Maximizing the Common App Activities Section

The Activities section is an underutilized opportunity to showcase not only your achievements but also your personality.

What is the Activities section?

Listing activities on the Common App is an important part of your college application, as it allows you to showcase your involvement, leadership, and passions outside the classroom.

The Common App allows ten spaces for students to discuss the activities they’ve been involved in while in high school. Activities are ranked by the student in order of “their importance to you”. Students should strive to list 10 quality activities, and students with more than 10 activities may choose to utilize the Additional Information section.

How much does the Activities section matter?

Colleges will publish the importance of extracurricular activities in admissions decisions in Section C-7 of their annual Common Data Sets. You can find this information by Googling Name of School + Common Data Set, searching for the most recent school year, and scrolling down to Section C-7. Colleges will rank the importance of factors as Very Important, Important, Considered, or Not Considered. Let’s take a look at some examples: