I’m putting the finishing touches on my Common App, and am working on my additional information section. I was wondering if it is acceptable/ do people include additional info about community service they were involved in. The section for activities does not really allow enough characters for me to explain what I did in my community service. The service was a huge part of my development as a person, and I wanted to give more details on it. While I was visiting UNC, a college admin guy told me that the AI section would be a good place to talk more about this. Has anyone else used this section to talk about this? Would it be okay to do? I appreciate the feedback as I’m kinda confused on what to do.
Yes, using the Add’l Info section to expand on your description of a particular Activity is perfectly acceptable. You still want to be succinct (don’t write another essay), but to provide additional details or a few sentences regarding it’s importance to you is a good use of that section. Give it a ‘header’ or title, like Activity: [Community Service], so the AdComms know that it relates to the activity you’ve listed in the other section.
IMO you shouldn’t need to do this for more than one or two activities. But for that particular activity that you are deeply involved in or that is particularly meaningful, it can give AdComms a better understanding of your experience and what’s really important to you.