ClarosCollege application guide
How to Write Your Common App Activities List
6 min read
The Common App gives you ten slots and a 150-character description for each — that is the entire space you get to explain how you spend your time outside class. Admissions officers read this section closely, often before your essay, because it is your story in shorthand. Done well, it turns a list of clubs into evidence of who you are.
Quick answer
The Common App activities list gives you up to 10 slots, each with a 150-character description; order them by importance to you, lead every description with an action verb and a concrete result, and count jobs and family responsibilities as real activities.
What the activities list actually is
The Common App activities section holds up to ten entries. For each, you choose an activity type, name your position or role, name the organization, and write a short description capped at 150 characters — including spaces. You also mark the grade levels you participated, the timing (school year, summer, or both), and roughly how many hours per week and weeks per year you spent.
Those numbers matter more than students expect. Hours per week and weeks per year quietly tell an officer how much of your real life an activity occupied. A job at fifteen hours a week reads very differently from a club that met twice a semester, and the form makes that contrast visible at a glance.
Choose and order your ten
You do not need to fill all ten slots, but most students can. Include paid work, family responsibilities, caring for siblings, religious or community involvement, and self-directed projects — not just school clubs. Colleges explicitly value a part-time job or looking after a younger sibling; those are not lesser activities.
Order them by importance to you, not by prestige. The first two or three slots carry the most weight, so lead with the activities where you did the most and grew the most. If you are unsure how to rank two, ask which one you would keep if you could only list one.
Write descriptions that show impact
With only 150 characters, every word competes. Start with a strong action verb, drop articles like 'the' and 'a' where you can, and use numbers to make scale concrete. 'Led' beats 'was responsible for leading,' and 'raised $2,400' beats 'helped with fundraising.'
Aim to answer two questions inside the limit: what did you do, and what changed because you did it? 'Founded tutoring program; trained 12 volunteers; served 60+ students weekly' does more in fewer characters than a vague sentence about being passionate. Concrete beats impressive every time.
Common mistakes to avoid
Do not pad the list with one-off events or memberships you never showed up for — officers can tell, and thin entries dilute your strong ones. It is better to list six real activities than ten where four are filler.
Avoid recycling the same verb ten times and avoid inflating hours to numbers that would be physically impossible alongside school. Honesty here is not just ethical; inconsistent numbers undermine the parts of your application you want believed.
Key takeaways
- Fill the slots you can honestly fill, ordered by importance to you, not prestige.
- Count jobs, family responsibilities, and self-directed projects as real activities.
- Lead each 150-character description with an action verb and a concrete result.
- Get hours per week and weeks per year right — they signal genuine commitment.
- Prefer a few strong entries over ten padded ones.
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Claros is an AI admissions agent that turns guidance like this into a personalized plan: essays, a fit-based college list, a roadmap, and SAT/ACT practice, built around your student.
Frequently asked questions
- How many activities do I need to list on the Common App?
- You can list up to ten, but there is no requirement to fill every slot. A handful of genuine, well-described activities reads better than ten padded with filler.
- What counts as an activity?
- More than school clubs. Paid jobs, caring for siblings or family, religious and community involvement, and self-directed projects all count, and colleges explicitly value them.
- How long can each activity description be?
- Each description is capped at 150 characters, including spaces. Lead with an action verb, drop small words like 'the' and 'a,' and use a number to show what changed.