Additional Information on Common App

Answered

Hi @izeah,

No, you should not use the additional information section to drill down into details about your National History Day award.

The add'l information section's purpose is to give applicants the opportunity to share with the admissions reader any extenuating circumstances that happened during high school that detrimentally affected their ability to perform in class, complete assignments, attend class regularly or continue with ECs, community service or other activities. If your GPA dropped from 4.0 to 3.0 during junior year and you have a good explanation for it, this is the place to share the circumstances that were responsible.

Such extenuating circumstances are can include but are not limited to the following:

-A death of a friend or family member

-A family member has a long-term illness or disease or addictions (drug/alcohol)

-Your own personal struggles with physical or mental illness

-Your loss of learning, lower grades, and inability to take standardized tests as a result of COVID-19

-A divorce between parents caused all sorts of problems

-A parent losing their job and you have to take a part-time job to pitch in and help out.

-A family bankruptcy or severe loss of income that caused financial instability like having to sell the family car which left you unable to participate in after-school off-campus ECs and sports.

-A parent who was incarcerated

-Having to enter the foster care system due to some events out of your control.

-Being homeless for an extended period of time

This is also a place to share why your common app profile might look less impressive than others. For example, let's say you are an Int'l Applicant from Afghanistan and you are female. Well, you are applying with an incomplete transcript because during the middle of your 11th-grade term, the ruling Taliban shut down your girl's school and told everyone to go home. Unless you were an admissions officer who keeps track of all the world's problems, you might not know that young school-age girls suffered and continue to suffer huge learning losses in Iraq because educating women is illegal and banned by the ruling tribes that control the country. The same could be said if you are applying as an Int'l student from Ukraine.

Or let's say both your parents are low-income, first-generation restaurant owners. They have made you work after school at their Chinese restaurant since you can remember. So you never did sports in HS or any club sports and your ECs look very bad without any leadership positions because you can't stick around after school to participate or do community service. So the Add'l Info section is a great place to explain that you have worked for your family's business for 10 years.

I hope this is helpful to you and any other 9th-12th grader wondering what the add'l information section is for.

Good luck.