Common App 101: Activities List & Honors | Comprehensive Guide

What is the Activities List?

The activities list is the part of the college application—either on the Common Application or the UC system application—where you can list and describe your extracurricular activities. Extracurricular activities encompass a broad range of activities. Commonly listed activities include participating in school clubs, playing an instrument, playing a sport, attending pre-college summer programs, volunteering, and many others. Activities like working a part-time job, or caring for a family member also count. The activities list is an excellent opportunity to brag about your accomplishments, as well as the talents and skills that you have developed outside of the classroom along the way.

How can the Activities List be used to demonstrate a hook?

At Command Education, we often emphasize the importance of establishing your “hook”— otherwise known as a passion and skill set that sets you apart. A hook is typically thought of as a well-developed record of distinctive achievements, activities, and service in one or two specific areas of interest. Instead of dabbling in a little bit of everything, we encourage our students to delve deep into activities they are particularly passionate about.

Your activities list is the key place you can demonstrate your hook to admissions officers. 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 professor’s 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.

It’s important to craft your activities list descriptions in such a way that they relate to your hook, as well as to your academic and career goals. Say you are applying to gain admission to an undergraduate business program. You could relate your experience as a tour guide and representative at your high school to marketing, or your experience working as a sales associate at a clothing store to client relationship skills! The key is to clearly demonstrate a connection between each activity and your hook.

We’ll give you more tips and tricks about crafting your activities list below, but let's start by discussing…

Is the Activities List important for college admissions?

Yes! While your grades and standardized test scores make up the foundation of your college application, your activities, personal statement and extracurriculars will allow you to stand out amongst the sea of applicants and could tip an application in your favor. Thus, demonstrating a strong hook through your Activities List is very important. Additionally, college admissions officers will view your extracurricular involvement as a good indicator of how well you might function as a member of your future college community, and afterwards, how you might perform in the real world, since commitment to your activities will allow you to demonstrate time management skills, drive and commitment, and a genuine interest in the world around you.

Quality vs. Quantity

Quality is always more important than quantity when it comes to the activities you choose to add to your Activities List. Juniors and seniors can often fall into the trap of signing up for many clubs at their school—but this strategy could end up backfiring by making an application seem disingenuous. Having two to three meaningful extracurricular involvements is always better than ten activities that have no meaning to you at all. Admissions officers see thousands of applications every season, and they can easily identify resume fillers. This is not to say that you can’t join a new club as a junior or senior, you definitely can! The club should just serve to complement the hook you have been working to develop throughout your high school career.

Common App Activities List vs. UC Activities List

While the Common Application Activities List and UC Activities List serve similar purposes for admissions committees, there are differences in the ways they are completed. The Common Application allows students to list 10 activities and 5 honors and awards separately, while the UC application allows students 20 spaces in total for both activities and awards.

Beyond the number of slots for activities and awards, there are also differences in the corresponding information students must provide for each activity and award.

Before Filling Out the Activities List

You’ll want to begin this process by compiling a list of all the activities that you have been involved in throughout high school. You will also want to jot down the years you’ve been involved in the activity in terms of grade levels. For example, you’ll want to write down “12th” as opposed to 2020-2021, if that’s the year you were in the 12th grade. Activities that you can include on this list are: sports, community service, employment, religious activities (such as teaching Sunday school), internships (paid or unpaid), arts, hobbies (for example, biking or stacking competitions), school clubs, academic competitions, and basically anything else that you spend time doing outside of school. Remember to include non-formalized activities if they have been meaningful to you, such as small projects you’ve been working on to improve your programming abilities, the hours you’ve poured into learning a new language on Duolingo, or the works of art you might be painting for your own enjoyment. 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.

How to Fill Out the Common App Activities List

Once you have an initial list of schools to research, you can begin researching each school on your list in more depth, with the aim of both narrowing down your initial list and potentially discovering additional factors that can help you identify more schools for your list.

1. Choose the ten activities you plan to include:

You should strategically choose the ten activities you want to include in a way that highlights your hook! Below, we’ve included an example activities list, paired with an explanation of how it demonstrates a hook!

2. Determine the order in which you plan to list your activities:

You should order your activities in order of personal importance to you! This will allow you to demonstrate your values to the admission officers who review your application.

3. Fill Out the Common Application Activities List Fields:

How to Fill Out the Common App Activities List

The Common Application Honors List is separate from the Activities List—it can be found under the Education Section of the Common Application. The Honors section allows you to show a snapshot of how you excelled on a local, national, or international level. Honors and awards students commonly list include: Dean’s List, Language Honors Society, National Merit, Congressional Award, Valedictorian, etc. Be sure to list the most impressive/selective honors first, followed by less selective ones.