If you are already looking through the common app, first off--we love that for you, you probably have seen the section called “Additional information.” It’s the final section and honestly, many students don’t even need to open it. While you might not use it, it’s helpful to know what it is and what it’s all about. That’s where this blog comes in.
When you open the section up, you will see a question that reads, “Do you wish to provide details of circumstances or qualifications not reflected in the application?” and gives you 650 words to provide that information to them.
Most students have two big questions when it comes to this section. One, what is this section? And two, what should I write about? Let’s break it down.
What is this section?
At first, this might seem like another common app essay. The question is 650 words and seems really open-ended. That is not its intended use.
This section was made for students with experiences that fall outside of the norm when it comes to their high school experience. This can be due to a variety of causes but usually these will be due to extenuating, big-picture circumstances. Whatever they are, if there are gaps in your record or anything else that could confuse an outsider looking in at your application, then you want to use this section.
Let’s say you moved to a new school every six months in high school because of your dad’s job. That's an important thing to know about you, but you shouldn’t write your common app essay or any other essays about it. You should provide context about the moves in the form of an additional information section so that the reader understands the concept of your transcript or record.
Essays in this section should answer a question the reader has about your record or huge life event by adding context. (P.S. don’t write about COVID, there is another section where you can do that, and we have a blog on it here.) The topics essays in this section are usually huge life-altering events or issues. Don’t think the one class you got a C in, think why you missed 50% of class sophomore year.
What should I write about?
Trigger warning: mention of sexual assault/abuse and death.
Sometimes your record will have gaps that need to be explained. We once had a student who had an autoimmune disease. She missed 50% of her classes for two years because of chronic illness. The reader when looking at her transcript was going to see a lot of gaps and she needed to explain those. This is something to write about.
The topics in this section are almost always on the heavier side: surviving sexual abuse, illness, a death in the family that thrust a caregiver role onto you, housing insecurity. These topics can be really hard to write about. Writing about trauma is hard and can be triggering, so if it didn’t affect anything in your transcript, it might not be worth it to try to include in your application if it is too emotionally cumbersome to write about.
Gaps aren’t the only thing that sometimes needs to get explained. Here are some other essays we have seen utilizing this section:
Using pronouns that don’t match your recommendation letters because you weren’t out as trans or nonbinary to your teachers
Transferring schools senior year or other strange shifts in your transcript between schools
A learning disability that affects your test scores but not your grades
We want the reader to leave with no questions about you and this section can be a great tool to clear them up before they are done reading through your app.
While everyone is technically allowed to add information to this section, this space was made for specific stories. If you don’t have one of those stories and it isn’t immediately obvious to you what that story would have to be about, this section probably isn’t for you. If you still have questions, sometimes it’s easier to talk about what you shouldn’t write about.
What shouldn’t you write about?
There is a toxic myth that the more “othered” you are the easier it is to get into top schools. You probably have heard someone say something like, “Well, they only got into Harvard because they are [insert minority here.]” This leads students to try to play up the most marginalized thing about them, especially when it comes to this section. We want to push against this. One, it’s just not true. People get into top schools for all kinds of reasons, but never just because they are of a certain ethnicity, etc. Second, it makes students play up parts of themselves that aren’t actually crucial to their identity.
Writing an essay about how you are â…› El Salvadorian is not the additional information that they are asking for. Remember this is a space for answering questions that might come up from gaps on a transcript or circumstances that led to unfavorable outcomes. There is no question that the reader will have where the answer will be an additional essay about being of Portuguese descent.
The other type of essay we see a lot of students want to write is just another common app essay or unnecessary info. If you really love movies, this is not the place to list your top 100 films of the century. It’s not the place to add a story about your grandmother. Nor is it the place to write what you had for breakfast. Yes, technically, all of that is “additional information” it’s just not the information that they are looking for.
We see a lot of students wanting to just add more, but as with most things, more isn’t always better.
Why can’t I just add more?
It might seem like adding more won’t hurt your chances, so why not do it? Think about who is reading these apps. Imagine wading through thousands of essays just to get to this section. You think you’re about to read an essay about a life-altering experience and instead you’re bogged down with a bunch of over-extended metaphors and stories about grandpa.
Remember that if you chose to list all your favorite movies in this section it could be sandwiched in between people talking about leaving school because they were thrown out for being gay or how cancer stole their junior year. That list doesn’t seem as cute anymore. It seems tone-deaf.
Here’s the TLDR: the additional information section is all about adding context and answering questions. Look over your transcript, are there huge gaps? Would someone have questions when looking at it? Then maybe this section is for you. They want to give you that space since a reader will need it to understand why those big gaps or questions are there. But if you are looking over your app and there isn’t life-altering information missing… it’s ok to just skip this section. Not everyone has additional information.
We know this can be hard (especially when it comes to hard topics to write about) Contact us here if you need help with the college process.