How to write about community service in UC essays

AA former reader for UCLA's admissions office told applicants, in a short talk, that a total of service hours means very little on its own. A student lists a hundred hours at a hospital and assumes the number speaks for itself, but to a UCLA reader it says only that the hours happened. The most memorable files, in that reader's experience, came from students who were honest and willing to be a little vulnerable on the page.

Most applicants never get there. They report the hours, describe the tasks and close with a sentence about how much they grew, which reads as complete to the family and empty to the reader. A second former UCLA reader named what was missing, and called it the least discussed part of a personal essay.