+ What Details Do High School Students Need for the Common App?
Preparing your son or daughter for college is a group effort, not the student or school’s responsibility alone. Parents can do their part by keeping their teen’s high school academic records at home and creating an activity list to help with college applications.
So, what educational information should we have on hand before our teen applies to college?
Well, you want to have all of it.
The details of your student’s educational history remind and empower your child when it is time to shine during the college visit, essay, and application season. I recommend starting at a young age (or whatever age your kids are now). Organize your child’s information by making lists and keeping the important records that come home from your school (those binders, bins, and digital files we talked about). When the time comes, your students will be ready to copy-paste into applications for scholarships or colleges, and they will have information accessible for inspirational essay ideas.
The Activities Section is one section of The Common App many students find stressful. Most teens participate in a variety of activities during high school, yet over four years, can you remember the details of these activities, when, and for how many hours? Can they?
Since most activities (think piano, book clubs, jobs, community service, art, and sports) fall outside school hours, schools do not generally keep track of this detail. However, this information is essential to paint the complete picture of a student. Other than the essay, this is the only place to show information that ’rounds out’ the application and highlights the student as a unique applicant. Highlighting and providing a healthy list of high school activities gives a college or university an idea of how active this student will likely be on their campus. In short, this is important info.
The Common App asks for each activity’s weekly hours and how many weeks per year. Therefore, keeping this information on behalf of your student can help immensely. This list will become your student's memory prompt when filling out the Common App or other applications.
In your students’ High School record at home, I recommend creating a specific list of Activities and Interests.
Write down every activity your student participates in during the 9-12 grade years, and keep a little tally designating the approximate hours (weekly and annually) that your student does this activity. Your teen will thank you later for this information!
The Common App (version 2023) asks for:
the type of activity and a 50-character description of the position or leadership role
the name of the organization
in 150 characters, describe the activity
How many hours per week did the student do this activity
How many weeks per year did the student do this activity
While your student writes the descriptions above, you can sit back and smile, knowing you adequately provided them with all their background details. This is A+ modern-day parenting right here.
