Well thank you so much ski, gibby and aunt bea. I find this process of application challenging (because I haven’t done something remotely similar before) and I am happy that most of my doubts are cleared and my application is near completion. This whole process has certainly made me grow. Thanks again Gibby, Ski and bea.
You list your honors in the Common App under the education section. They ask for up to five academic honors in order of importance to you. The activities grid also ask you to list any honors won or accomplishments related to the particular activity. I suggest that if you have already listed it in the honors section that you not repeat it in the activities grid. Also the activities grid asks for 10 activities in order of importance to you, if six chess activities are the most important out of the activities that you do then feel free to list. If you have any thing else you want to bring up to admissions then you can list it in the additional information section (limit of 650 words). Just remember that the Common App should not be personalized for an individual college since it will go to all your common app schools. However you get up to 10 revisions after submission (I may be wrong on the number but you do get at least one revision) so you can revise it for one school, submit it to that school and then take out the personalized information and revise it for another school. For your main common app essay you only get to change it three times. I encourage my students to really not revise it after submission unless they catch a mistake.
LORs are submitted just once so your teacher/principal should not personalize it at all They will upload it to the common app system and then schools that require it will electronically sweep it into your file.
Like others have suggested, reread the common app instructions. They are pretty clear on what you have to do. also there are many instructional videos about the common app so you can look at those too.