For the 2026-2027 cycle, Common App renamed the section from "Activities" to "Activities and Experiences" and made the position/leadership title field optional rather than required. It's a small-sounding change, but it reframes what the section is for: less a list of titles you held, more a record of what you actually did and how you spent your time -- which matters if you're weighing whether a job, a family responsibility, or an informal project "counts" as much as a club office.

What changed this cycle

  • The section is renamed to Activities and Experiences, explicitly broadening the framing beyond formal clubs and teams.
  • The position/leadership title field is now optional. You're asked a yes/no question about whether you held a title; if yes, you get 50 characters to name it. If your role didn't come with a title -- caregiving for a family member, an informal job, an independent project -- you're no longer forced to invent one just to fill the field.

What didn't change

The core mechanics are the same as in prior cycles, per Common App's own guidance:

  • Up to 10 activity slots -- still a maximum, not a requirement.
  • 100 characters for the organization name.
  • 150 characters for the activity description (details, honors won, and accomplishments).
  • Hours per week and weeks per year fields for each activity -- Common App's own guidance says a reasonable best guess is fine if you don't remember exact numbers.

You still don't need to fill all ten

This is worth saying plainly because the ten empty slots create the same pressure as the Honors section's five: Common App's own materials on the section state directly that you can add up to ten activities, "but that doesn't mean that you need to enter ten," and that the point is telling colleges who you are, not maximizing the count. The same principle covered in our piece on the Honors section and having fewer than five applies here: a handful of activities with real depth and specific detail reads better than ten entries where the last three are thin filler added to avoid leaving space blank.

Writing a description that survives the 150-character limit

The tightest constraint in the section is the description field, and the most common mistake is trying to preserve a full sentence's worth of context inside it. Two moves free up space without losing anything a reader needs:

  • Cut anything already captured elsewhere in the entry. Duration and time commitment are reported separately in the hours/week and weeks/year fields, so restating "for two years" or "every weekend" in the description just burns characters redundantly.
  • Lead with the concrete action, not a role summary. "Ran weekly fundraising campaign, raised $3,200 for shelter" fits and shows impact; "Was a dedicated and passionate volunteer who helped out wherever needed" doesn't fit and says nothing specific even if it did. If you're staring at a blank entry unsure how to compress four years of involvement into 150 characters, drafting a full application resume first and trimming down from there is easier than composing directly inside the limit.

What this means for you

  • Don't invent a title just because the field used to require one. It's optional now -- if your role genuinely didn't have a title, answer "no" and let the description carry the weight.

  • Don't treat 10 as a quota. Common App's own guidance says explicitly that entering fewer, stronger entries is fine; the same logic that applies to the Honors section applies here.

  • Write descriptions around concrete actions and results, not duration (that's reported separately) or vague team-player language.

  • A job, caregiving responsibility, or informal project is a legitimate entry, not a lesser substitute for a club -- the rename exists specifically to make that framing more natural.

  • This is one step in the larger process, not a standalone task -- see the complete step-by-step guide to applying to college for how it fits with everything else, and where you are in the sequence.

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