If someone has way more than 10 activities, should they combine those activities in common app?

If a home work is given some people complete that task in 2 hours, some people complete the same task in one hour. It is not that the second kid is smarter, it could be second kid knows how to manage time better and better organized and prone to less distractions. Learning time management is a skill paramount and once you practice improving it, results are phenomenal.

Daughter is a fabulous writer and writes in mutiple outlets which have differnt focus for each of these outlets. She writes for different magazines that focueses on differnt audience. Some of these are in school activities, some are out of school activities. Few activities can be only during school calender year and some may be only summer activities.

I don’t think your D needs an encyclopedic record of every single piece she has ever written. Consolidating makes sense- she’s a writer, and she has written for publications ranging from X-Y. And noting the difference between school year writing and summer writing seems unduly specific.

Focusing your application doesn’t mean making it ‘pointy’ or leaving out important aspects. My D helped focus her application by coming up with 3 words that described her academically, extra-curricular, and personality. It made it easy to highlight specific activities and really made writing essays/short answers easier.

@blossom besides writing she plays sports, high positions in four different STEM and non STEM clubs where she is a office holder and won outside big awards in each activity, active in very selective math team like ARML, very active in music and few other summer STEM and non STEM activity besides writing.

So OP- she’s a writer, that’s one entry. She’s an athlete- that’s two. She is an award winning whatever in some clubs- the STEM ones are the third entry, and the non-STEM ones are fourth. She’s on the math team, that’s five, and she’s got her music activities which is six. So her summer activities are seven and eight.

I don’t think every award gets its own entry (exception made for Physics Olympiad) and every summer activity does NOT need its own entry (except for RSI). The other awards (Presidential Scholar, etc.) aren’t even known yet.

The Adcom’s don’t need to read about every single award to see that your D is accomplished in a particular area. She can summarize, combine, etc.

What are you afraid she’s leaving out? Chopin finalist? That goes in. Every ensemble or youth orchestra does not need to be included- pick the most competitive/most prestigious and name that one, include “and was first violinist for several youth orchestra/string ensembles” or whatever is the best way to describe the others. Similarly, every math competition does not need its own entry. Pick the most selective. Adcom’s know you don’t get to that level without a string of lesser accomplishments along the way.

I consolidated mine. Play around with the wording and only highlight the most important activities.