Jun 11 (edited) • 🎓 Strategy Posts
đź“ť The Common App Activities List: What Admissions Officers Are Actually Looking For
This is one of the most overlooked parts of the Common App—and one of the most powerful, if you use it to your advantage.
💡 Admissions officers often skim this section in seconds—so it needs to be intentional, strategic, and clearly reflect your strengths and priorities. Just by reading your list and nothing else, they should have a sense of your major / minor and what to expect in your essays.
Here’s how to make it count:
đź“Ś What It Is
You get space for 10 activities (including clubs, work, research, family responsibilities).
Each entry has:
- Position & Organization
- Short description (150 characters)
- Grades, timing, hours, leadership, etc.
🎯 What Admissions Officers Look For
- Impact over participation — Did you lead, create, influence, grow?
- Focus and alignment — Are your top activities connected to your academic or career interests?
- Initiative — Did you start something? Take ownership?
- Depth — How long did you commit, and did your role grow?
💡 Activities should reinforce your academic narrative — they help shape your “application persona.” (Ex: Public Health advocate, Math problem-solver, Visual storyteller…)
📶 Order Matters
Put your strongest and most relevant activities at the top. Make the key takeaways obvious.
- Top 3 should match your intended field or personal “spike”
- Group related activities to build clarity
- Deprioritize filler—better to list 6 strong than 10 random
đź› What to Do Now
- List out all your activities from 9-12th grade (if the list is long, circle the 10 most relevant)
- Draft minimum 150-character descriptions (we’ll refine in next post)
- Rank in order of impact and relevance
- Think: What story does this list tell at a glance?
Next post: Real examples of excellent activity entries — and how to write yours.
Drop any questions below 🤍
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đź“ť The Common App Activities List: What Admissions Officers Are Actually Looking For
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