The “additional information” box is used differently by so many colleges, it can be tricky to understand what constitutes an appropriate use of these boxes. This section is truly optional. There is no reason to fill out this section if you have nothing relevant to add.

But if you do have something that might be relevant to share, let’s talk about the Additional Information section. There are a lot of tabs, sections, and subsections to the Common App, so we will start by telling you where to find the Additional Information tab and what’s in this section. Then we’ll talk about some things that you might put into the Additional Information, and some things to definitely leave out of this section.

Where can you find “Additional Information” and what does it look like?

The Additional Information section is a tab in the Common Application. When you sign into CommonApp, if you click on the “Common App” tab at the top, where you will fill out the bulk of the application. In that tab is the “Writing” section on the left navigation menu, where the Personal Statement will go. Beneath the Personal Statement subsection is another subsection titled “Additional Information.”

In the Additional Information section reside these two questions:

The COVID-19 question allows a maximum of 250 words, and the second question has space for up to 650 words.

What belongs in this section of the application?

Prior to 2020, there was only 1 question in this section, and looking at this question critically can reveal what it is for.

Do you wish to provide details of circumstances or qualifications not reflected in the application?

This is for circumstances not found in the application or for qualifications not found in the application.

Take a look at your application: your activities, your classes and grades, and your essays. Are there things in there that you feel need additional explanation? Do any parts of your application raise any questions that you might want to answer? (Hint: this is where having a second pair of eyes can help—ideally this is someone who knows you well or knows the admissions process, like a trusted mentor or your college counselor)

These can include any of the following:

1. Low Grades or Missing Classes

Are you a Math major who didn’t take Math senior year? Why not? Did you run out of courses that you could take, and there were none available at the local JC? Maybe you got a low grade sophomore year in a core subject that you want to explain. Maybe you’re interested in Psychology, and your school offers AP Psychology: why didn’t you take the class? Was there a scheduling conflict with a required class, or perhaps the course was full and you couldn’t get a seat?

Tell admissions these things; they can’t find these things out any other way than if you explain them. Now, as they glance through the application, they might not notice these factors (except perhaps the lower grade, that might catch attention). But on the other hand, they might notice. If they do, they may have questions. So we want to use the additional information section to address those potential questions about your academic schedule or performance.

2. Health Complications or Learning Differences

Related to number 1 above, are there any extenuating circumstances that have affected your academic performance or extracurricular engagement? Maybe you got those low grades sophomore year because you were in-and-out of the hospital, or one of your parents or guardians were in the hospital. Explain the situation as plainly as you can, and make sure you explain the impact these complications or differences have had on your ability to learn. Admissions officers can’t assume something has been a challenge unless you tell them so. So be specific, use quantitative details as much as you can (number of days you were out of school, hours spent at the hospital after school, how long it took to get caught up with your classes). But also stick to facts; don’t try to get emotional, an admissions officer will feel manipulated.

3. Additional Details on Activities

You only have 150 characters for your activities. Is there an activity in your list that maybe looks less transformative or impressive than it was in person? Is there something you did that is especially meaningful to you that maybe doesn’t come across as meaningful? Use this area to give additional details.

Provide the name of the activity that you want to talk about, then briefly use additional bullet points to describe what you did. Again, focus on what impact you had through that activity. Be concrete: use numbers whenever possible. “Raised $25,000 to help relocate five families displaced by the Maui fires,” sounds better than “Raise money to help relocate families displaced by the Maui fires.”

Feel free to link to any portfolios or evidence of activities you have written about that were especially meaningful to you. We can’t guarantee that the link will get clicked on, but it can’t hurt.

4. Situations that may have hindered your extracurricular activities

Ideally students will list any part-time jobs in the Activities list, but some students still leave them off the list because they think these activities are somehow “less valuable” than debate tournaments or volunteering or fundraising. Spoiler alert: they’re not. Lots of colleges are actually looking favorably on part-time work these days because they feel students are missing some of the soft skills and maturity that can come from working.

Be that as it may, if you maybe worked at the family business to help Mom and Dad, or if you had a part-time job somewhere to help pay family bills or make ends meet, obviously that’s going to limit your ability to join clubs, volunteer, participate in teams and tournaments. Explain that to admissions people: tell them how much of your pay went to help defer family expenses. List that part-time job in your activities so that colleges see that you were working and approximately how much you worked.

Maybe your family only has one car, and you couldn’t get rides to practices or tournaments, especially if you wanted to play a travel sport. Or you went to a school outside your neighborhood and had to ride a school bus or city bus for an hour each way. All these are going to factor into your decision to participate in clubs and sports; colleges want to know these things about you and your experience so they can evaluate your involvement within its proper context.

You’re not complaining about the situation, but you are making sure that an application reader understands your situation fully. That’s what they want.

5. A Parent or Sibling’s Disability or Unemployment

If one of your guardians were injured at work, they will need additional care. And you might have spent time pitching in to help support that adult. Whether you were helping to make meals or helping that person get around the house, or making sure they took medications on time or did their physical therapy, that’s time taken away from your academics AND your extracurriculars.

The same is true of a sibling. If your sibling has a physical or learning difference, your parents might need you to step up and help contribute to their care or management. Not everyone has to take on such a weighty responsibility while in high school. Talk about the amount of time you spend on these activities and the impact this has on your ability to participate in your school or community. Maybe you couldn’t join Mock Trial because they meet on Tuesdays, but Tuesday is your day to watch your sibling because your parents have to work late? Or maybe you wanted to try out for a sport, but tournaments are on Saturdays, and you help take your parent or sibling for doctor’s appointments or treatments that day? Explain these circumstances to colleges. Again, the goal here is to provide context.

6. Interesting Classes or Nontraditional Grading Systems

Some schools do not use the typical 4.0 grading scale or a 100-point scale. You might be at a school where the weighting changes with each year; maybe Sophomores are scored out of 40 points, Juniors out of 70 points, and Seniors out of 100 points? Maybe AP classes are scored out of 140 points and Honors are scored out of 100 and regular courses are scored out of 90. You know your school, and you probably know something about the other schools around you. If your school uses some sort of grading system that is not a 4.0 or 100-point scale, you might need to explain those scores. In theory your school should submit a School Profile (or School Report) that explains this, but they may not provide that documentation, and some colleges may not ask for that information from your school. So make sure you provide it regardless.

Similarly, your school might have some strange or interesting classes or graduation requirements. Perhaps you have to take a Shop class or Home Economics; some schools in the Bay Area have Living Skills classes, for instance. Or perhaps your school allows teachers to create interesting electives, like a “Game Design” class or “Moral Philosophy of the United States”. If you have any odd classes on your transcript, maybe explain what those classes were. Give a brief description of the class and what it was about. Talk about some of the assignments or major projects. In a few sentences (no more than 2–4 sentences), give the reader an idea of what that class was like.

The same goes for online classes. I, myself, have taken some online courses that involved watching a video each week, reading a 10-page chapter of a book, and writing a response. All told, I would spend maybe 45 minutes to an hour per week. I’ve taken other courses online that involved discussions and lectures, reading entire books each week, writing reports and engaging with my peers; all of which took 10 hours per week. If you’ve taken any online classes, you might want to describe the course so a reader understands how rigorous it was. In addition to the class description like above, talk about why you signed up for this course. Did it connect to your personal interests or career goals, or were you trying to move up a level in Math so you could reach Calculus B/C? Did you take a general course (like AP Computer Science A or AP Psychology) and that motivated you to take another, more specific course on a related subject?

While I tried to be comprehensive, these are just some of the ways you can use this section. But no matter how you use it, you should try to avoid abusing the additional information.

What are inappropriate uses of the Additional Information section?

For starters, I’ll give some advice that I’ll repeat when we go over some other tips for writing essays in general because it also applies here: nobody likes a pity party. What do I mean by that? Don’t try to make excuses or make yourself out to be the victim of unfair circumstances. It’s important that we learn to take responsibility for our actions and mistakes, explain what went wrong, and how we are going to improve in the future to avoid those same mistakes. But sob stories or tales of woe should be left out. It should go without saying, but this also includes blaming bad teachers or incompetent, uncaring administrators for what went wrong in our high-school career.

Some other common misuses include:

1. Another Essay or Extra Activities

Just because they give you 650 words does not mean you should write another personal statement here, or use this space to provide another additional essay. Your application readers will not thank you. They have enough information to read as it is.

If the college wants another essay from you, they will ask for it in their part of the application.

Likewise, we do not want to use this space to add another 10+ activities to our application beyond the 10 that the Common App allows us to add! You can expand on activities that you wrote about in the application, but do not extend your activity list into this section. Everybody has the same 10 slots for activities, so prioritize the ones that are the most meaningful to you.

2. Humble Bragging / Perfectionism

When I taught in the classroom, I assigned tests the way most teachers would. Students would have a few days to a week to prepare, they would come in on test day, take the test, and a week or so later they would get their scores. I loathed test-return day. Loathed it. And I’ll tell you why.

Inevitably, there were many perfectionistic students who would get their test back and bemoan themselves loudly: “I failed!” When someone rolled their eyes, they would double down: “No, really, I did sooo bad!” In reality, they maybe got a 92%. Maybe, on a bad week, they would score an 88 or 89%. Hardly what I would call “bad,” and definitely not “failing.” My classes were not easy, to be sure; my department was the one department at our school where students did not routinely earn As. For students who legitimately struggled in my class, however, this behavior was demoralizing. For everyone else, it was just annoying.

I also liken it to that moment when you go to a friend’s house and they say, “Come on in! Oh, I’m so sorry the house is a mess!” when it’s clear that the place has been pretty well cleaned and straightened. I shudder to think what those people would say about my house if they consider their neat house “dirty.”

But back to the additional information: if you try to explain a B in a class, or you talk about how you took the SAT four times, but you’re just a bad test take and that’s why you only scored a 1500, then you’re better off just leaving the box empty. Keep things in perspective: a 1500 is in the 99th percentile of test takers nationally. Getting a B, while maybe not ideal, is far from struggling or failing; it happens sometimes. We do not want to come across as a perfectionist in that way; it’s not flattering.

3. An Academic Report or Abstract

The reader probably won’t understand everything that you put in this, especially if it’s jargon-laden writing for an expert audience. College readers have college degrees, but that does not necessarily make them scientists. You might luck out and get a reader who understands your abstract, but you might not.

Instead, just describe the academic research you did, what you learned from it, use numbers to explain how significant the activity was (number of hours logged in the lab, number of experiments run or amounts of data collected). Mention your contributions to the overall paper, and if you’re listed as an author, mention that. But do it in your own words and keep it to a summary.

4. An Academic Resume

This is redundant. Job applicants everywhere hate having to submit a resume and then re-enter all their resume data into the employer’s application for that exact reason. The Common Application is just that: an application. Do not also give the reader a resume that repeats most of your activities and academics in the Additional Information box. Like with #1 above, they will not thank you for the additional reading homework.

Also, it’s redundant (see what I did there?).

Summary

At the end of the day, the additional information section is there for you to explain circumstances that the college can’t get elsewhere in the application. These might relate to long commutes to or from school, difficulties at home with family responsibilities, having to work due to financial struggles from an unemployed parent, or just from overall struggling to get by. If you have learning differences or you or a family member experienced health problems, you can write about those as well. These circumstances may have contributed to low grades one year, or you may not have been able to try out for sports or join as many clubs. You also might explain why you are missing any key classes that it would have made sense for you to take.

And, as I said at the start: I know that so many things about college admissions that are optional are actually “optional” (read: required). But not this. This section is truly optional. You do not need to fill it in, especially if you have nothing to explain about your record that isn’t explained elsewhere in the application (like in an essay or your transcript). If you give the reader less filler to slog through as they go through your application, that definitely is something they will thank you for.

Schedule a consultation today, it’s free! Don’t let your child apply with an activity list that will put admissions officers to sleep. Find out how I can help your child today.