The Common Application: Extracurricular Activities & Work Experience portion

Scholarship committees, colleges, and universities, and even potential employers take a great interest in the extra-curricular activities that individuals engage in. The activities can include volunteer work, paid employment, internships and job shadowing, club involvement, sports, and hobbies.

The work on building your portfolio should begin long before the end of your last year in school. You will want to collect a number of artifacts from the activities including news articles in which you are mentioned (either online or on the web), blog posts, images, video, audio files, letters of recommendation, links to web pages that are relevant, and more; building this page long before you need it is a good idea.

More and more institutions of higher education in the United States are asking applicants to use a set of documents called The Common Application. While this is specific for individuals interested in attending...