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tudents often start off every year with expectations and refreshed goals to strive for academic success. As college is a common end goal for high school students, many seek to join clubs to gain an edge in the competitive college admission process.

Commitments are made to not only school work, but to additional, rigorous academic courses, extracurriculars, and somehow still seek to maintain a social life. With the constant struggle to keep balance, it is easy to get caught up in the chaos and push aside volunteer hour requirements until the last minute, as experienced by junior Ananya Verma.

“I do not believe that volunteer hours and expectations are realistic for people because people have sports and have to deal with school, and all of their home work,” Verma said. “It is important to volunteer and help out the community but sometimes the expectations are a little high.”

Although some fail to complete hours all together, many are left in a gray area where they have managed to attend only a good fraction of the hours but not quite enough to receive the deserved credit or recognition. Often times, this can be the result of a conflicts in scheduling and is unavoidable.

From this issue arises the question whether students should claim to be a part of the club or not. A simple lack of one or two hours can suddenly create a divide amongst student whom have managed to open up their schedules for volunteer hours. HOP commissioner Brenden Koo shared his opinion on the subject.

“The truly dedicated HOP leaders work hard and have plenty of HOP hours,” Koo said. “Some last year even had up to 15 hours, so it’s not like we don’t give out hours opportunities.”