The activities section allows you to exhibit your extracurricular involvement both in and outside of school during your high school years, enabling admissions officers to understand your non-academic interests and giving them insight on the activities you may participate in at college. In fact, many colleges ask you to list your top extracurricular activities and indicate whether or not you will pursue them in college. Review this admissions tip: say “yes” to pursuing the activities you can carry over to college as this indicates that you are genuinely interested in an extracurricular and not just involved in it for the sake of getting into college.
For this Mapping Out Your Application exercise, list up to ten extracurricular activities you have participated in, which may include and are not limited to clubs, research, academics, sports, summer programs, internships, jobs, community service, and family responsibilities. Admissions trick: order your activities with the first one depicting your highest level of time commitment, leadership role, and the impact you generated while the last activity being the one with the lowest level of involvement. Please note that you are not required to list ten activities. The quality of your involvement is weighed more than the number of activities you participate in. Hence, depth matters more than breadth.
For the purpose of the exercise, simply write the activity name, select the activity type from the drop-down menu that correlates with the Common App activities, and enter a short description and your time commitment (in this format: grades 9-12, hrs/wk, wks/yr) in the particular activity. Please note, the summer before your senior year is considered grade 12, so work backwards for previous grades. Additionally, remember to follow this admissions secret: Like in a resume, describe your activities with specific action words and numbers to demonstrate impact. Here are some examples:
1) Activity 1:
a) Name: Self-directed research
b) Activity Type: Research
c) Description: Conducted research on cell mutation with college professor.
d) Time Commitment: Grade 12, 20 hrs/wk 8 wks/yr.
2) Activity 2:
a) Name: Varsity Tennis
b) Activity Type: Athletics: JV/Varsity
c) Description: Mentored 15 teammates as the captain of the varsity tennis team.
d) Time Commitment: Grades 10-12, 20 hrs/wk 16 wks/yr.
In the Common App, you will also be asked to notate Position/Leadership description, Organization name, Participation grade levels, Timing of participation, Hours spent per week, Weeks spent per year, and if you intend to participate in a similar activity in college.
