Common App: Make Your Activity Descriptions Impactful
Some educators advise students to pursue an extensive list of activities. Join clubs…participate in sports…take an internship…play an instrument (or two, or three)…engage in a unique hobby…run for class office…join the newspaper staff…juggle summer jobs and college enrichment programs. The list goes on and on and on. But is there such a thing as too much involvement? YES!
On the other hand, some students believe that they should join a bunch of clubs at school, pay their dues, sit in on an occasional meeting, and voilà! They now have a list of extracurricular activities for their college applications. But nothing could be more wrong—there is no substance to their club membership and few details that could be added to a résumé. There is no impact or accomplishment or leadership or initiative to demonstrate to colleges.
The reason extracurriculars play such a vital role in admission decisions is because colleges are trying to predict which students will have the most meaningful impact on their campus community, and the only way to truly judge that is by the impact an applicant has had in his or her own community throughout high school. That’s the best predictor of future success in terms of campus impact.
Add then there’s the fact that so many seniors applying to college have a 4.0 GPA – and extracurricular commitment is one of the best ways for a student to distinguish herself.
And so what is it that colleges want to see in your list, and how do you present each activity? We’ve got six strategies to help you.
With a limit of ten activities on the Common App (the most popular application platform with 1,000+ colleges accepting it), what should you do if you have more than ten, and how can you best showcase and prioritize them? Are there certain activities that you should emphasize and others you should leave off?
With the help of several experts, we offer these six strategies for you to create your impactful Activities page, get noticed – and be accepted.
1. Focus on Quality, Impact, and Contribution– NOT Quantity of Activities
Your activities help colleges understand your life beyond the classroom. But with character limits (50 characters for position/leadership description, 100 characters for organization name, and 150 characters to describe your role in the activity), students often exclude pertinent details about their achievements. Don’t presume that the sheer number of your activities is impressive enough. According to experts like Certified Educational Planner Judi Robinovitz, colleges are more concerned with your impact on, and contributions to each activity rather than with a long list of activities and club memberships.
“Don’t be concerned about ‘tooting your own horn’ or sounding too self-promotional – your goal is to stand out,” she said. “College admission officers are sifting through thousands of applications, and your impactful details may just be the deciding factor that shows them you’re a good fit for their school. This is your time to shine and show admission officers who you are, what you’ve accomplished – and what you will continue to achieve in college and beyond.” Your goal is to carefully craft each entry to show off your leadership, commitment, and contributions in a way that’s not boastful ─ but that will make a college want you.
Details make a world of difference. For example, one recent student initially included an extensive list of activities in his Common App without emphasizing his roles: “member” of an after-school basketball club, “worked at” a summer camp, “belonged to” the French Honor Society, “member of DECA,” “played on” recreational and high school soccer teams, and “employee” at a pizza restaurant. His educational consultant worked with him to bring out important, impactful information.
More than a ‘member’ of the basketball club, this student was a founding member and coach who taught inner-city teens how to play basketball – and become league champions! At summer camp, he taught wheelchair-bound children how to play football. With DECA, he’d engaged in state-level competitions and mentored incoming high school freshmen. More than an average recreational soccer player, he played varsity high school soccer all four years, and played on an elite travel team at a national level.
With his educational consultant’s guidance, the student updated his Common App, activity résumé, and personal statement to create a concise but impactful application that got results. He was accepted into every college where he applied – including his dream school.
Christopher Dahlstrand, a Director in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at the University of Central Florida, also believes that quality and impact are crucial.
“It’s important for students to view their involvement in extra- and co-curricular activities not quantitatively but qualitatively,” he said. “Colleges look for commitment, contributions, impact, and outcomes. To what extent was the student involved in ‘X’? How did they contribute? What effect did their involvement have, and how did they grow through their involvement?”
2. Prioritize and Rank Activities for Highly Involved Students
Even if you have tons of activities, avoid information overload. The last thing you want is for an admission officer to think you embellished your résumés or exaggerated your accomplishments. Ironically, colleges might even view participation in too many activities as unfocused.
“Joining too many activities can overextend a student to the point where they cannot truly contribute or gain any meaningful experience,” Dahlstrand said. “Even if a student is heavily involved, he or she should prioritize those activities where they can demonstrate in clear and concise terms how they contributed and what skills they acquired.”
Robinovitz suggests getting started by creating a detailed résumé that highlights important activities during high school, emphasizing leadership, initiative, impact, and accomplishments. Then, when completing the Common App, students can adapt their most important activities using precise, concise descriptions, focusing first on activities related to their majors. Because students should list only their most meaningful activities on Common App’s Activities page, some résumé activities might not make it to the Activities page. Important activities for which 150 characters were not sufficient to capture your key contributions can be included in Common App’s Additional Information section on the Writing page for colleges that don’t accept résumé uploads through Common App or any other platform.
Robinovitz agrees that focusing on only the most important activities is crucial ─ less is more!
“Colleges want to see who you are as a student – and as a person,” she said. “They’re looking for students who show passion and commitment and contribute to activities that demonstrate dedicated involvement, persistence, leadership, collaboration, initiative, and impact,” she said. “Choose activities and achievements that tell your story, and prioritize those that are most in line with your current goals and future aspirations.”
3. Give Priority to Activities that Demonstrate Longevity, Commitment, and Dedication
For each activity listed, the Common App Activities page asks you to report in what high school year you participated, the timing of participation (during the school year, during school break, or all year), hours per week, and weeks per year. If you have an extensive list of activities, our experts advise prioritizing activities that you engaged in for multiple years while minimizing – or even eliminating – those that you only briefly participated in. If, for example, you volunteered to walk dogs at an animal shelter a few times in ninth grade, or you belonged to the Aviation Club for only a semester during freshman year – those activities would be considered low-priority – and should be eliminated from the résumé and the Activities page.
“Universities may look more favorably on a student who’s been active in one or two clubs or organizations, but has done so with longevity and purpose,” Dahlstrand said. “Perhaps they held a leadership position, received recognition, or started a new initiative. This kind of intentional participation is generally viewed as more favorable than the kind of passive engagement that can result from a student choosing quantity over quality.”
Your Activities at national, state, or regional level are also impactful. Winning a national debate competition takes priority over simply attending a few debate club meetings. Playing trumpet in an All-State band holds more weight than being first chair in freshman band. Whenever possible, show your progression and advancement within an activity by indicating your evolving roles:
Marching Band
- 3rd Trumpet (10)
- 1st Trumpet & Principal Soloist (11)
- Section Leader of 27 trumpets (12)
- Drum Major for 150-member band (12)
4. Group and Combine Like Activities When Necessary
If, after ranking and prioritizing, you still have more relevant activities and achievements than space in which to report them, some of our experts suggested grouping and combining similar activities as an effective way to minimize space and maximize impact.
For example, if you participated in several recreational sports, these might be combined in one description under the ‘Athletics/Club’ activity. Or, if you published a variety of blogs, they could be listed together in the ‘Journalism/Publication’ category. A student who volunteered to cook meals for a homeless shelter and a senior center might group both under one ‘Community Service’ activity (being sure to quantify with a statement like “prepared weekly meals for more than 100 senior residents and 250 members of the homeless community...”). There won’t be much space to elaborate when grouping activities – but at least you’ll include them.
5. Be Concise and Use Descriptive ‘Power Words’
The best way to convey and maximize your impact within an activity – while minimizing character count – is to use powerful, action-oriented verbs in the correct tense. For example, colleges love to see that students led, mentored, coached, taught, achieved…and so were more than just passive, uninvolved members or players.
Abbreviate words and simplify grammar on the Activities page. Impressive writing and flowery adjectives aren’t necessary – the personal statement/essay is the place to showcase writing skills. Because it’s important to make every word count, you should refer to your résumé and condense your top achievements into concise, Common-App-friendly descriptions.
If an activity involved leading or helping others, convey your impact with words like these (in the correct tense):
Led
Coached
Managed
Mentored
Trained
Instructed
Educated
Activities where you showed initiative and expertise might be described with action words such as:
Spear-Headed
Achieved
Created
Founded
Earned
Accomplished
Elevated
Established
Fine-Tuned
Developed
Exceeded
Excelled
Implemented
Surpassed
Completed
If your involvement had an impact on productivity or processes, convey them with power words like:
Maximized
Contributed
Integrated
Improved
Produced
Increased/Decreased (as in ‘increased productivity,’ ‘decreased employee turnover…’)
Expanded
Perfected
And always, ensure that you use the correct tense of these verbs to accurately reflect when you did each thing – in the past, in the present, in the past and continuing to the present, or even in the future. (The verbs listed in this blog are all in past tense for the sake of simplicity.)
Whenever possible, rather than just naming yourself a “member” or “employee,” accurately and truthfully describe your role with specific, descriptive titles like:
President, Secretary, Treasurer (or other leadership role)*
Founding Member (if you joined a new club)
Award-winning Member (“award-winning member of the fencing team” is more powerful than just “participant on fencing team”)
Key-Holding Employee
Lead, Head, Principal (Lead Camp Counselor, Head Chef, Principal Violinist…)*
Coach*
Instructor*
Mentor*
Tutor*
*If you held a leadership role, add impact by indicating the number of people you managed.
6. Organize, Plan, and Prepare Using Available Resources (and Don’t Overthink)
The Activities page can be a challenge, but following on our strategies will help you create that impactful, concise list. Plan by creating an outline; use resources like our Common App Activities Worksheet. School guidance counselors, teachers, educational consultants, and parents can provide insights as well as ‘extra eyes’ for proofreading before you submit your application.
“The Common App Activities page provides the perfect platform to showcase achievements, and with proper guidance and planning, you can concisely communicate unique details that set you apart from the competition,” she said. “But colleges don’t make admission decisions based on activities alone. They use a holistic approach and consider everything – so focus on submitting a strong application that truly captures your personality and lets your strengths shine through.”
