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Of every part of the application, the activities list is where AI helps most and risks least. This is not personal, voice-driven writing. It is ten factual descriptions, capped at 150 characters each, where the whole game is compression: pack the most impact into the fewest words. Compression is exactly what AI is good at. As long as the facts stay true, this is the safest high-value use of AI in the whole application.
I’m Nico. I’ve coached over 200 students into nearly every top 100 school in the country. Here is how to use AI on the activities list.
What you are working with
The Common App gives you 10 activity slots, with 50 characters for the position title, 100 for the organization, and 150 characters for the description. That 150 characters is about 20 to 30 words. Every one has to earn its place with a strong verb, a concrete result, and ideally a number.
A quick honesty note: tightening the wording of something you actually did is completely fine, the same way running it through Grammarly is fine. Inventing an accomplishment or inflating a number is not, and it is the kind of thing that can unravel. Keep the facts true and let AI handle the phrasing.
Step 1: Dump everything first
Do not try to write tight from scratch. For each activity, brain-dump the full picture, then let AI compress.
Prompt: “Here is everything I did in this activity: [dump it all, messy is fine, include real numbers, hours, people, money, outcomes]. Compress this into a Common App activity description under 150 characters. Lead with a strong action verb, keep only the highest-impact facts, and include a real number if I gave you one. Give me three versions.”
Three versions gives you options to react to. Pick the one that is most true and most specific, then trim it yourself.
Step 2: Push for verbs and numbers
Weak descriptions describe. Strong ones show impact. If your draft is soft, make AI sharpen it.
Prompt: “This description is under 150 characters but weak: [paste]. Rewrite it three ways using stronger action verbs (led, built, raised, coordinated, tutored) and surfacing any measurable result, without inventing anything I did not tell you.”
Numbers do a lot of work in a tiny space. “Tutored 12 students, raised class averages a letter grade” says more in fewer characters than a sentence of adjectives.
Step 3: Order and cut
You have ten slots but they are ranked, so the order matters. Use AI to sanity-check priority, then you decide.
Prompt: “Here are my ten activities with descriptions. Do not rewrite them. Tell me which read as high-impact and which read as filler, and suggest an order that leads with my strongest. I will make the final call.”
If something reads as filler even after tightening, it may be worth dropping for a stronger entry.
The traps to avoid
- Inflating to sound impressive. A number you cannot back up is a real risk. Keep it true.
- Losing your specifics to generic verbs. “Participated in” and “helped with” waste characters. But do not let AI swap your real, specific detail for a punchier generic one.
- Ten equally weak lines. Better to have six strong, specific entries than ten vague ones.
Where AdmissionsOS fits
Sol, the AI college counselor inside AdmissionsOS, is built to do this cleanly: it helps you compress each activity to a tight, honest, quantified line and pushes you toward impact and real numbers, without inventing anything. It treats the activities list like what it is, a compression problem, so ten small boxes end up doing the most work they can for you.
Ready to tighten your list? Start with AdmissionsOS.