How to describe high school research on the Common App
Short answer. Describe research in the Activities section the way you would explain it to a curious adult: say what question you asked, what you personally did, and what came out of it. Use plain verbs, state your role accurately, and do not claim results, publication or authorship you do not have.
Key takeaways
- Lead with what you did and found, in plain verbs, not with the name of the program.
- State your role accurately, separate from your mentor's and from any team.
- Claim only what is true. Unfinished work is fine to describe as unfinished.
Part of our guide Does research help college admissions?. The Activities section is short, so every word has to say something a reader can picture.
What should a research entry say?
Say what you did before you say where you did it. A reader should be able to answer three questions after one read: what was the question, what did you personally do, and what happened as a result. The Common App describes this section as a place to share your interests and who you are outside the classroom,[1] so the entry should sound like you, not like a program brochure.
How do you state your role honestly?
Name your own contribution, not the lab’s or the mentor’s. If you worked under someone, say so. If you did part of a larger project, say which part.
| Instead of | Write something like |
|---|---|
| Conducted groundbreaking research | Tested whether X affected Y using survey data I collected |
| Worked on a paper | Wrote the methods section of a paper my mentor is submitting |
| Published findings | Presented results to my class (only if that is what happened) |
What if the research is unfinished?
Describe it as unfinished. A project in progress, a negative result, or a question you could not answer yet can all be described accurately, and accuracy reads as more credible than a polished claim that does not hold up when someone asks about it.
What should you leave out?
Leave out the program’s name when it takes characters from what you did, and leave out claims about impact you cannot support. Do not call work published unless it is published, and do not list co-authors you did not work with.
What do we not know?
Field names and limits on the Common App change between application years, so check the live form for the current ones. We also do not know how any individual reader weighs a research entry.