For example, if you are the secretary in student government and participated in a leadership program over the summer, select Student Government/Politics for the secretary position, and Career-Oriented for the leadership program. , admissions officers want to know whether you have taken classes at any college. College Application ProcessTesting GuidesAthletic Resources Creative ResourcesSchool-Specific Guides, About UsTeamTestimonialsCareersFAQGiving BackContact Us, NEW YORK CITY750 Lexington AvenueNew York, NY 10022, SOUTH FLORIDA1 Alhambra PlazaFloor PHCoral Gables, FL 33134. Our complete and essential guide to the College Application covers each step from junior spring through senior fall to help you optimize your time and earn admission to your dream school! Abbreviating first and the title of the Engineering Fair helped reduce characters. Share info about plant sales, swaps, and propagation. The honors section of the Common App is reserved for you to list your academic honors and awards. , make sure you have all of the information with you. Talk to your guidance counselor if you have any questions about whether or not you qualify. Available on iOS, Android, and Web. The prompts for the personal statement are as follows: When brainstorming your Common Application personal statement, remember your Application Persona. A commonly asked question regarding this field is how to label the activities that took place in the summer. Today, the Common App has grown to extremely large proportions. Not only has she pursued multiple activities in both environmental science and art, but she has also found and studied creative intersections between these fields, through painting murals at local gardens, featuring and selling her nature photography on her personal social media, and studying environmental art at a summer program. . The Honors Section will prompt you to fill out 3 fields. The religious preferences drop-down menu includes many different practices along with none. Listing your religion will not hurt your chances of getting into college. For example, you might spend 20 weeks during the school year attending your robotics club. As a result, this section only becomes available if you select one of the schools on the list. When choosing your topic, it is very important to remember that the admissions officer will be reading thousands of applications. This is not easy! Keep in mind that this was a global crisis. We may receive commission from links on our website, but that doesnt affect our editors opinions. However, it does need to be realistic. Be as specific as you can be in the space available. 4 Year,NOTRE DAME, IN,1394 Niche users give it an average review of 4 stars. I noticed the "school spirit" category, and I feel like this is a stupid question, but what activity could someone put in that falls in that category other than being a mascot or something. Write in present tense only if you are still involved, and past tense if your involvement in the activity has come to an end. The activities section has a limit of ten extracurricular activities. If you graduated from high school and continued to participate in that activity, mark post-graduate.. How to complete the Common App Activities Section. Team placed 1st in division and advanced to state semifinals. Some colleges, including MIT for example, sort and read applications by citizenship. In our example Honors section, the student has listed five awards in descending order of importance (i.e. When self-reporting your test scores, you must be honest. Common App Activities List vs. UC Activities List. Choose the ten activities you plan to include: Determine the order in which you plan to list your activities: Fill Out the Common Application Activities List Fields: Position/Leadership Description (Max characters: 50), Activity Description (Max characters: 150). We recommend selecting the grade level preceding the summer in question. These questions can include what major you want from their list of majors, and what activities you would partake in at the college. Hosted planting workshops at 8 schools. If you participate in a club, define your role, rather than just listing member. If you participated in an activity for multiple years and have had multiple roles within it,list your roles in order of importance rather than chronologically. Many students will have experienced disrupted testing dates and summer programs or other plansand thats okay to unpack those obstacles here if they were significant and unique issues. To delete an activity, move it to the bottom of the list and click on the delete icon. Use active verbs and limit the use of adjectives and adverbs. Chapter of club at high school; participated in toy and food drives, raised $1000 for refugees, made 200 cards and blankets for children in hospitals. Worked in the gallerys archive and supervised visits. Filling out the Common App can be a very involved process. For more information about how colleges filter applicants, check out our post on the, While extracurriculars might seem subjective, colleges are methodical in their evaluation of them. If you hold a leadership position, emphasize that role in your description. Be ready for the world. Activities like working a part-time job, or caring for a family member also count. If you spend a lot of time with your family, perhaps you take care of an ailing member, that absolutely counts as well and shows a great deal of responsibility. This student was admitted to Dartmouth College. You can find out more about them here. Our chancing engine factors in extracurricular activities, demographic, and other holistic details. To make the most out of your honors section, keep the following strategies in mind: Make sure to lead with your most impressive achievements. Many colleges value the perspective of first-generation students and look to see if you are coming from that background. They include top leadership positions for well-known clubs and organizations, winning regional competitions, or state-level sports/music distinctions. The Activities section allows you to write about up to ten activities that youve participated in throughout high school. The larger and more diverse, the more prestigious the award; international recognition is the most prestigious type of recognition. Testing cancellations occurred for everyone, students across the world coped with online learning, and more. Here's a guide for the perfect activities section. Hover over each hot spot to learn more about each field. Intrinsic to these principles is the promotion of fair, transparent, straightforward, and consistent practices in . Reviewed and edited submissions for my schools newspaper, 10, 11, 12School5 hr/wk, 35 wk/yrContinue. The Honors section is for you to put in any academic. You can list up to five honors, and for each one you'll be asked to provide a brief . Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings. College admissions officers dont have the time to read large blocks of text, and its generally better to try and write less in areas where they are not asking for an essay. You do not have to be fluent in a language to add it to your. Command Group Inc. is not associated with the College Board, Common Application, or any college/university or any of its affiliates. Do not rush through these details. What is the Common App activities section? Most importantly, it makes your students feel like they are part of a community that is bigger than themselves. While many of these extracurricular activities are fairly general, such as Academic and School Spirit, a few of them refer to specific positions or organizations. As the application evolved over time from a paper application to online, the core of Common App's principles has never changed - promoting access, equity, and integrity, in the college admissions process for all students. 9, 10, 11, 12Year1 hr/wk, 26 wk/yrContinue. Commonly listed activities include participating in school clubs, playing an instrument, playing a sport, attending pre-college summer programs, volunteering, and many others. You should ask them as early as the end of your junior year, or at the beginning of your senior year. The Common Application is a single online college application form used by over 900 colleges and universities. Lets take it one step further. If you usually spend 2 hours a week with this club, but have 3 weeks during the height of tournament season during which you spend 15 hours with the club, you can list your hours per week as 4 since your weekly average comes out to 3.95 hours. Sell prints and stickers with $500+ in profits. Terms and Conditions. If it seems like you are choosing one category for everything, try to diversify a bit and think about how activities can be related without being exactly the same thing. There may be some activities that are naturally limited to a set time period or commitment, such as a summer academic program or sports camp. If you absolutely need more room to thoroughly explain truly important details about the activity, use the additional information section to expand, or describe it in more detail in your essay if it relates to the topic you choose. A lot of schools that accept score choice recommend that you send all scores. Member of most advanced ensemble, led sectionals to teach difficult passages, performed five concerts per year. School spirit is key to creating a positive school culture. Colleges may give your name to members of a club, organization, or activity in which you participate so they can follow up with you, but you are by no means bound to joining when you begin college (unless, of course, you are accepted on an athletic or other scholarship that requires your participation in a certain activity). Therefore, do not write anything thats specific to any one of the schools. You may use the space below to provide any additional information you wish to share. It will not make or break your application. These examples should help you write a great Common App activities list: DECA Executive Vice President. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. This section asks for your country of birth, city of birth, and how many years youve lived in and outside the United States. Moreover, make sure your recommender is someone who takes the time to sit down with you, has time to dedicate to a careful letter, and is enthusiastic and excited about your application. Colleges are of course free to support other practices outside the Common App, but the Common App works to support practices that have been found to be easy to administer and understand for hundreds of colleges and millions of applicants over the years. You dont need to use complete sentences. The application asks for your proficiency so you can denote whether you can only read and write or speak the language. for details, accomplishments, honors won, and accomplishments within each activity, so you will need to be concise and offer only the most pertinent details. You can tailor your responses in the college-specific sections that come up once you have chosen a school, but the following will be sent to all of the schools on your list. Narrate your story by. Tier 3: These lack the distinction of Tier 1 and 2, but still highlight students interests. These are the most common activities and are seen most often by admissions committees. Participated in multiple science-based events; 2nd place 2018 for Write It Do It, 3rd place 2019 for Meteorology. While this portion might seem very straight-forward, these fundamentals matter. , and for each one youll be asked to provide a brief description (100 characters or less). What Does it Really Cost to Attend Colby College. For example, if you are interested in the biomolecular sciences and cancer research and decide this will be your hook, you should be able to demonstrate that interest through activities like working as a professors research assistant at a medical school, taking related classes at a college or university, or writing about cancer research-related topics in your school newspaper. Instead of dabbling in a little bit of everything, we encourage our students to delve deep into activities they are particularly passionate about. Do not rush through these details. Recommended species and locations for replanting. The high costs of attending college doesn't start your first day of school. Your child can add up to 10 school activities on the Common App. The purpose of the robot reflects the applicants Application Persona as a student who is interested in engineering and passionate about social justice. Unless the activity was high school-specific or if there is a good reason you wouldnt participate in it later on, we recommend that you mark yes.. When you estimate the amount of time you spent on a particular activity, it doesnt need to be exact. The good news is 42% of member schools don't require an application fee, according to U.S. News & World Report. School Spirit. Check off the time periods during which you participated in the activity. The application asks this because colleges want to know what kind of student you will be when you arrive. Rather, describe your impact as an editor. Colleges wont see the brevity of your involvement as a negative factor; they understand that some activities simply have an imposed beginning and ending that are not within your control. The key is to clearly demonstrate a connection between each activity and your hook. List your activities in order of importance. ! What was the outcome? A general rule of thumb is that national awards should be listed first, followed by state, local, and school awards. Tier 2: These are little more common than Tier 1, but these activities still showcase high levels of achievement and leadership. Think about all of these logistics carefully, and you will set yourself up for success as you fill out the, The first piece that you have to fill out on the. For each activity, the form will ask you in which grade levels you participated in the extracurricular activity, the timing of your participation (school year vs. school break), and how many hours you spent on it per week and weeks per year. If youre an athlete, talk about the importance of the teams spirit if it appeals to you. Honors and awards students commonly list include: Deans List, Language Honors Society, National Merit, Congressional Award, Valedictorian, etc. The Common Application is divided into different sections: In this blog, we will take a closer look at the sections and provide tips for filling out each one. Award winner for writing, art, photography, music, etc. The Profile section helps the admission officers get an overview of your background. The average school year is 36 weeks, give or take a few weeks depending on your schools break schedule. Think about. This usually includes holiday breaks, study and finals weeks, and sometimes, the first few weeks of the semester when clubs do not yet meet. A student who is interested in business and starting her own company one day can select Business owner as part of the Future Plans section. 9, 10, 11, 12School16 hr/wk, 18 wk/yrContinue. When hes not contributing to Scholarships360, Zach writes about travel, music, film, and culture. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? Gold Medal from the Presidents Foundation for volunteering 200+ hrs at animal shelters. Explore the list of common app schools to build your list of colleges to apply to . Increased readership by 20. Trained 7 state qualifiers; developed fundraising, recruitment campaigns to raise $1200 in 1 year, increase membership from 6 to 40 members in 2 years. Because this student also has an entrepreneurial streak, she could optionally indicate a secondary interest in business if a school offers dual degrees, majors, or minors in business administration for undergraduates. Do not write about middle school achievements, about others achievements, or try to accomplish too much. Some colleges have a superscore policy, which allows you to pick each of your top sub scores and combine into one superscore if you have taken a standardized test multiple times. Be sure to list your Honors and Awards in descending order of recognition, listing your international awards first, followed by national, state/regional and school. The Testing section asks you to self-report any tests you have taken, whether standardized tests such as the SAT or ACT (choose the one that is best for you), or tests based on what youve studied in high school, such as the AP or IB, or tests which show your English language proficiency, such as IELTS or TOEFL. The activities list is the part of the college applicationeither on the Common Application, Coalition Application or the UC system applicationwhere you can list and describe your extracurricular activities. Try not to be redundant, especially considering the limited space. Not only does doing so allow you to include more extracurricular activities, but also provides more space for you to expand on the descriptions of your activities since you are not limited to a certain number of characters. Keep in mind that the term academic is used pretty loosely in this context. The better your recommender understands what you are aiming for in your application, the stronger their letter will be. It is helpful to be aware that consistency across every part of the application, from coursework and letters of recommendation to the Activities List, intended majors, and essays, is necessary for building a cohesive narrative. Use verbs that show action and ownership over an activity, Worked with a professor on a research project, Include numbers and percentages to quantify your impact. School spirit looks like teamwork. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. School spirit activity is one of the best ways to bring students and teachers together in a positive learning environment. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. Participated in three conferences per year; Best Small Delegation 2018, Outstanding Delegate 2019. This will allow you to demonstrate your values to the admission officers who review your application. Plans made in high school often change, and that is okay. Proofread and fact-checked over 30 pieces about environmental issues annually.