn her even more. There are several summer camps that allow students to earn SSL hours. I’ve seen some recently from Montgomery College.

Camps are a great way to learn and get SSL hours! my kids both volunteered at 1/2 day summer camps. The best part was the kids adored them & they learned a lot about working with younger kids! The camps were accessible through ride-on which was great too. We were able to drop them off in the AM, and they could take the bus in the afternoon. This was the summer after 9th grade.

Anonymous wrote:what do kids who move in district later in their high school career do? We moved recently, and my kid may struggle to get the required SSL hours, even though he has lots of service hours from our prior location.

There is a tiered requirement depending when you moved to mcps.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r0-eczrjaEPg8Mc9yzhmNIIchUTk65mPWYf4qXTxUT0/mobilebasic

what do kids who move in district later in their high school career do? We moved recently, and my kid may struggle to get the required SSL hours, even though he has lots of service hours from our prior location.

1GLI get admissions preference.

Experienced families know how to play the faking game.

Anonymous wrote: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.

In addition to those 3, I think many other summer camps offer these... will try this out with my son starting this summer (they usually need to be 14.) For summer camp, it's 30-40 hrs a week. I think that's one of the ways to rack up a lot of hours while doing something actually useful. As opposed to... writing cards to kids in the hospital (do we know if those kids really appreciate getting all those cards from middle schoolers? According to my son, it's one of the easy ways to pad your hours - each card takes 10 min to write officially, but actually kids write one every 1-2 minutes.)

In general, I agree with PP regarding this requirement. Among other things, I think of anything, it adds to inequality... kids with well off parents get more opportunities, it's another way for the "rich to get richer" by padding their college apps.

Anonymous wrote:Do students do more online SSL hours after pandemic? Where and what kind?

No, that's really not a thing any more, just a pandemic thing.

Do students do more online SSL hours after pandemic? Where and what kind?