Community Service-Important for college?

It has been a little while since I have posted--the rush of getting counselor reports off to the colleges for our biggest graduating class ever has kept me a bit busy lately! But now that things are perhaps slowing down a tiny bit, let's look at how colleges look at community service.
You know it has to be done for graduation: 20 hours a year may not seem like much, but if you wait till the last minute, finding enough places to volunteer may have you panicked. But maybe you should be thinking more in terms of doubling the impact; after all, colleges ask you about your community service on their applications. So what are they actually looking for?
A new survey has brought out some interesting results:
"For the last 3 years, DoSomething.org has put the science in this community service component. We conduct an annual survey of the top 50 colleges and universities (according to the U.S. News & World Report list). This year we conducted the study in partnerhsip with FastWeb (the leading source of college scholarship information) and our longtime partner, JPMorganChase. The full report can be downloaded here.

Some of the key findings include:

• 70 percent of admissions officers prefer students to be consistently involved with one issue over a variety of causes. This is a huge increase over 2010 survey results, when 50 percent of admissions officers preferred consistency over variety.

• 68 percent of admissions officers considered a political campaign to be community service. However, they cautioned that it is not considered "community service" if the work is paid.

• 95.8 percent of admissions officers value a student who took a gap year and did a service project, while a mere 4.2 percent value a student who spent the time traveling the world. Admissions officers commented that spending your year off doing service is important to community engagement."

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-lublin/college-admissions-community-service_b_1123212.html)

This should tell you that just grabbing a couple hours here and a couple hours there is not your best strategy. Consistently working in one area that involves something important to you will give your application more appeal than having no focus at all in your community service.
Give some thought to your interests and goals. Are you considering a medical career? Then volunteering regularly at a hospital or a doctor's office will show that commitment and interest. Do you love animals? Working at the Humane Society or volunteering at a stable will give you enjoyment as well as a consistent interest shown on your college application. Do you like sports? Volunteer to coach county sports leagues or at Perdue Stadium. Are you planning on working with children in your future career? Tutoring, Children's Church or Sunday School, or other volunteer work with children will give you experience, as well as a possible reference for your application!
If you must do community service (and you must, if you want to graduate!), you might as well make it work for you in more ways than one.