We package meals.  We tutor children.  We de-litter parks, shelve books, ladle soup.

                Why?

                Sure, many students at Minnetonka volunteer out of the goodness of their hearts.  These kids, for any number of reasons, feel a calling, a need, a wish to better their community.  And so they teach Sunday school, lead YMCA camp, douse fires, rake leaves—fill in the blank.  But there’s no denying that many high school students volunteer only as fodder for college applications.  Reading to kids, assisting adults with special needs, starting your own fundraiser?  These are the things colleges want to see…right?

                Everyone tells us we should volunteer because we feel strongly about what we’re doing, but stress from college admissions has caused many students to look at volunteering as an obligation rather than a pleasure.  If volunteering seems like such a chore to so many of us, why do colleges stress its importance? 

                Many high school students don’t feel any special affinity for community service, but still volunteer because it’s what colleges like to see.  If our hearts aren’t in it, what’s the point?  Service done without a happy or willing heart is hardly service at all, but rather a chore.

                Colleges shouldn’t stress volunteering as such a deciding factor in admission.  If community service is where students’ hearts truly lie, they will approach these opportunities themselves, without .  Colleges should look at every aspect of a student’s résumé and view each individual for who he or she truly is.  Everyone is trying to become the same well-rounded, high-achieving good citizenfor college—eventually, we all look the same and might struggle to set ourselves apart from every other applicant.  We should be encouraged to do what we like rather than conform to preset high expectations, and colleges should appreciate each person for his or her own interests instead of those the institutions prescribe themselves.

                Of course volunteering is beneficial to others and to the community; but we should not have to be pressured to participate.  Rather than conforming ourselves to a “get-into-college” cookie cutter, we should be encouraged solely to do what comes naturally to ourselves in the areas in which we are interested or to which we feel called.