so basically ive participated in competitions that ive not won, is this counted as an extracirricular/activity and how do i state it on the common app?
Yeah, you can list it. For example, if the activity was karate, you can list it in the common app activity section as “Karate” and then in the description write “practiced 10 years, participated in Competition X, earned black belt.”
If you’re still unsure, perhaps you could say generically what types of competitions these are and someone here could help you.