How to Write the Common App Activities List (With Examples)

The Common App gives you ten activity slots and 150 characters to describe each one. Admissions readers spend about 20 seconds on the whole list. That is the constraint you are writing for.

Most lists fail in one of three ways: vague descriptions ("helped organise events"), no numbers, or ten slots filled with things that happened for two weeks in grade 10. Here is how to fix all three.

What a reader is looking for

A reader scans the list to answer four questions:

1. What did this student actually do? Not the club's mission. Your role.
2. How much? Hours, people, money, output. Numbers make the claim believable.
3. Did it go anywhere? Growth, a result, a second year, a leadership step.
4. Does it connect to the rest of the application? Intended major, essay, recommendations.

Every 150-character description should answer at least the first two.

The formula

Verb + what you did + number + outcome.

Before: Member of the debate club. Participated in many tournaments and helped younger students.

After: Won Best Speaker (1st of 250+) at Oxford Schools India qualifiers; founded school debating society, grew it from 80 to 300+ members, trained 31 debaters.

Before: Founder of a skincare startup. Developed brand strategy and product concepts.

After: Founded sensitive-skin skincare brand; sold first batch of 120 units, built landing page with 900 visits, ran 3 customer interviews per week.

The second version of each is not longer. It is specific.

Order: most important first, not most recent

Readers assume slot 1 is your headline. Put the activity that best explains who you are at the top, even if it is not the one with the most hours. A rough order that works for most students:

1. The thing you built, founded, or led at the largest scale
2. The activity most connected to your intended major
3. Sustained commitments (3-4 years of one thing)
4. Recognised achievements (selections, competitions)
5. Service, work, family responsibilities
6. Shorter programs and summer courses

Paid summer courses and online certificates belong at the bottom or in Additional Information, not in slot 2.

Hours have to add up

Readers do add them. If you list a prefect role at 30 hours a week, an editorial board at 12, and MUN at 10, all during the school year, your week has 52 hours of activities on top of school. Nobody believes it, and it makes the rest of the list look inflated too. Estimate honestly: most school leadership roles are 3-8 hours a week.

The position and organisation fields matter

• Position: "Founder & President", not "Member". If you moved up, show it: "Director (2025), Chairperson (2026)".
• Organisation: the real name. "Interact Club of Calcutta Visionaries (Rotary-affiliated)" tells a reader more than "Interact".
• If an activity is a family business, say so. "Family-run condiments business, managed sales and exhibitions" is credible. Hiding it and claiming 4,000 units sold with no context is not.

Three things to cut

• Duplicates. One activity split across two slots to look like two things. Readers notice and it costs you a slot.
• Course completions. A coding bootcamp or a robotics kit course is learning, not an activity. Move it to Additional Information.
• One-week items. An assembly speech listed as "1 week per year" is filler. Replace it or leave the slot empty.

Check it against the rest of the application

Read the finished list next to your personal statement and your intended major. If the essay is about building things and the list has no building in it, one of them needs to change. If you say you want to study economics and nothing on the list touches money, policy, or data, the reader will wonder why.

Admitify's activities builder runs these checks automatically: character count, hour totals, verb strength, and whether your list matches your major. It is free for students.