What to Put in the Common App Additional Information Section (And What to Leave Out)

The Common App has two optional text boxes most students either ignore or fill with a second essay. Both are mistakes.

• Challenges & Circumstances (up to 250 words): for anything that affected your education that a reader needs to know to read your transcript fairly.
• Additional Information (up to 300 words): for things that do not fit anywhere else.

Neither is an essay. Both are read like a memo.

Challenges & Circumstances: explain, don't plead

Use it for: a family death or illness, your own medical condition, a school change mid-year, a repeated grade, a natural disaster, financial disruption, caregiving responsibilities.

The format that works is three sentences:

1. What happened and when (grade level, term).
2. What it affected (which grades, which term, attendance).
3. What changed after (recovery, current standing).

Example: In Grade 10 my mother was diagnosed with a serious illness; she passed away in the first term of Grade 11. My Grade 10 IGCSE results and my first-term Grade 11 marks reflect that period. Since moving schools in Grade 11, my grades have been 6s and 7s across all subjects.

No adjectives, no lesson learned, no "this made me stronger." The personal essay is where you reflect. This box is where you give the reader facts so they can read your transcript with context.

What not to put in Challenges & Circumstances

• Anything you have already written the personal essay about, unless the box adds dates and specifics the essay does not.
• Ordinary stress: a hard teacher, a heavy course load, a bad relationship.
• Vague claims. "Personal challenges affected my grades" tells a reader nothing and invites suspicion.

Additional Information: the overflow box

Good uses:

• Research or a project that needs more than 150 characters. Title, where it was published or presented, your role, one sentence on the finding.
• Honors that did not fit in the five honors slots.
• Course context. Why you take Applied Mathematics rather than Standard, why you switched curricula, why your school does not offer AP or HL in your subject.
• Links. A live product, a published paper, a portfolio. One line each.
• Family responsibilities or a long commute that you ticked in the Activities section but never explained.

Bad uses:

• A second personal essay.
• A résumé pasted in full.
• Repeating your activities list in longer form.
• Explaining a B in Grade 9 with no real cause. Readers know what a B is.

A common mistake: contradicting your own transcript

If you write "my subsequent academic improvement" and your most recent term shows the same marks as before, the reader will notice. Only claim recovery when the transcript shows it. If it has not happened yet, describe what is in place now ("I am under the school's academic support plan and my first Grade 12 unit test was 82%").

Keep both boxes factual

Admissions readers process thousands of files. A box that gives them three clean facts helps you. A box that asks them to feel something for 300 words does not. Save the feeling for the personal statement.

Admitify flags when your Additional Information duplicates your essay or activities, and prompts you for the missing context when you have ticked a family responsibility or a school change. Free for students.