If your kids go to a public school that doesn’t give out academic awards (besides honor society), do you think the schools recognize that the empty “awards and achievements” category is because there wasn’t an opportunity to earn them? It seems like more academic awards, etc are given in private school.
My son attended a small K-8 school that was also not big on awards. All awards (academic, athletic and musical) were given out in May, and most were reserved for graduating 8th graders. As such, we had no actual awards to list at the time of application.
I think it’s easier to find achievements to list. Participation in Math Counts, regional or state science fairs, playing first chair of an instrument, being selected for outside athletic, music, dance or arts competitions, etc, are all ideas that students could list there. I don’t think it mattters if they’ve won, just that they have been active in working towards goals outside of the regular school curriculum.
Participation in Boy Scouts / Girl Scouts, youth ministry or community service, community theatre and / or dance, club teams and etc could also be listed there. Just depends on how you want to spin it.
We used the SAO app and listed most of those things as activities/extracurriculars, but not as achievements. I hope the schools read them that way! We completed the profiles earlier this fall and I don’t think there’s any way to edit them now… 
Getting nervous that we did it incorrectly!
I agree that is a frustrating part of SAO, we dealt with that too. As long as the ECs are on these somewhere I’m sure they will be noted and recognized. It does annoy me that you have to submit the profile and pay the fee in order to see the essay questions, and then you cannot go back and edit the profile!
In my sons case, he was given a leadership position at school after the profile was submitted, then also had another significant achievement outside of school. Just before January 15th I had him email each AO individually and give them his updated news and explain that he could not edit the profile on SAO.
I wonder if I should call to ask or send an email (or have kid send an email?) … we have one interview left where I suppose we could bring this up, but the profile has been submitted everywhere. My daughter has thought of a few things she feels like she should have listed. I’m afraid we were too conservative when filling out the profile and maybe should have been less humble - haha. I don’t want to seem desperate though!
I have found that AOs are happy to hear from me when I call with questions or updates. I too started the process thinking I should be as little a pain as possible but I have found communication with AOs to be important. If your daughter feels she left something off definitely email an update.
I was also told yesterday to always send videos directly to AOs as well as submit them through the app because “there are always problems downloading them with the application.”
I would have your daughter email each AO herself with updates. The secondary school counselor at my kids private school felt it was very important for the kids to reach out to the AO’s themselves with that kind of information / update.
Agree with @dramakid2 , If your child has received an award or attained a role/achievement after the application was submitted, definitely send have HER send an email to the AO. My daughter did that in late Feb, after she got a part in the district’s Shakespeare festival. She is an athlete and didn’t have (any?) many non-sports activities, and wanted to show the AO that she had other interests. SHe also included some samples of her photography, which is something they talked about in her interview. @busymommyof4 at least one of your schools will be very open to such a communication from the child, I am confident. 
Agree your child should contact the AO with additional information. And while kids in public school often may not have many school awards, there are loads of opportunities for them to get awards.Most awards are given for EC activities outside of school. Also many kids participate in things which they might win an award and find it themselves. My youngest Wanted to participate in something and it wasn’t available in school. Kid haunted me to sign up to proctor at home ( I did). Yep, kid won an award. Also don’t forget things like in school language awards or math challenges. There are lots of things if you think carefully about it.