The Common App Activities Section: What Students Often Miss
If you think the Activities section of the Common App is simply a place to list sports, clubs, and leadership positions, new Common App data offers an important reminder: colleges want to understand how students actually spend their time.
New data reported by Inside Higher Ed found that more than 870,000 first-year Common App applicants—about 57% of the 1.5 million applicants—reported at least one significant household responsibility or life circumstance during the last application cycle.
Among them:
30% spent at least four hours per week caring for younger siblings or other household members.
19% regularly provided transportation for family members.
16% helped family members with things like medical appointments, banking, or visa interviews.
Other students reported translating for family members, helping manage household finances, working to contribute to family income, or working in a family business.
Why does this matter?
Because it reinforces something I tell students constantly:
An activity does not have to happen at school to matter in college admissions.
Colleges Are Trying to Understand the Whole Student
The Common App now includes a dedicated Responsibilities and Circumstances section so students can provide colleges with more context about commitments that may not fit neatly into a traditional extracurricular list.
Common App also makes clear that students can use the Activities section to share not only clubs and community involvement, but also work, hobbies, and responsibilities.
That distinction is important.
A student who works 15 hours a week at a restaurant may not have time to join five clubs.
A teenager who picks up younger siblings from school every afternoon may have fewer traditional extracurriculars than a classmate.
A student who spends hours building computers in a basement, running a small lawn-care business, caring for a grandparent, creating art, or helping in a family business may not think any of those things are “college activities.”
They are.
The goal isn't to manufacture an impressive list.
The goal is to help an admissions officer understand:
What do you do with your time? What matters to you? Where have you contributed? And what have you learned to take responsibility for?
Your Activity List Is Not Just a Résumé
There is another mistake I see constantly.
Students identify the right activities—and then barely explain them.
They'll write something like:
Varsity Soccer — Played soccer for four years.
But the admissions officer already knows you played soccer.
You have very limited space in the Common App. Every word needs to earn its place.
Instead, I want students thinking about:
Impact. Leadership. Initiative. Commitment. Scope. Growth. Results.
Did you mentor younger players?
Did you organize team workouts?
Did your small business grow from three customers to 25?
Did you raise $4,000?
Did you work 20 hours a week?
Did the volunteer program you created serve 200 people?
Specificity helps an admissions reader understand the significance of an activity.
The Order Matters, Too
The Common App activity list should not simply be chronological.
You have up to ten spaces, but you do not need ten activities just for the sake of filling all ten spaces.
And your strongest activity isn't automatically the one with the fanciest title.
The order should help tell the story of who you are.
For one student, that may mean varsity athletics comes first.
For another, it may be a part-time job.
For another, it could be research, music, family responsibilities, volunteering, entrepreneurship, or an independent project.
When I review activity lists, I am constantly asking:
If an admissions officer spent only a few minutes reviewing this application, what would I want them to understand about this student?
Then we build the list accordingly.
Don't Undersell What You've Already Done
Students often tell me:
"I don't really have that many activities."
Then we start talking.
They babysit three afternoons a week.
They have worked every summer since ninth grade.
They run social media for a family business.
They referee youth soccer.
They spend six hours a week playing guitar.
They created a fantasy football analytics spreadsheet.
They cook dinner for their family.
They repair cars with their grandfather.
They sell handmade jewelry online.
Suddenly, we have a very different picture.
Students don't always recognize the value of what they're already doing because nobody ever taught them to look at their experiences through the lens of an admissions reader.
That's exactly why I created my Activity List Workshop.
Join Me for the Activity List Workshop
Tuesday, September 22 at 7:00 PM Central
In my Activity List Workshop, I’ll walk students through the same process I use with my private college counseling clients.
We'll cover:
What belongs on your activity list—and what doesn't
How to decide which activities should come first
How to identify impact, leadership, and initiative
How to use numbers and specifics effectively
How to write stronger Common App activity descriptions
What to do if you don't have ten activities
How jobs, hobbies, independent projects, and responsibilities fit into the application
The common mistakes that weaken otherwise strong activity lists
The goal is not to make a student's experiences sound bigger than they are.
It's to make sure the admissions officer understands the significance of what the student has actually done.
Because you may already have the experiences.
You just need to know how to present them.
ACTIVITY LIST WORKSHOP
September 22 | 7:00 PM CT
[REGISTER FOR THE ACTIVITY LIST WORKSHOP HERE]
Admissions by Design helps students and families navigate the college admissions process with strategy, perspective, and personalized guidance.