Briefly list any academic distinctions or honors you have received

[vicariousparent]

I need some clarification about the 'honors' section of the common app. It looks like there is room for 5 entries in this section and the rest has to go in the 'additional info' section.

Since they specify "academic" distinctions here, do they want you to exclude awards won in extracurricular activities such as debate and music? What about creative writing awards won in competitions organized outside the school?

Now assuming that writing awards are considered academic enough to be included in this section, I'd like advice on how my D should fill out this section. She has won three national gold awards from Scholastic in three different categories. Should she list each award on a separate line or should she lump them all in one line? If she lumped them all, then she would have more room for other awards, including awards in her other activities like debate and music which are at the regional and state level. But that would depend on whether people think debate and music awards are considered academic honors.

Or, should this space only be used for strictly academic awards like NMSF, AP scholar, Intel Science, Math competitions, etc?

[mom2collegekids]

Off the top of my head, these come to mind...

Girls State School Rep
Boys State School Rep
Science Fair placement at regional, state level, and/or national level
NMSF (NMF not usually named by app deadlines)
Winning any regional or state academic competitions
National Latin or German Exams
State Spelling Bees
State creative writing or poetry contests

[marite]

I would not list debate and music awards in the academic category.
I would not include Spelling Bees as these are limited to elementary school students.
Awards in writing competitions, math/science competitions, National History Day, school prizes would qualify. Debate and music award would go into the supplementary list.

[mathmom]

My recollection is that we put the five most academic things there (Latin exam, Math exams, book award, AP scholar) and then put the other stuff elsewhere. If some academic things get shunted off elsewhere it's not the end of the world. You can overthink this stuff.

[starbright]

Doesn't it all depend upon what you have to put on such a list? One can probably readily rank their best five whatever (approximates an academic award), and put the rest elsewhere. Obviously for a rare few it's something 'national' and for the vast majority, it isn't 'state' level.

[Modadunn]

Son put AP Scholar stuff but most all of his awards were EC related. He put together a resume that we then transferred to PDF to assure format when uploaded as "additional information." This way you can group information as it is most relevant to your strengths.