I’m filling out the Common App right now and can’t fit very much into the activities description/leadership boxes since one limits to 50 characters and the other limits to 150 characters. Any suggestions for what I should do to get all my info in the app? (Yes, I’ve simplified what I enter)
- There's no need to write in full sentences. The description box can simply be a bunch of bullet points all on one line. Pithy phrases which encapsulate your precise involvement are useful.
- Use abbreviations, e.g. Pres for President, Intl for International, & rather than and, / rather than or etc.
- Try and group things together. For instance if you've won 3 state awards, just say you've won 3 state awards, rather than write out the names of each one. Maybe talk to your guidance counsellor and ask them to elaborate and add detail to your descriptions.
- The descriptions should not be generic descriptions of what the activity involves since that's quite self-explanatory (e.g. it's obvious that if you wrote for the school newspaper, you'd research and write articles). Use your characters to describe what was unique and special about your involvement.
- If you have enough spaces, you can sometimes divide your activity into 2 entries. If you're really musical, for example, and are involved in both orchestra and choir, then these could potentially take up 2 different entries.
Hope this helps 
I feel your pain though - it’s so difficult to squish everything into those boxes. Im struggling right now with you!
The previous post is great, definitely consider all of those things! Also consider making use of the additional information section- if there’s anything which you absolutely need more room on, put a note in the box to see the additional info section, and write it out there. Good luck!