Academic Honors vs. Extracurriculars

What exactly qualifiers for academic honors? Would investing tournaments count as an academic honor? How about the investing tournaments that required essays? What about hackathons?

http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/what-honors-and-awards-should-go-on-my-common-app/

IMO, unless it’s at least tangentially related to a class, it’s an EC. But really, if you miscategorize something, it won;t be the end of the world.

As a follow up, I have some national/international awards that are not well known (because they’re investing awards). But, I don’t have much space to describe them on the common app. Should I do so in the additional info section or will the adcom look it up?

The adcom will probably not look them up. Lump them together in the awards section., i.e. numerous awards for investing (ABC award, DEF award…) If you’re squeezed for room, list only the most important ones.

Sorry, can you please clarify? Are you saying that I should put my investing awards in the academic honors section? I don’t think there is an awards section. And how can I lump them together as they are completely different awards given on different levels of recognition. Thanks!

bump

Your guidance counselor is probably more aware of the particular awards than we are… why not make an appointment and ask him/her?

She knows about them; the issue is I’m wondering how to best convey them on my application. She isn’t telling me how to do that.

You can list them in EC’s.

e.g.:

West Podunk High Investment Club. Received numerous awards for (however you describe the activity) including the ABC Blue Ribbon, etc.

If you really really want to list the whole laundry list of awards, you can certainly use the additional info section. I, however, am of the opinion that if you can’t fit it into the main section, it’s probably not worth it to mention. Most AO’s are familiar with a wide variety of EC’s and awards, and if they don’t recognize it, it’s probably not important to them.