How to Write the Common App Activities Section (Examples Included!) (2024)

by Rhonda A.
Updated October 26, 2022

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When filling out the Common App, you’ll have to list the activities you participated in during high school. This is the Common App activities section.

While simply listing your activities might seem like enough information for colleges, try thinking about it from the eyes of an admissions officer.

A student who founded the Spanish club and ran a successful fundraiser to sponsor a field trip is not the same as a student who occasionally attended meetings when they felt like it.

Admissions officers are looking for applicants who are dedicated to their passions. Colleges want students who go the extra mile and take the initiative to better their surroundings.

It is your job to prove that you fit those criteria.

That’s why you need to list details, metrics, and other specifics to best explain your role in the activity.
Ideally, you’ve already been working on this by keeping track of everything you’ve done throughout high school in a notebook or journal*.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to write the very best Common App activities section.

What should you put in the “Activities” section of the Common App?

Before you commit to writing about a particular extracurricular, it is important to brainstorm.

First, write down a list of all the extracurricular activities you listed on your application.

Next to each activity, briefly note:

How long did you participate in the activity?
Did you receive any awards, certificates, medals, etc.?
What skills did the activity teach you?
What events related to the activity made a significant difference in your life?
How did you accomplish your goals in the activity?
What are the important numbers, metrics, and details that prove you did an awesome job in this activity?

Once you have created this list, go ahead and cross off any activities that did not change your life in any significant way. Remember that colleges want to learn about the activities that you made legitimate contributions to.

Click above to watch a video on The Common App Extracurricular Section.

Sure, it’s nice that you were able to list “Student Government Association Representative” on your application, but if you simply attended meetings for one semester without participating in SGA events, then it is probably not what you want to list on your application.

Next, comb through your list for activities that show both commitment and effort.

This means you committed to these activities for a significant period of time (at least one year).

When selecting extracurriculars, it’s also important to think about how relevant they were to your life over the past few years.

Bonus points if this activity heavily influenced your ambitions for college and beyond.

If you were the Principal’s Pal in the 4th grade and represented your peers at the carnival, that’s awesome, but probablynot an experience relevantto your college application.

Colleges want to see growth. It’s better to have two to three activities to which you were dedicated than a random assortment of eight or nine activities to which you contributed little.
Listing several or more activities is fine, but you need to have solid experience within each activity.

That’s why you’ll hear about leadership so often — students who pour time and effort into activities are often rewarded with leadership positions because they’ve demonstrated their dedication. Colleges like seeing this.

How should you choose extracurricular activities for your Common App Activities list?

When listing extracurricular activities, some students are tempted to list every activity they’ve ever participated in, even if it was for an insignificant period of time.

However, college admissions officers are interested in quality over quantity.

It’s better to list a few activities in which you weredeeply involved rather than creating a massive laundry list of minor activities.

Admissions officers want to see that you are passionate about a few interests and dedicated significant time and effort to developing them.

They’re also particularly interested in leadership roles, so don’t leave out any officer positions or captaincies.

Ideally, you should have at least 2-3 activities demonstrating significant involvement, but it’s okay to include a few other less significant activities. Listing more is totally fine, too.

The Common App has space for students to list ten activities, but you should not feel obligated to fill out all ten. Only fill out all 10 if you’ve made significant efforts in each of those activities listed.

Adding Common App Activities: Brainstorm First

Over the four years of high school, many students are involved in a wide variety of activities, so remembering all the details can be difficult.

Before attempting to write about all of these experiences, it can be helpful to spend time reflecting on what you have learned from these activities and how they have helped you develop.

You can start by brainstorming a list of activities. At this point, it’s fine to list anything that comes to mind.

Later, you can evaluate these items and decide which to include in the application.

As you brainstorm, you should also list a description of what you did with each activity.

This includes leadership roles (even unofficial ones) and how many hours you devoted to the activity weekly.
You should also include the dates participated in each activity.

The next step is to rank these activities in order of importance. By “importance,” we mean the activities that are most meaningful to you.

Maximize Short Character Count

Usually, students are limited to writing only about 150 characters when describing an extracurricular activity.

Since the character count is limited, staying focused is key.

Save every word you can for the main focus for your response, which is to explain how you contributed to your activity, club, group, or team.

This will give the admissions officers a frame of reference for when they evaluate how important the activity was to you.

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Be Specific

The list should be as specific as possible.

Instead of saying “Helped with fundraisers,” you should add specifics.
What type of fundraisers?
Exactly how did you contribute to the fundraiser?
What role did you play during the fundraiser?
By how much more did you raise than last year’s fundraiser.

You will have only 150 characters per activity description.

This means you’ll have to focus on what’s most important.
This may include leadership roles, special achievements, noteworthy progress, and other significant contributions.

You should also keep the focus on the particular role in each activity. Admissions officers do not want to see a general description of what the club does or how many games the soccer team won.

They want to know exactly how you contributed and what you achieved while participating in each activity.

Because space is so limited, it’s okay not to use complete sentences in this portion of the Common App.

It’s a good idea to use phrases that begin with action words, like on a resume. Feel free to use semi-colons to separate thoughts.

Example:
Played varsity soccer for 4 years; served as captain for 2 years; led stretches and drills at the start of each practice

Additionally, you can save space by being as specific as possible in the “Activity Name” box that precedes the “Activity Description” section.

You are allowed 50 characters in the name section, so take advantage.

Let’s consider the example above. This student played varsity soccer all four years and served as captain for two.
These are great achievements, but it took 53 characters to share this information.
Instead, this student could list “Activity Name” as “4-year varsity soccer player/2-year captain.”
That’s 40 characters, and it frees up space in the description for the student to go into detail about her leadership role and impressive statistics on the field.

Focus is key here. Wordiness will dilute the power of your response.

Recognize Your Power

When writing about your extracurricular participation, it is most important for you to consider how you have been changed by your experience. This will help you write about what you contributed to the activity,

Readers should be able to gather that you have had experiences that have important life skills.

Don’t feel discouraged if you weren’t the team captain or president of a club.
Those accomplishments are not necessary to have had a valuable learning experience. Admissions officers aren’t necessarily looking for leadership positions.

Consider these questions when brainstorming the effect of your extracurricular activity:

Did you…

Feel challenged and learn to overcome those challenges?
Become a leader and learn to manage a team?
Experience failure and did it make you a better person?
Support and uplift your peers by learning to be a part of a team?
Have an experience that inspired or confirmed a career choice?
Build community relationships and why is that important to you?
Branch out of your comfort zone and what did you learn?

This, of course, is not an exhaustive list of ideas. Your own personal experiences will shape your responses.

Writing that you made a“big impact” on your group is not enough. Follow up with specific details about what it did.

As a technique, try to write a very short story, and then shorten your response once you’ve written the essential details. For example:

Who: What was your position?
What: What did you do?
When: How often and during what time frame did you participate?
Where: Name the location that hosted you.
Why: What was your ultimate goal for this activity? Did you accomplish it?
How: By what means did you accomplish your goals?

Don’t be afraid to plan. Many students neglect this, but we’ve found that planning helps save time and reduces confusion.

Still having trouble?

Go for a walk and think about your activities.
Talk to a friend and discuss your activities.
Sit in peace and reflect.

Often, talking about something is much easier than writing it down. It defeats writer’s block and helps you distill the important things.

If you still have space to write, concluding with how or what you learned from your experience will serve you well in college or later in life.

Consider Your “Story”

After you have completed the list, you should consider how well this list and the accompanying descriptions tell your story.

Do the activities present an accurate picture of your high school experience, particularly time spent outside of the classroom?

Reading over the list, do you get a glimpse of who you are as an individual?

Will this list help admissions officers imagine the type of contribution you will make to a college campus?

Admissions officers want to know about extracurricular activities for a few reasons:

To learn about what’s important to you outside of the classroom
To envision how youwill contribute to their campus
To see that you are pursuing your interests and passions
To get an overall picture of your personality and high school experience

That may seem like a lot of information to glean from a simple list of extracurricular activities. But read over your list and see if you think admissions officers will get an accurate picture of you as both a high school student and a person.

If not, is there anything else you can include that’s important to you?
Anything unnecessary that should be removed from the list?
Did you forget to mention any achievements, like leading a project or organizing an event?
Have you included volunteer work that is meaningful to you?

Common App Activities Section Examples

Here are examples from top high school students. These examples should help you write a great Common App activities list:

DECA Executive Vice President
Trained 7 state qualifiers; developed fundraising, recruitment campaigns to raise $1200 in 1 year, increase membership from 6 to 40 members in 2 years

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What if I don’t have anything for my Common App Activities section?

If you didn’t participate in traditional extracurricular activities, don’t panic yet!

It’s time to think outside of the box and consider if you had a compelling reason for not having activities to list.

How did you spend your free time in high school? Working? Family responsibilities? Independent study?

If so, consider writing about those experiences and how they changed and shaped your life.

Perhaps youdon’t have traditional activitiesto list because you had to pick up your younger siblings from school every day and then had to start cooking dinner.

These certainly are life experiences about which you can write.

Think about it: If you’ve faced a particular struggle, that differentiates you from most students.

If you can frame this correctly, then this will be a strength during the college admissions process.

As you grow older, you’ll learn that people who’ve faced adversity are often more qualified to handle conflict and pressure.

Leverage this during college applications.

Is there a reason why you couldn’t dedicate more time to activities? Did you need to handle a long-term family or health difficulty that prevented you from maximizing your time in school?

Don’t be afraid to voice your story. Colleges are empathetic, but they can only be empathetic if you let them know.

Depending on the application and school to which you are applying, there may already be a place for you to write about any “holes”in your activities.

Therefore, be mindful of the structure of the application and where you want to add this information.

Before submitting your writing, ask a friend, mentor, or family member to read your response and follow up with the question: “What did you learn about me from reading this paragraph?”

If you’re not satisfied with their answers, go back and revise by adding details that elucidate what you want your reader to understand.

How to Have Extracurriculars to Write About

Alex Goldman, admissions counselor at Sweet Briar College, has this advice for underclassmen who want complete college applications:

To make the most of high school extracurricular opportunities, students should lean in and embrace the experience while rising to the challenges their activities present. Taking leadership roles within their organizations, building influential relationships with teachers, coaches and peers as well as volunteering with community-based programs are all great ways to expand a student’s extracurricular experiences.
Going beyond the after-school commitment will allow a student to pursue their interests more in depth and further develop a student’s character, which will shine through in résumés and college applications!

Conclusion: Common App Activities Section

Overall, your discussion of extracurricular activities should be short, sweet, and to-the-point.

If you make your response meaningful, you’ll be one step closer to achieving your college dreams.

Always remember to elaborate and show the meaning of each relevant extracurricular activity.

College admissions officers don’t know anything about you before they read your college application, so you need to supply pertinent information to paint a portrait of yourself. It’s critical to ask for feedback from honest people since you have a limited amount of space.

You want to tell a story about yourself and how you’ve developed as a person.

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