The Common App activities section gives you 10 slots to show colleges what you do outside the classroom, and each slot comes with tight formatting constraints: a 50-character field for your position or leadership role, a 100-character field for the organization name, and a 150-character field to describe what you actually did. That’s roughly one long sentence to make your case. Filling it out well means choosing the right activities, ordering them strategically, and writing descriptions that pack real substance into very little space.
What Counts as an Activity
The Common App lists 30 activity types in a dropdown menu, and the range is broader than most students realize. Varsity sports, student government, and honor societies are obvious picks, but admissions readers also value activities like caring for younger siblings after school, working a part-time job, teaching yourself to code, running a small business, or managing household responsibilities. If it takes meaningful time and you can describe what you contributed, it belongs on the list.
Self-started projects are especially strong because they show initiative without requiring any formal organization. Real applicants have listed entries like “Freelance Artist” with a self-started business selling personal artwork at a local gallery and donating proceeds to a school art program, or “Co-Founder and Tutor” for a peer tutoring program they launched to coach classmates in math and science. You don’t need a club charter or an adult supervisor for an activity to be legitimate.
How to Order Your 10 Slots
The Common App lets you drag activities into whatever order you choose, and that order matters. Put your most meaningful or impressive activities first. “Most impressive” doesn’t necessarily mean the most prestigious name. It means the activities where you invested the most time, showed the most growth, or made the most tangible impact. An applicant who spent 15 hours a week managing a family business will often make a stronger impression in slot one than someone who lists a one-week summer program at a well-known university.
If you held a leadership role, that activity generally moves up. If the activity connects directly to your intended major or a theme in your application, it moves up too. Activities where you participated casually or for only a short time go toward the bottom. You don’t need to fill all 10 slots. Eight strong entries beat 10 entries where the last two are padding.
Writing the Position and Organization Fields
The position field (50 characters) should name your specific role, not just “member.” Think about how your role evolved. If you started as a general member and became a section leader, use the highest role you held: “First Chair Violinist,” “Team Captain,” “Lead Organizer,” “Founder and President.” When the activity is something you do independently, your position can describe what you do: “Freelance Graphic Designer,” “Primary Caregiver,” “Self-Taught Programmer.”
The organization field (100 characters) names where the activity took place. For school clubs, include the school name so readers have context. For independent work, you can write “Self-started business” or “Independent project” or simply name the venture if it has one. One real applicant listed “ViolinMan, secondhand store for renting used musical instruments” to give the reader an instant picture of the operation.
Making the 150-Character Description Count
The description field is where most applicants lose ground. You have roughly 150 characters, which is shorter than a tweet. Every word has to earn its place.
Lead With Strong Verbs
Start each description with an active verb, not “I was responsible for” or “helped with.” Instead of “taught,” consider whether “coached,” “mentored,” “trained,” or “demystified” is more precise. Instead of “organized,” ask whether “arranged,” “compiled,” or “coordinated” better describes what you did. The right verb does double duty: it communicates both the action and the nature of your contribution in a single word.
Include Numbers Whenever Possible
Quantifying your impact is the fastest way to make a description concrete. Think about hours per week, number of people you served, dollars raised or donated, events planned, or duration of your commitment. Compare these two versions:
- “Tutored younger students in math after school” (generic, no scale)
- “Coached 12 students weekly in precalculus and trig; organized lessons for 2 years” (specific, measurable)
One real applicant wrote about practicing every Sunday morning for 2.5 hours over 9 years and performing at festivals annually. That kind of detail tells a reader this wasn’t a passing interest.
Show Impact, Not Just Tasks
After naming what you did, squeeze in a result or outcome. “Donated all proceeds (~$800) to school art program” transforms a freelance art entry from a hobby into a story about generosity and follow-through. “Raised money for resource costs and upcoming lessons” shows a club founder thinking beyond meetings. Even a brief phrase about what changed because of your work adds a layer most applicants miss.
Use Abbreviations and Shortcuts
At 150 characters, abbreviations are your friend. Use “&” instead of “and,” slashes to combine related items (“math/science”), and common abbreviations (“hrs/wk,” “vol.,” “org.”) when the meaning is obvious. Drop articles like “the” and “a” wherever you can. Write in sentence fragments rather than complete sentences. This isn’t an essay; it’s closer to a resume bullet point.
Handling the Checkboxes and Dropdowns
Each activity entry asks you to select participation grade levels (9, 10, 11, 12) and indicate whether you plan to continue the activity in college. Check every year you genuinely participated. Longer commitments look better than single-year dashes, so if you’ve stuck with something since freshman year, make sure all four boxes are checked. For the “intend to participate in college” checkbox, only select it if you’re being honest. Admissions officers won’t hold you to it, but checking it for every activity looks indiscriminate.
You’ll also enter the time commitment in hours per week and weeks per year. Be accurate. Inflating these numbers is tempting but risky, because admissions readers develop a strong sense of what’s realistic. A student claiming 30 hours per week across three activities while maintaining high grades will raise eyebrows. Round to reasonable estimates and keep them consistent with the rest of your application.
Choosing the Activity Type
The dropdown menu includes categories like Athletics, Community Service, Music, Work (paid), Family Responsibilities, and many others. Pick the category that most closely fits. When an activity could go in multiple categories, choose the one that highlights what you want the reader to notice. A paid job at a nonprofit could be listed under “Work (paid)” or “Community Service,” and the right choice depends on which angle matters more to your application’s overall story.
The “Other Club/Activity” category is a catch-all, but use a more specific category when one fits. Specific categories help readers scan your list quickly and mentally sort your commitments.
Filling Gaps With the Additional Information Section
If an activity needs more context than 150 characters can provide, the Additional Information section at the end of the Common App gives you 650 words of free space. This is the right place to explain unusual circumstances: a family obligation that limited your extracurricular time, a project that doesn’t fit neatly into the activity format, or context about an activity that was cut short. Don’t use it to simply repeat your activity descriptions in longer form. Use it only when the short format genuinely can’t capture something important.