Question about volunteer hours

[teachermom2834]

My dd has ton of service hours. She is a rising jr and has 250+ hours over about 3 different organizations. As she is narrowing college and career goals she really wants to focus on one organization (one she only has about 25 hours at right now). There is a lot to do with this organization and it fits with her goals and will work nicely in the story she is kinda constructing about who she is and what she wants to pursue. She is a top student and I expect her to be in contention for several scholarships and programs where having a picture of who she is and where she is going that is genuine is necessary (more so than my other kids that just needed the gpa and test scores). 
 

All to lead up to my question- what is considered a significant number of hours to show true commitment to an organization beyond just a passing interest or trying to clock a few hours for a resume? She would like to set a goal for herself to work towards in terms of a specific number of hours that seems credible. She has all of this year and next summer before college applications heat up so some time to work at it.
 

I know she should do other things as far as taking on responsibility and leadership etc but for those who know things about admissions what is a ballpark number of hours if one were to set a goal for such things?

(she also is just a busy bee who likes volunteering so this isn’t a slog…but she has a lot going and she likes to have a goal number to shoot for)

Thanks!

Edited June 30 by teachermom2834

[ScoutTN]

If she can find a certifying organization, her hours can count towards the President’s Volunteer Service Award. The highest level is gold and 250+ hrs (in 12 months) earns it for ages 16-25.

100-174 = bronze 
175-249= silver

Whether or not she pursues the award, it may be a useful benchmark? 
 

An Eagle project is 100+ hrs, but not all of those are worked by the scout.

 

[teachermom2834]

7 minutes ago, ScoutTN said:

If she can find a certifying organization, her hours can count towards the President’s Volunteer Service Award. The highest level is gold and 250+ hrs (in 12 months) earns it for ages 16-25.

100-174 = bronze 
175-249= silver

Whether or not she pursues the award, it may be a useful benchmark? 
 

An Eagle project is 100+ hrs, but not all of those are worked by the scout.

 

She has received the Gold Presidential award at her school the last two years as she was under 16 and the threshold was 100 hours. She went away for the first five weeks of summer and has another academic camp taking up another week so I don’t think she will make it for this year now that she is 16. But she might make it to 100 hours for the Bronze. It will be close. She is in 100 activities at school, too, of course.

I like the 100 hours for Eagle project benchmark. That’s realistic for this one project over the next year+ before scholarship applications etc will be due even with the other things she has going. 

[saw]

You could look at the Congressional Award. It has six levels, and the highest level, the gold medal, requires 400 community service hours over 24 months (do not need to be consecutive) and 200 each for personal development and physical fitness, plus an expedition. DS just submitted for his gold medal and earned the silver last fall; basically, he was going to do all of these hours and activities anyway, but having the award makes it a bit more official and provides outside certification that he has done the hours. The hardest part was tracking the hours. I would say that in excess of 400 is good (though not necessary of course) but as you say it is also important to show that the volunteering is about dedication to helping a cause and not just ticking boxes.