Additional Info box in Common App

Hey!

Yes, you can certainly use the Additional Info section to elaborate on certain aspects of your application which u wish to show to the admissions officers but could not include elsewhere. But try to avoid the following -

Using the Additional Info to list activities apart from the ones mentioned in the activities section.

Do not use this space as a second personal statement, you shud only use the common app essay space for that.

What can you talk about in the Additional Info?

1. YOU CAN use the space to elaborate on any activity for which the 150 characters' space in the activities section was not enough. This is only for activities that u have to describe and narrate in excruciating detail.

2. If your academic journey has any discrepancy or your curriculum is very different, you can elaborate on it.

3. Any extreme circumstances, family, financial, health, etc which affected your high school journey.

In case you want to report about circumstances caused due to the Pandemic, you can use the 250-word space to elaborate on that.

Hope this helps!

In my understanding, it's typically used to show special circumstances. Of course, there's also a place to put coronavirus special circumstances this year. If you have family troubles that you want to share or something that you want to elaborate on for an activity, I'd put it there. For example, I clarified that my math classes were online because I couldn't take them do to schedule conflicts and used the space to show my placement at a couple different debate tournaments since I didn't think it fit in the honors section.