The 2026-27 Common App activities list from India: what to write in 150 characters

What does the activities section ask for in 2026-27?

The section is part of My Common Application (Common App). For 2026-27, Common App renamed it “Activities and experiences” and rewrote its instructions to better capture commitments after high school, a change aimed mainly at older and independent applicants. The character limits stay as they were (Common App, May 2026).

The main fields in one activity entry, as Common App’s guide describes them.

You can add up to ten activities, and you do not need to enter ten (Common App). The full application, section by section, is in our guide to the Common App for Indian students.

What should the 150 characters say?

Common App’s own example shows the method. It cuts a 256-character description of volunteering at an animal shelter to 141 characters, and drops the time spent, because the form records time elsewhere (Common App).

Three things earn their place: a verb for what you did, the thing you made or ran, and what changed because of you. The organisation already has its own field, so the description need not repeat it. Spend the characters on what changed, not on the event’s name.

Common App also says you may need to abbreviate words and simplify grammar (Common App). In practice that means dropping the “I”, joining actions with semicolons and writing numbers as digits.

How do common Indian activities read in 150 characters?

Each example below starts with a description that says too little and rewrites it. The character counts include spaces and punctuation.

Leadership reads best as what you changed. With the position field optional for 2026-27, a title can sit in that field or nowhere, and the description shows what you did with it. Our pieces on writing a position paper and writing a first white paper cover the work behind the last two examples.

Which activities belong on the list?

More than clubs. Common App asks students to think about family responsibilities, a job, an internship or volunteer work, and hobbies or sports (Common App). Its first-year guide lists “a list of your activities, work, and responsibilities” among the things to have ready (Common App).

It also advises focusing on the activities that best tell your story, not on the number you report (Common App). A shorter list described well says more than a full list described thinly. Our note on why depth beats a longer list makes the case at length.

How should you order the list?

Put first the activity you would most want a reader to remember. Then order the rest by how much of you each one shows, not by how impressive its name sounds.

A reader who stops halfway should already have met the activities that matter most. If two entries describe the same commitment, merge them and use the space you save.

What if something will not fit?

Use the additional information question in the writing section, which Common App points to for this (Common App).

Keep it for context the list cannot hold, such as a project that ran across several activities. A second copy of the list wastes it.