How much would the certificate of meritorious service help my application?

Answered

Any sort of community service backed up with a certificate of merit helps your ECs narrative. But I caution all 9th,10th, 11th graders thinking that doing volunteer work for X numbers of hours, checks off a box and that box is a requisite for getting admitted to a top college. It is not a binary simple equation that if you successfully complete volunteering work, your future admissions officer will admit you into a prestigious college. That is not necessarily true.

What is most important is that given how much free time you have to dedicate toward ECs you curate a repertoire of significant impactful activities that have the maximum value for your narrative. What I'm saying is that the "quality" of your EC trumps the "quantity" of your EC.

So if you have the opportunity to be nominated to be a Student Member on your City Council and serve by representing your School District students voices for a period of 2 years, that's more impactful than spending your Wednesday afternoons picking up trash on the side of the county road and racking up 400 hours doing this.

When it comes to ECs, your application will be compared to other peers from your community and school district with similar zip codes. So if you know there are different types of community service available, pick the one that are the most coveted and competitive to get into and try out for those first. In this hyper-competitive admissions landscape, just doing enough is not impressive to anyone. You have to do more than ever to stand out in the crowd when you know that State colleges are getting up to 150,000 applications and many privates are getting 50,000 or more applications.

Good luck.