Published: August 19, 2006 11:04 pm         

Mark Bennett: Done sincerely, community service can open doors for college-bound teens

TERRE HAUTE — Commitment sounds as dated as an 8-track tape deck in a ’77 Duster these days. Americans can click away almost anything that has momentarily lost their interest, just like a TV remote control.

But stick-to-it-ive-ness remains a virtue in at least one 21st-century setting — the entrance to college campuses.

Beactrice Mack is a perfect example. The 23-year-old Indiana State University senior spent much of her high school years at Columbus East doing volunteer work. With a goal of someday teaching physical education to special-needs kids, Mack focused on a handful of related charities — the Special Olympics, a local homeless shelter, and a school backpack giveaway organized by her church, Second Baptist of Columbus.

“I got three different [college scholarships] through community service,” she said last week. “But I did it because I like volunteering.”

Scholarship selection committees want, in addition to strong grades, to see a track record of service to a small number of projects from these high schoolers. And when a college admissions officer must decide between two prospects whose grades are equal, their volunteerism — or lack thereof — might be the tiebreaker.

“Anytime we’re determining whether a student is going to be admitted or not, we definitely take that into consideration,” said Theresa Deaton, chief enrollment services and marketing officer at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College.

Why would a college or university care if a teenager spent a couple afternoons every week reading the newspaper to nursing home residents who’ve lost their eyesight?

“We think it gives her an exposure to a broader world, rather than just the academic or athletic,” Deaton said of The Woods, a private liberal arts school for women.

Those criteria — community service and volunteerism — commonly show up on college admittance forms and scholarship applications. And they’re not necessarily looking for dozens of club memberships. Instead, a kid who spends a year or more on a handful of activities is more likely to get noticed.

In other words, those who made a commitment.

High schoolers who pile up quick-hit volunteer outings — beneficial as those might be — during their senior year may find themselves behind classmates who worked for months on a charity or church project.

“It tends to be a laundry list of activities that students have done to make themselves look good, as opposed to students being committed to a few activities,” said Stefanie Niles, admissions director at DePauw University. “Yes, resume-building tends to be obvious. We’d rather see a student who’s committed themselves to, say, the candy stripers at the hospital for three years. The longevity speaks to us in a very strong way.”

Putting aside time for such things as a high school freshman or sophomore is wise.

“To be honest, if they come to us as a junior or senior and they don’t have that, it’s already too late,” said Jim Goecker, dean of admissions and financial aid at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.

Of course, the top requirement for acceptance into private schools such as Rose or DePauw is academic performance. But with tuition costs around the country nearly double what they were 10 years ago, colleges and universities must aggressively pursue potential students. And students needing scholarship help must have an edge, too. That advantage often is found outside their high school’s walls or athletic fields through volunteerism.

Since coming to Rose two decades ago, Goecker has noticed that it’s “far, far more likely for students to ask about that than in was in the past.”

The stakes are high. In 2004-05, scholarships and grants accounted for nearly 40 percent of financial aid distributed nationally, according to the College Board. That’s $57 billion. That help comes in handy, especially with the average tuition cost at $5,132 for a four-year, in-state public school and $20,082 for a private institution.

FastWeb.com is an Internet scholarship search site that boasts access to 1.3 million scholarships worth more than $1.3 billion. One of every three college-bound high school seniors used FastWeb last year, according to its statistics. And they find that many awards require volunteer work, sometimes toward a specific venture. Kids who are interested in skateboarding, for example, can qualify for Patrick Kerr Skateboard Scholarships, given to teens who help get skateparks built in their communities, said Baird Johnson, FastWeb’s vice president of products marketing.

(Hmmm. Wonder if there’s a town around here that could use a skatepark?)

Some teens may be able to impress a few private scholarship boards by that “laundry list of activities” that Niles mentioned. But genuine commitment “is a huge differentiator,” Johnson said.

“These scholarship committees are looking for kids who are passionate about something,” he added. “We’ve talked to these committees, and they want kids who’ve made a commitment to one cause.”

Public universities make similar considerations as they choose which incoming students should get scholarships offered by that school.

“We really do put some value on students who have done something for one, two or three years — students that have made a long-term commitment,” said Richard Toomey, ISU director of admissions.

As academic requirements are increasing at ISU and other Indiana colleges, “so too is there a greater examination of co-curricular activities. It’s becoming of greater importance,” Toomey said.

Right now, Traci Haton is trying to find 400 people to help overwhelmed and understaffed nonprofit agencies get some unfinished work done. Haton, volunteer connection director for the United Way of the Wabash Valley, they might end up painting, landscaping, sweeping or sorting mail. And while this effort — called the Days of Caring on Sept. 15-16 — is short-term, it can turn out to be more than resume padding for a college prospect. “Because once they involved in community service, they often stick around,” Haton said.

If students contact her, Haton will try to pair them up with groups or projects involving their passions on a more long-term basis.

“It takes a very mature student to commit to that,” Haton said.

But they are out there.

St. Mary-of-the-Woods expects its incoming students to continue such commitments as collegians. Upon enrollment, women there immediately begin their first service learning projects, Deaton said.

“They really walk away with a sense of how rich their lives are, and what people in their communities need,” she said.

That’s what Beactrice Mack, the ISU senior, discovered back at the homeless shelter in Columbus, years before her scholarships sent her to college.

“It showed me there are people out there who need things,” she said. “I need things. But there are people out there who need things more than me.”

Mark Bennett can be reached at mark.bennett@tribstar.com or (812) 231-4377.