The Common Application includes an Activities Section that provides the opportunity for you to describe your extracurricular activities. The Activities Sheet allows you to select up to 10 extracurricular activities both in school and outside of school, including summer, employment, internship, and community service activities. Examples include arts or music, sports, clubs, community engagement, hobbies, work, volunteering, and family responsibilities.
Your resume will serve as an excellent resource to complete the sheet. See our blog post for advice on how to craft your college resume, as well. Read on for our tips on completing your Common App Activities Section.
General Suggestions
- Sequence your activities from most meaningful to you to least meaningful.
- Try to vary the activity type for the first three activities because some colleges limit their review to the first three.
Required Information for Each Activity
- Activity Type: Look at the drop-down menu on the Common Application to decide the appropriate category.
- Position/Leadership: Maximum of 50 characters. Include your position and any leadership roles you had, with the grade in parentheses, e.g. Concert Master, 1st Chair (12); 2nd Chair (11).
- Organization Name: Maximum of 100 characters. Include the full name of the organization, acronym if appropriate, and location if different from your town.
- Intend to participate in college? Yes/No: Review all your activities carefully. If you are interested in participating in a similar but not identical activity, you can state Yes.
- Timing of Participation: School, break, year: Choose which most accurately describes the period in which you performed the activity.
- Weeks per Year: Estimate how many weeks you spent on the activity during all your years of participation. Typically, a full academic school year is 40 weeks and summer is 12 weeks.
- Hours Spent per Week: Find the average by estimating how many total hours you spent on the activity throughout the year, then divide the hours by the number of weeks.
- Description, Honors, Accomplishments: Maximum of 150 characters. Describe your unique responsibilities, experiences, and honors as specifically as possible. Remember to use action verbs, such as participate, organize, represent.
If you need help filling out the Common App, or have any other questions about the college admissions process, set up a complimentary consultation to learn about our services. Here at Collegiate Gateway, we are happy to help guide you through this process and answer your questions about all aspects of college admissions, including the Common App, essays, resumes, recommendations, interviews, video submissions, applicant portals, and more.