Ivy League Colleges and Community Service: Everything You Need to Know
/Learn what the Ivy League thinks of community service, how community service affects your child’s chances of Ivy League admissions, and how to write an amazing college essay about community service (with example)
do you need community service to get into an ivy league college?
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Part 1: Introduction
If your child plans to apply to an Ivy League college, you’re probably already aware that they’ll need more than just great grades and test scores to get in. After all, the eight Ivy League schools—Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell, and the University of Pennsylvania—are among the most selective in the country, with tens of thousands of applicants each year and single-digit acceptance rates. Given these odds, how can your child stand out from the pack?
Ivy League hopefuls and their parents often believe that by loading up on community service hours, applicants can demonstrate their good character to admissions committees, thus automatically boosting their chances of getting in.
The reality is a bit more complex. While Ivy League schools do value community service and ethical character, the manner in which an applicant goes about performing their service actually matters a great deal.
In this guide, we’ll go over: what community service means to Ivy League schools; how, how not, and if your child should be involved with service activities; how to find meaningful service opportunities; and how to think about and document community service on your child’s college applications. Plus, we’ll provide an example of an Ivy League college essay that focuses on community service in an interesting and authentic way.
How do Ivy League colleges view community service?
In a 2018 survey of 264 U.S. college admissions leaders, 53 percent agreed that community service gave students an advantage over applicants with equal academic qualifications, effectively acting as a tie-breaker. This statistic increased to 61 percent when asked only of admissions officers working at private colleges. While this might lead you to think that community service is an easy way for your child to score points on their applications to selective schools, that’s not quite the case.
When asked why they valued community service in applicants, admissions officers at private colleges said that community service indicated “that the student is likely to contribute to the school’s mission” and “that the student shares the school’s values.”
Answers you might reasonably expect—for instance, that service demonstrates community awareness or personal passion—were not among the top three reasons given. The same survey also found that a majority of admissions staff wanted to know what community service “meant to [applicants] personally and what they learned by doing it.”
Similarly, Brown’s dean of admissions has been quoted as saying no particular extracurricular—including community service—is inherently necessary. Rather, what’s important is showing why applicants have chosen particular extracurriculars as well as explaining what they’ve learned from them.
In 2016, Harvard’s Graduate School of Education released a report on ethically navigating the college admissions process, entitled Turning the Tide (Turning the Tide II is an update from 2019). While it’s important to note that the report was not released by Harvard Admissions, deans of admission at over 140 colleges—including Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Penn, and Cornell—have committed to integrating its guidelines. According to the report, “what makes service meaningful and what matters to the deans is whether service is chosen based on authentic interest and is immersive, meaningful, and sustained.”
Here’s what we can take away from all this:
Ivy League colleges don’t view community service as a yardstick for measuring good character. Rather, they evaluate a student’s service experiences holistically, as part of a larger story of that applicant.
On top of that, community service doesn’t mean much to colleges if an applicant can’t speak compellingly about why they have chosen to serve and what the experience has meant to them.
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Part 2: How to approach community service for Ivy League colleges
If you’ve read our advice on how to approach high school extracurricular activities (and if you haven’t, go back and start there), you’ll already know that we recommend that your child become a specialist in one or two areas rather than dip their toes into many pools in order to seem well rounded. We fully endorse this strategy when it comes to community service, too.
In other words, community service should be a fully realized component of a larger portrait that your child’s application paints, and not simply one of many boxes that they mindlessly check.
How do you ensure that your child’s community service is “fully realized?” They should seek out one or two (related) service activities over a long period of time, ideally multiple years, rather than moving between several short projects. By deeply engaging with one activity, your child will have the opportunity to learn much more and do more good than they possibly could in a shorter stint. As a natural result, they’ll have much more to say about the experience.
Let’s get into some specifics. Some wealthy parents may find themselves tempted to send their children on service trips to faraway countries. But a spring break spent building houses in developing nation to which they have no connection might look flimsy on your student’s college applications unless they can tell a clear story that isn’t just, “I got out of my bubble for a week.” Generally speaking, if community service is important enough to your child that they want to make it one of their specialties, they can likely make a deep and lasting impact closer to home.
Note that there are some exceptions to this. If, for example, your child dreams of majoring in African Studies, is studying Swahili, and has spent the last two years organizing fundraisers to benefit a community in Kenya, then an overseas trip would not seem out of place.
Or perhaps your family emigrated from Pakistan, and your son, who’d like to be a doctor one day, wants to volunteer in a healthcare environment over summer or winter break in Karachi. In that case, you might encourage him to not only make that single visit to volunteer but also develop and cultivate a longer lasting relationship with the organization he’s working with by raising money,
Which leads us to our next, more general point…
Your child should choose service activities that naturally spring from their existing interests. It’s obvious when a student is doing something halfheartedly because it doesn’t result in them developing true skills or insights. Instead, they should follow their passions to seek out causes they truly care about and which complement the rest of their application.
For instance, if your child has always loved animals and hopes to become a veterinarian, an ongoing commitment to volunteering at an animal shelter or rescue group would certainly strengthen their application. Or, if your child is interested in literature and creative writing, they might volunteer at your local library shelving books on weekends as well as organize an after-school poetry workshop for elementary school students.
Whatever it is, your child’s community service should reflect their genuine passion, commitment, and initiative. Additionally, it should demonstrate that their deep, long-term engagement has impacted both them and their community for the better and culminated in measurable results.
How to find service opportunities for high school students
In order to find opportunities that resonate with your child, they should spend some time (either on their own or with you) considering what they are truly interested in and would be excited to dedicate time to.
We find that many students unnecessarily box themselves in when it comes to thinking about what service can mean. While food banks and animal shelters are absolutely worthwhile, important causes that may interest your child, they are certainly not the only places where your child can make a difference.
For example, if your child is a history buff, perhaps they would like to volunteer at your town’s historical society. Or if they’re a budding artist, they might find a local after-school program or art museum that could use their enthusiasm and talent. If they are passionate about environmental protection, they could see if your town hosts a park or beach clean-up. If not, perhaps they’d like to organize one.
On that note, if your child can’t find an existing service opportunity that excites them, they may want to think about creating their own, as in the example above. Not only is taking initiative and demonstrating leadership impressive to colleges, doing so will also ensure that whatever your child gets involved with is truly a cause they care about.
That said, the more typical community service activities are still great ways to give back. Community service doesn’t need to seem unusual or obscure so long as it genuinely sparks your child’s interest.
Besides food banks, soup kitchens, and animal shelters, many religious organizations, schools, after-school programs (such as the Boys & Girls Club and the YMCA) and cultural centers have a constant need for volunteers. Additional organizations to potentially look into include nursing homes, medical clinics, and legal services or advocacy groups. See what charities or nonprofits exist in your area and go from there.
Is community service necessary to get into Ivy League colleges?
The short answer: no.
When done thoughtfully and with authentic interest and commitment, service is viewed favorably by Ivy League admissions committees. But it’s certainly not the only way to stand out from the crowd. In fact, many students are admitted to Ivy League colleges each year with zero community service on their records.
Remember that Ivy League schools are looking for specialists. If your child’s schedule is already full on account of an existing specialization, be wary of spreading them too thin.
For instance, if your child is a first-chair trombonist in their school’s orchestra, plays in the all-state band, takes weekly private lessons, and practices a few hours a day, it won’t count against them that they don’t have the time to perform regular community service on top of all that.
If they can squeeze in being a band camp counselor over the summer, great! But forcing them to go down to the soup kitchen every Sunday probably won’t have a significant impact on their chances of Ivy League admission.
On the other hand, some applicants can’t engage in community service because they are too busy with obligations at home, such as caring for a younger sibling or holding down a part-time job in order to contribute to their family’s income. This is another situation in which not performing community service won’t be a strike against your child.
In fact, Turning the Tide II notes that family commitments “may be far more likely than community service to promote key ethical and emotional capacities such as compassion, selflessness, perseverance, and respect” and should be reported in college applications just as one would any other extracurricular activity.
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Part 3: How to write about community service in college applications
Your first instinct might be to encourage your child to write their Common App personal statement about their service experience. It’s a surefire way to put their core ethical values on display, right? They do good, they give back to their community, and they’re committed—all things colleges want to see in applicants.
Unfortunately, such an approach often results in trite and clichéd essays. To pull such a topic off, your child will need to find a unique angle.
If they do choose to go down this route, here are some dos and don’ts that you can offer your child to help them write a compelling community service essay.
Dos:
Do describe your commitment and passion for the specific project or subject that your community service focused on. As is the case with all essay writing, particularity can bring an essay from generic to good. Why? Without details, images, characters, and specific scenes, your essay is just a topic. It’s not a story.
Do reflect on what you’ve learned or how you’ve been changed through your service, but avoid clichéd sentiments such as learning to appreciate what you have. The more specific the details, the better.
Do frame your service in a larger context, such as an academic or extracurricular interest, in order to create a fuller, more authentic narrative.
Do focus on a specific instance or experience, which will help your essay avoid generalities.
Do note any leadership roles you have played as well as any measurable impact your service created.
Do emphasize giving over receiving.
Most of all, be specific! In fact, try being so specific about your service experience that you’re not calling it service at all. When brainstorming, describe the specific actions you took each day when you showed up—i.e. “The first thing I did was check on Mr. Humphries in room 102. His kids only visited him once a month.” If you didn’t have the language someone else gave you about the importance of service, how would you describe this experience?
Dont’s:
Don’t rely on tropes—for instance, your “passion for helping others.” Avoid language that can seem condescending like “they taught me as much as I taught them” or “I was amazed to see that despite their poverty, they were still happy.”
Don’t brag about the number of hours spent serving. Remember you are performing community service to make an impact on your community, not to make yourself look good.
Don’t emphasize that community service was mandatory. While admissions committees won’t fault you if your school requires community service, the way you frame that experience speaks volumes. Colleges will still be looking to see the same levels of passion, commitment, and initiative, even if the service was required.
Community service college essay example
To give you a better idea of how it can be done, let’s take a look at an essay by a student called Alice that successfully discusses community service without relying on clichés or brags.
Alice’s essay is in response to Harvard’s option to include an additional supplemental essay on one of a variety of topics. She chose to discuss “travel, living, or working experiences in your own or other communities” (no word limit).
Here’s what Alice wrote:
Like many kids in my suburban neighborhood, I grew up taking music lessons. Piano at six, violin at eight—but nothing really clicked with me until my parents grudgingly bought me my first guitar at age eleven. It was our compromise so that I wouldn’t quit music altogether, bored as I was with my studies of Beethoven and Bach. From that moment on, when I wasn’t at school, I’d be holed up in my room practicing Beatles songs or trying to write my own.
Music was a solo pursuit for me until, one day during freshman year, my next-door neighbor asked me if I would show her seven-year-old daughter, Jenny, how to play the electric guitar. I was beyond surprised. In our neighborhood, which was largely composed of Chinese American families like mine, studying classical music was the norm. But no, she said, Jenny wanted to play Beatles songs like me!
Suddenly, I imagined myself at Jenny’s age but with someone to show me it was okay to follow non-traditional interests. As a child, I’d never heard of any Asian American rock musicians, especially ones that were women—let alone known one in real life. I knew I had to say yes.
After a few months of teaching Jenny chords and scales every Saturday, I got the idea to organize a free after-school intro to guitar class for kids at our neighborhood’s community center. I had just watched the documentary Girls Rock! about a rock and roll camp in Portland, which had deeply inspired me. I genuinely had no idea if anyone but Jenny would be interested, but to my surprise, the class filled up and continued to do so for the next three years.
Teaching guitar to young Asian American children changed my present and my future. Not only have I discovered that I love teaching, a path I would like to further explore at Harvard, I also got to better integrate myself into my local community on my own terms. Growing up, I was secretly never sure if I fit in or belonged. I hope I’ve helped other kids know that they do.
Alice’s essay does a number of things well. In addition to being specific, featuring particular characters (herself, Jenny, a handful of parents), details (Beethoven and Bach, The Beatles, Girls Rock!), and a specific moment of change (when parents ask her for help), the essay succeeds on a few other levels:
It’s organic. It doesn’t announce itself as a Community Service Essay. Often, when we talk about what “type” of essay an applicant might write, we’re assessing things from the other side—the side that’s seen the results.
But that’s not how an essay gets written from the ground up. Alice groped her way toward this topic organically.
Rather than sitting down to write her essay and thinking, “I want to write an essay that shows Harvard I’m a good person who gives back to the community,” she sat down and thought, “I want to write about an experience that was meaningful to me. What, among my many high school extracurriculars, both formal and informal, might that be?”
It articulates her relationship to the community. Some of the worst writing about community service arises because students are speaking about the recipients of their service as though they’re alien creatures. The privileged author of the essay swoops in to the land of the less privileged, distributes the mysterious Community Service, and flits away unchanged.
This is far from Alice’s experience, because she belongs to the community she’s writing about. She drops in her relationship to the community in the second paragraph, almost incidentally—a sign of natural storytelling ability—she belongs to this Chinese American community that, on the whole, seems to prefer classical music to guitar. She then subtly brings her conclusion back to highlighting that relationship.
(Suggested reading: How to Write Amazing Ivy League Essays and College Essay Examples From Top-25 Universities)
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How else can community service be documented on college applications?
Community service can be listed alongside other extracurriculars on your child’s Common App activities section, as well as documented through letters of recommendation from service supervisors or (adult) co-volunteers.
If your child does choose to ask for a letter of recommendation, they should make sure that it’s coming from someone who knows them well. The recommender should not only be able to describe what your child worked on but should also provide insights into their personality and work ethic, along with specific anecdotes about their service.
Final thoughts
Community service can be a great way to stand out on Ivy League applications while making a difference in your local community—so long as it's done with genuine interest and commitment. Like any other extracurricular—athletics, academic teams, the arts—it’s not for everyone and shouldn’t be viewed as necessary. That said, if your child wants to serve, there are countless ways for them to do so in a way that intersects with, rather than diverges from, their passions.
About the Author
Dr. Shirag Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and one of the world's foremost experts on college admissions. For nearly 20 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into top programs like Harvard, Stanford, and MIT using his exclusive approach.
