Using New Common App Sections: Additional Info and “Challenges & Circumstances”

The Common Application’s combination of essays, objective questions, and the option to submit supplemental materials typically provides enough avenues for most students to convey their backgrounds and highlight the qualities they wish colleges to recognize.

For years, a critical component of this system has been the Additional Information section: the blank space on the application that allows, but does not require, students to provide up to 650 words’ worth of “qualifications and circumstances.” This year, that word limit has been cut radically, to 300.

The change is accompanied, and partly compensated for, by a new section called Challenges and Circumstances. One of these changes is positive, while the other is unnecessary and detrimental. Let’s explore both.

Subtracting from Additional Information
Admittedly, Additional Information has been a source of mystery for many applicants. Its instructions are brief, cryptic, and vague. However, this very vagueness also makes them broad and open to interpretation. Resourceful students can interpret these instructions to their advantage. For many of the highly accomplished and ambitious students I often work with, the Additional Information section has been invaluable.

For example, students involved in complex scientific research, which cannot be adequately explained in a 150-character activity description, can elaborate in the Additional Information section. Similarly, students who are exceptionally active in their communities or schools can detail all their activities and provide necessary explanations. Applicants with leadership roles — something colleges claim to value — can describe their actual contributions as president, secretary, or captain.

I don’t recommend that students “pad their resumes” with endless numbers of activities. Even so, students who have impressive accomplishments deserve to emphasize them.

In the past, I have encouraged students to use Additional Information to cover any and all of the following:

• Significant or complex activities, including jobs, internships, and volunteer work
• Significant, complex, or unusually impressive awards
• Summaries of research projects
• Excerpts of creative writing or descriptions of creative projects
• Academic highlights, including enrichment classes

I have never encouraged students to submit an additional personal essay. I usually direct students to write separate, concise, and clearly defined paragraphs. Some entries can be expressed in bullet points, as in resumes.

The 650-word limit, being neither infinite nor overly restrictive, offered a crucial opportunity for any student who feels they have something important to convey. This flexibility has been a consistent feature for years, and students I’ve worked with who have used the Additional Information section have generally seen favorable college admission results.

With the section now cut in half (see editorial below for the Common App’s purported reasons), my approach will be the same as before.

But, the descriptions will have to get shorter, and fewer items will make the cut. I imagine some entries that used to be paragraphs will become bulleted lists, and some worthy items will simply go by the wayside. Alternatively, though I hate resumes (they’re usually redundant, and typesetting them can be maddening), I may encourage students to submit resumes or other supplemental material, such as research abstracts, via SideRoom and/or their application portals, in order to present their backgrounds in full.

One reason the Common App shortened the Additional Information section is that it wanted to reduce applicants’ stress and workloads. I predict the opposite. These choices are going to be stressful, and it’s almost always harder to write short rather than long.

In a world where grade inflation has made it harder for colleges to distinguish one student from another, I fear that this curtailed Additional Information will make it harder still. Then again, if future generations of students appreciate the constraints of the application, they may be able to relax and focus less on filling their time with different activities and more on making the most of a smaller number of high-quality activities.

“Challenges & Circumstances”
The Challenges and Circumstances section replaces what was previously known as the COVID question and, later, the “community disruption” question. This question originated during the pandemic, initially prompting students to discuss how COVID affected them (drop in grades; curtailed extracurriculars, etc.). In recent years, it has been broadened to encompass any natural disaster or force majeure. However, this section became tedious when students used it to explain minor circumstances or, worse, to dwell on a long-past pandemic.

The prompt of the Challenges and Circumstances section is far more explanatory than its predecessor. It provides several bullet points to guide students on what to discuss and to help them understand what colleges might want to know about external forces that have impacted or constrained them. It also encourages students to provide context for their accomplishments and backgrounds within their families, neighborhoods, communities, ethnic groups, nationalities, or other relevant contexts.

This is an entirely positive development, largely because the Common App is being much more transparent and forthright about what kind of information it seeks. Thoughtful, well-written, candid responses that seek to inform readers (rather than make excuses) can provide invaluable context to help colleges evaluate applicants and understand what applicants might be capable of in a college environment. As well, it’s often ideal, if appropriate, for counselor or teacher recommendation letters to refer to the same challenges to affirm and explain how applicants reacted to them.

For students who have faced, weathered, and overcome genuine challenges, this section should be liberating. Students often assume that they should write about their challenges — a medical problem, for instance — in the main essay. The problem is that, in doing so, they partially define themselves by their challenges: by a negative experience rather than a positive one. If an applicant knows that the negative experience can safely live in Challenges & Circumstances, he is then liberated to think of stronger, affirmative topics for the main essay and personal supplements.

Should every applicant use Challenges & Circumstances? Absolutely not. An applicant should not pretend to have faced a challenge that did not actually exist, and you do not want to inflate a non-challenge into an existential crisis. A contrived, unnecessary Challenges & Circumstances would be far worse than a blank Challenges & Circumstances. Even students with genuine challenges might choose not to disclose them, especially if they might leave readers with negative impressions. And, applicants should never use an essay, in Challenges & Circumstances or otherwise, as a “trauma dump.”

(For students who might lament that they don’t have dramatic challenges to recount: slow your roll. I can promise that no college acceptance is worth the traumas that some kids have faced. If you’re fortunate enough to have lived a comfortable life, you can take a million positive steps to prepare for college success. You can start by reading, for instance.)

What’s Really a “Challenge”?
Some challenges originate as acts of god, whims of fate, or forces of nature. Others have less lofty sources: obstinate parents, unreasonable teachers, cultural trends, and — most importantly — our own human frailty. An essay about challenges has to understand how these challenges differ.

The challenges most worthy of discussion are exogenous challenges: unpreventable circumstances that befall students through no fault of their own. Challenges in this category might include natural disasters, medical conditions, government actions, crimes, family financial hardships, parental addiction (drugs, gambling, etc.), and the like. In each of these cases, the challenge could not have been avoided and cannot be blamed (if anyone is to blame at all). In these cases, explanations focus on how applicants coped with these challenges and, if possible, solved them.

Endogenous challenges are another matter. Taking on too many classes is an endogenous challenge. Alienating would-be friends over petty disagreements is an endogenous challenge. Organizing a school event or participating in a competition has exogenous and endogenous elements. A compulsive habit or eating disorder, however powerful it may feel, is an endogenous challenge — within one’s own control. Striving for strong grades or trying to achieve a fitness goal may be challenging, but they are not challenges per se. Eating a vegan diet may be challenging, but this is a choice, and surely the challenges are apparent.

A separate category of challenge centers on academics. We know that academic work is generally challenging — that’s the point, right? But, applicants may want to write about specific challenges: concepts they’ve learned, books they’ve read, papers they’ve written, research they’ve conducted, etc. These can be great topics. The key is not to dwell on the “challenge” — i.e. the labor — but rather to celebrate the accomplishments and the learning. Academic essays should be generally upbeat, even if they discuss challenging moments.

Some of these instances may be worth writing about. But, applicants want to be careful to take responsibility for their own actions and to characterize true challenges accurately and appropriately.

Editorial Comment: Additional Info and “Access”
I have been told by people who sit on the Common App’s advisory board that Additional Information was shortened in the name of “accessibility,”  meaning it will make college more accessible to historically underprivileged populations by making the application process easier (by a margin of 300 words). The rationale is a bit tortured.

Other criticisms of the Additional Information section argued that its length was intimidating, making underprivileged students feel compelled to use all 650 words rather than just a few dozen or a hundred to say what they needed to say. This is nonsense, though. Only 14% of students ever used the Additional Information section, and only half of those used more than 300 words. Despite this lack of evidence, the Common App has decided to revamp the Additional Information section rather than simply clarify its purpose or post notices to reassure students that 650 is a limit, not a requirement.

Furthermore, the Common App did not acknowledge that the old Additional Information section was genuinely important for some students and, presumably, for some highly selective colleges that have to evaluate highly accomplished students. So, the new length provides dubious benefit for a group it purports to help while, at the same time, hurting another group. (And, of course, an applicant could belong to both groups: an underprivileged population and highly accomplished students.)

There’s a weird reverence for the Common App among some college professionals, especially when they speak of “access.” I call nonsense on that. The Common App, by its very existence, makes college more accessible. Even so, a passive platform does not make college accessible. For students who don’t have family support, college access depends on a deep well of factors: teachers, counselors, funders, college reps, education policy, education funding, and, most importantly, the colleges themselves. A minute, arcane adjustment to word limits is beside the point.

Appendix: Challenges & Circumstances Prompt
From the Common App website, here is the full Challenges & Circumstances prompt:

Sometimes a student’s application and achievements may be impacted by challenges or other circumstances. This could involve:

Access to a safe and quiet study space
Access to reliable technology and the internet
Community disruption (violence, protests, teacher strikes, etc.)
Discrimination
Family disruptions (divorce, incarceration, job loss, health, loss of a family member, addiction, etc.)
Family or other obligations (caretaking, financial support, etc.)
Housing instability, displacement, or homelessness
Military deployment or activation
Natural disasters
Physical health and mental well-being
War, conflict, or other hardships

If you’re comfortable sharing, this information can help colleges better understand the context of your application. Colleges may use this information to provide you and your fellow students with support and resources.