It’s time to talk about everyone’s least favorite and most annoying part of the Common App: the activities section. Why is it annoying? Well, first of all, they give you extremely limited space to talk about your extracurriculars. We’re talking less than half a tweet’s worth. Well, only if you’re a regular Twitter user and you don’t give Elon $8 a month, because then it’s like 1/100th of a tweet.
It’s also annoying because there is space for 10 activities. This is annoying on two fronts: you might be a student who has only done 8 meaningful extracurriculars and you are worried about not having the full list, or you’re a student who has like 32 things you want to list but can’t. It’s a conundrum!!
Not to mention, if you go in without a plan, it’s wildly time-consuming. No prep or strategizing will put you in an endless loop of tinkering and toiling with a section of the Common App for weeks. Thankfully, we have some tips and tricks to help you write an activities section that not only helps you stand out, but helps you write it in the span of an afternoon.
PART 1: FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF
Let’s start by actually looking at what the activities section looks like:
This is what you’re greeted with. There are a wiiiiiide range of things you can include, including things like family responsibilities or paid work. Also yes, you wish to report activities, duh. And we advise following their advice – list what is important to you, but keep in mind that your activities list also needs to support your narrative.
Now for the meat:
The activity type drop-down menu is super long and detailed, and some even spawn new drop-down menus based on what you select. You need your ‘title,’ we know you may not always have a title, but for sports, this might be Captain or your position, for clubs it can be leadership or member or founder, etc. Don’t overthink it. You’ll put who you did the activity for. Don’t overthink that either. Then you do the description, then you put the grades you participated in the activity during.
Timing of participation is pretty self-explanatory. What’s less self-explanatory is the hours per week, weeks per year. Don’t overestimate this part, you don’t want your hours per week adding up to an unrealistic number.
PART 2: PREP YOUR LIST
You’ve done a lot of activities, or maybe you haven’t. First things first, you need to list them all out. Yes, just a bulleted list is fine. It’s okay if you have more than 10 to start with.
Next, start giving us some info. Don’t worry about making it to that 150-character limit yet. When did you do this thing and for how long, did you win any awards, are you in leadership, etc. What were your key responsibilities? Did you do any cool projects for it?
PART 2.5 ORGANIZE YOUR LIST
Okay we know a .5 is kind of cheating, but it’s very closely related!! Take your list of activities and start to rank them in terms of importance. And by importance we mean a) time frame and b) relevance. Football might be the most important thing to you, but if you did research with a college professor, that might be a little more important to the whole academics of it all. We advise making the list in order of importance to your academics and then in reverse chronological order. Something you did one semester of sophomore year should not be in your top 3 (or 5, or maybe at all, tbh).
Now, you’ve got your 10.
PART 3: WRITE DESCRIPTIONS
This part is probably the trickiest. Be concise, but don’t get too resume-speak with it. You need to be mindful of the space you have, so if there are things in your descriptions that can go in other sections (like awards and honors), set them aside for later. Let’s look at some good sample descriptions for a student interested in business:
Chief Financial Officer, Youth Investment Competition (YIC)
Hosted and organized an international investment competition, kept track of investments and expenses, and brought in approx. $2500 in sponsorships.
Head of Finance and Treasury, CanCure
Track funds and expenses for CanCure, which raises awareness of women’s health and breast cancer. Host and manage various fundraising events.
See how these descriptions are straightforward, list the student’s responsibilities, and when applicable, mention measurable results? We love it. Let’s see how students also describe more standard activities, like sports and music:
Drums, Music School
Play drums in many school and local bands. 2nd nationwide in drums exams held by Trinity College London. Full marks in Yamaha grade 8, 9 + 10 exams.
Varsity Athlete & Environmental Committee Lead, National Interscholastic Cycling Association
Founding member of the NJ chapter, encouraged women to pursue a passion for cycling. Won the Chris Schilling Award, and achieved 25 podium finishes.
Senior Club Member: Public Forum Debate, National Speech and Debate Association
Participate in a mentor-mentee program to train young public forum debaters, whilst competing on the state level.
Direct! State what they did! Gave measurable results and listed awards that otherwise could not be in the Honors/Awards section!
A few more examples of more unique activities:
Leader & Co-Founder, Old Norse & Tolkien Club
Created Old Norse lessons centered around Tolkien’s use of the language. Organized lectures with Old Norse professors from nearby colleges.
Aviation, Local Airplane Club
Learning to fly; logged 60 hours on flight simulators and 15 hours in a Cessna-172. Take theory classes on navigation, terminology, and instruments.
Captain, Expeditions Club
Weekend hiking/mountaineering. Overnight trips climbing 3,000m peaks in the swiss alps. Planning future hikes for students
See a pattern? Direct language, specific examples, and measurable results when applicable.
PART 4: PLUG IT IN
Now you’ve got your list, your clear descriptions, and you’re ready to rock. Big thing to do here is estimate hours and weeks. If you did it year-round, it’s probably not a full 52 weeks (you took no holidays off?) unless it is a family responsibility. If you just did it in the Fall, that’s only 15 or so weeks. School year is around 30 weeks. If you had practice every day for two hours after school, that’s 10 hours a week. Meet every other week during the school year for a club meeting? Then you did it for 15 or so weeks (depending on your school year), and did it an hour a week. DO NOT OVERESTIMATE. Remember that in the best reality, you have about 4-5 hours a day that aren’t school and sleep/studying/home time. If your hours add up to more hours than exist in a week, you are just wrong!
While you’re plugging everything in, make sure to proofread everything and double-check that you entered it correctly.
Now, you’ve mastered your activities section and it only took you a few hours. If you get stuck, take a deep breath and come back to it. If you don’t know what activities to choose over others, we say go with what is more recent or more applicable to your stated major. If you have cool, unique things, add those too!! You’ve got this.
If you need help with your college apps, your Common App essay, or the activities section, reach out to us today.