The Common App Activities Section: A Deep Dive
By far one of the most stressful parts of the Common App, the Activities section often challenges students who don’t have the luxury of expert guidance. Whether you’re confused about what exactly counts as an extracurricular activity, or concerned about staying within the very small character limits, we’re here to demystify this very important section of the Common Application.
Note: we recommend you log into your Common App account and navigate to the Activities section (listed under My Common App) so that you can follow along with the article. If you haven’t created an account yet, see last week’s article for instructions.
General Overview
What is the Activities Section?
If you haven’t logged into your Common App account (or haven’t yet created one), log in or create an account now. Once you’ve logged in, navigate to My Common App and scroll down to Activities.
The Activities section is where you tell colleges about your extracurricular involvements throughout high school. Together with your essays, this section paints a picture of who you are, what matters to you, and to what extent you remain committed to your involvements.
The Common App allows you to list ten activities in the Activities section.
For each activity, you will provide/answer:
The activity type
Your position/leadership description
The organization name
A description of the activity
The years of high school you were involved in the activity
The timing of your participation (school year vs school break)
Hours spent per week and Weeks spent per year
Whether or not you plan to continue with the activity in college
“What Activities Should I Include in this Section?”
Anything you do outside of school may count as an extracurricular activity. Now that you’re in the Activities section, go ahead and click on the Activity type dropdown list under Activity 1.
You’ll notice that this list encompasses a lot of activity types, including:
Art
Community Service (volunteer)
Family Responsibilities
LGBT
Work (paid)
No one activity type is better or more important than the others. I’d like to draw special attention to Family Responsibilities, because many students overlook this type or choose not to include it. Colleges take family responsibilities very seriously. Helping with younger siblings and other family members demonstrates maturity, self-direction, and integrity, and requires sacrifice.
Remember that there are ten slots in the Activities section. Ten may sound like very many or very few, depending on the student. If you only have a few extracurricular activities and have the time to add more, consider what areas you might be lacking: clubs? Volunteering? Hobbies and passions?
If you only have a few involvements, but do not have time for more, don’t worry. Your lack of free time indicates that you are heavily involved in your extracurricular activities or family responsibilities. As we like to say at Chapman Education, depth comes before breadth.
If you are involved in more than ten activities, include the ten that are most important to you, or that you dedicate the most time to.
“How Can I Make Myself Sound More Impressive?”
Honesty is the best policy. You have no reason to exaggerate your role or level of commitment in any activity. Colleges understand that teenagers are developing their interests and learning to juggle responsibilities. They don’t expect you to occupy yourself for every waking moment. Instead, they want to see sustained commitment to activities that matter to you.
Everyone is different, which means what matters to one person doesn’t necessarily matter to the next. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing; just focus on what you do, and tell the truth about it.
“Why Do I Need to Include Hours and Weeks?”
At the bottom of Activity 1, you’ll notice two fields: Hours spent per week and Weeks spent per year. These fields allow colleges to easily compare your time commitments between your various activities.
If you aren’t certain exactly how many hours or weeks you spend on any one activity, just give your best guest. And once again, don’t feel tempted to exaggerate. Many activities only require or allow for commitments of one to two hours a week.
If you quit an activity during high school—or had to stop for any other reason—you can still include it in the activities section. Many students drop activities in order to prioritize the ones that are most important to them. In a separate question, you will check off which years of high school you participated in the activity.
The Description (AKA The Most Annoying Part)
10 entries.
150 characters per entry.
The Activities section is notorious for requiring extremely succinct, yet comprehensive descriptions of extracurricular activities. Many students decry the minuscule character limit, and trust us when we say—we sympathize.
Our students are over-achievers and go-getters. They start clubs, dedicate hundreds of hours to volunteering, fulfill myriad roles in their households, and take on a variety of managerial positions. Often, these roles and positions are multifaceted, difficult to capture in just one sentence or clause. Some students could write pages about just one commitment!
Thankfully, we’ve gotten pretty good at writing activity descriptions. Here’s how the experts at Chapman Education deal with the dreaded 150 character limit.
Tips and Tricks for Activity Descriptions
Remember that you have separate fields to identify your position and the name of the organization. Don’t waste characters on these details in the description.
Don’t write in complete sentences. Instead treat the description like a bulleted list, minus the bullets. You can use semicolons (;), commas, and periods to separate items.
Try to speak to three things:
Your duties
Your impacts (ideally quantified)
The impacts the activity has had on you
An Example Activity Entry
Let’s suppose you are the founder and president of your high school’s Drawing & Painting Club, which you founded in your sophomore year. How should we describe this activity and your role?
The Basic Information
Select Art from the activity type dropdown list
In the Position/Leadership description box (50 characters), type: Founded and served as President since inception.
In the Organization name box (100 characters), type: [YOUR HIGH SCHOOL] Drawing & Painting Club.
The Dreaded Description
Now for the description. Remember that we want to speak to your duties, your impacts, and the impacts the activity has had on you. Here’s how a Chapman Education counselor might write this description:
Designed curriculum; arranged museum trips; members improved art grades an average of one letter grade. Won regional contest with my work from club.
With this description, we’ve addressed the three essential components:
Your Duties—curriculum design and arranging museum trips
Your Impacts—your club members improved their grades in art classes by an average of one letter grade
Impacts on You—you won a regional art contest with work you’d done in the club
Conclusion
Typically, it’s the description that students get stuck on. The other parts are fairly self-explanatory. While there’s no formula for a perfect activity description, trying to touch on those three elements (duties, impact, and personal impact) will usually deliver a solid result.
Completing the Common App Activities Section isn’t easy. We hope this article cleared up your confusion and prepared you to tackle the section. If you have any lingering questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
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