The Additional Information Essay: When and How to Use It

It is not often discussed, but the Common Application offers students the opportunity to complete two essays in addition to the personal statement: the (new for 2025!) Challenges and Circumstances Essay and the standard Additional Info Essay. 

If you’re wondering whether you should be writing and submitting either of these optional essays, you’ve come to the right place. 

Read on to find out what these essays are (and aren’t!), examples of common topics, and advice for executing them in a way that will resonate with admissions officers!

What Is the Challenges and Circumstances Essay?

The Challenges and Circumstances Essay is a space within the Writing section of the Common Application for applicants to discuss extenuating circumstances or life-altering experiences that have impacted their academic career and extracurricular opportunities. With that in mind, let’s take a look at an example of instructions you might see:

Sometimes a student’s application and achievements may be impacted by challenges or other circumstances. This could involve the following:

• Access to a safe and quiet study space
• Access to reliable technology and internet
• Community disruption (violence, protests, teacher strikes, etc.)
• Discrimination
• Family disruptions (divorce, incarceration, job loss, health, loss of a family member, addiction, etc.)
• Family or other obligations (care-taking, financial support, etc.)
• Housing instability, displacement, or homelessness
• Military deployment or activation
• Natural disasters
• Physical health and mental well-being
• War, conflict, or other hardships

If you’re comfortable sharing, this information can help colleges better understand the context of your application. Colleges may use this information to provide you and your fellow students with support and resources.

Please describe the challenges or circumstances and how they have impacted you. (250 words)

The goal of this essay is to directly and succinctly contextualize the challenge(s) at hand and provide admissions with a clear understanding of your circumstances. You may not want to focus on a hardship in your personal statement, so this essay prompt gives you a chance to explain to admissions how life has laid down hurdles on the road to your goals. 

How Do You Know if You Should Answer This Prompt? 

If you have faced an undeniable life challenge, you should consider writing this essay, but it is by no means required. Your struggle with procrastination or your disappointment with your SAT scores should not be featured here. Consider what other applicants might be writing about and be thoughtful in your assessment of your own struggles, large and small. 

Here are some additional examples of what (and what not) to address in a Challenges and Circumstances Essay:

Common Challenges and Circumstances Essay Scenarios

Here are some of the more common Challenges and Circumstances Essay scenarios*:

• Low grades followed by a learning difference diagnosis
• Behavioral issues followed by a learning difference diagnosis
• Drop in grades during turbulent times at home
• Drop in grades grades while struggling with mental or physical health
• Prolonged absence from school due to chronic illness
• Prolonged absence from school due to the loss of a family member
• Prolonged absence due to a natural disaster
• Lack of extracurricular involvement due to responsibilities at home
• Relocation that impacted academic performance or extracurricular involvement
• Suspension, expulsion, and other disciplinary action

*This list is by no means exhaustive, and there will always be exceptions. If you’re unsure whether your application would benefit from writing a Challenges and Circumstances Essay, we can help you decide. Get in touch! 

What Is the Additional Information Essay?

The Additional Info Essay is a space within the Writing section of the Common Application for applicants to provide just that: additional information for admissions to consider while assessing their applications. With that in mind, let’s take a look at an example of instructions you might see:

Please provide an answer below if you wish to provide details of circumstances or qualifications not reflected in the application. You may enter up to 300 words.

This is the more nebulous of the two optional Common App Additional Info section prompts; any major hardships you’ve faced should be covered in the Challenges and Circumstances essay above unless your particular college notes otherwise. 

When Should You Use the Additional Information Essay?

While it is tempting to use this space to explore a random subject of your choosing, students should use this space sparingly. In other words: unless you have something crucial to add or explain—and there is absolutely nowhere else on the application for you to write about it—you should skip this essay. 

Rare exceptions include the potential addition of a research abstract or a short description of a substantive project that isn’t featured elsewhere. But really and truly, do not feel pressured to fill this space. The unrequested extra information you stuff in there will not likely hurt you, but it also probably won’t help. 

Here are some additional examples of what (and what not) to address in an Additional Info Essay:

As you can see, there aren’t a lot of topics or situations that merit use of the Additional Info Essay box. Take particular note of the phrase “that you haven’t highlighted elsewhere.” If you’ve discussed your research project, artwork, or business acumen in another essay, you don’t need to mention it again here. Use this space only if you weren’t able to highlight something that you deem necessary to paint a full picture of yourself and your accomplishments. 

Common Additional Info Essay Scenarios

Here are some of the more common Additional Info Essay topics*:

• A research project you undertook during an internship
• A play you directed at school
• A business venture you launched 
• A long-term volunteer position you’ve held 

*This list is by no means exhaustive, and there will always be exceptions. If you’re unsure whether your application would benefit from writing an Additional Info Essay, we can help you decide. Get in touch! 

Generally, if a topic is intrinsic to your personality and values, you will have already written about it elsewhere and won’t need to use the Additional Info Essay. But if you’ve made it this far and realized you never mentioned your large-scale election coverage that took pride of place as the double-page spread in your school newspaper, you can mention that here. 

What Admissions Officers Say About the Additional Info Essays

The admissions officers at Harvard write, “Do not feel obligated to fill this space, but some students have used this opportunity to tell us about challenging circumstances in their lives such as illness or other difficulties that may have affected their grades. Any information that can tell us more about the person behind the test scores and grades can be helpful.”

The admissions department at Yale recommends that students ask their “school counselor or other school official [to address any special circumstances] in the Counselor Recommendation.” They also invite applicants to write about “particular challenges” in the personal statement or Additional Info section. 

The Senior Assistant Director of the USC Office of Admission recommends that applicants do NOT use the Additional Info section to share links to portfolios or resumes or provide any additional writing samples. Instead, “the Additional Information Section is a place to share any important, sometimes personal, information that has not been shared elsewhere in your application. It can be a space to provide vital context that is critical to who you are and your life experiences.”  

Common Pitfalls to Avoid in the Additional Info Essays

The most common mistakes we see in Additional Info Essays are applicants who wish to share a story that risks appearing as trite when compared to the stories of other applicants sharing their stories in the same space.

Think about it: if admissions reads Challenges and Circumstances Essays from applicants who have lost a sibling to the opioid crisis, experienced homelessness after a wildfire destroyed their town, or missed school to attend a rehabilitation facility for an eating disorder, and then they read an essay from an applicant about the crushing experience of not making the varsity squad, you can see why that might come across as impertinent. 

We do not intend to invalidate any student’s experiences, nor is the Common App Additional Info section a trauma contest; however, we encourage our students to keep this perspective in mind. Depending on the school, some admissions officers are reading hundreds of application essays per day, and you don’t want to ask them to read one more if it does not provide necessary context related to your candidacy. 

How to Craft an Effective College Application Additional Information Essay

If you have decided that you do have a story to share in the Additional Information section, it’s important to focus on what you learned or took away from the extenuating circumstances, as opposed to dedicating too many words to describing the challenge or hardship.

Remember that a drop in grades and the reasons behind it does not define you! Admissions wants to get to know you and the ways you handled these hardships to assess your fit for their school. 

Instead of focusing on the things you couldn’t control (an illness, learning difference, death of an immediate family member, or natural disaster), invest your word count in describing the actions you took to improve the situation (starting a study group with your friends to help you catch up after a prolonged absence or seeking a diagnosis and classroom accommodations). Share in detail how you’ve persisted in the face of hardship (taking the time to grieve and heal before returning to school or volunteering in your community to help others impacted by a disastrous weather event).

You don’t want to come off as a victim of circumstance, but rather as a competent, resilient person who can take steps to positively affect their own situation. These kinds of soft skills will prepare you for success in higher education and beyond, and that’s something you can think on as you consider how to write your Additional Info Essay.

How to Make Sure Your Additional Info Essays Complement Your Application

In order to ensure that your Additional Info Essays complement the rest of your college application, you should make sure you’re not being redundant.

So, for example, if you write your personal statement about embracing your neurodiversity and the unique way in which you experience and interact with the world, you can still write about your diagnosis in your Challenges and Circumstances Essay—how it has impacted your academic career and the role it will play in your future studies—but you’ll want to be concise and trust that admissions will already be familiar with your story. 

It’s also important to keep in mind that, while our usual advice is to use every word at your disposal, the Additional Info Essays are the exception to that rule. If you don’t need 300 words to explain your circumstances, don’t feel pressured to use up that space. 

Dos and Don’ts of the Additional Info Essays

While writing your Additional Info Essays, Do:

• Focus on the positives—whether that be how you improved your grades, settled into a new routine, pursued accommodations, or matured into the person you are today.
• Be honest and accurate about your extenuating circumstances.
• Share your essay with a trusted friend, mentor, or College Essay Advisor for a fresh perspective.

Don’t:

• Focus too much on how the cards were stacked against you; instead, tell a story about overcoming an obstacle.
• Dance around the facts. If you have made some mistakes (e.g., received disciplinary action), own up to them and then pivot to what you learned from the experience and how you not only are applying those lessons today, but will also apply them in the future.
• Submit before running your essay by someone you trust. Since a poorly executed Additional Info Essay runs the risk of polarizing the reader, it’s best to get a second opinion.

How CEA Can Help You with Your Additional Info Essays

Here at CEA, we help students write successful admissions essays that differentiate them from other similarly qualified applicants. 

We also help guide families through important decisions, such as whether to—and how to—write an Additional Info Essay that accurately captures their experiences and reflects their tenacity. We strategize with applicants to make sure they’re submitting well-rounded applications that will resonate with admissions officers. 

Don’t hesitate to get in touch to see how our team of Advisors can help you submit the best possible application essays to your dream schools. 

"I can’t thank you enough for all of your support. We are so glad we found you to advise us and help [my son] put his best foot forward–both with his personal statement and resonant additional information essay. You really helped him to demonstrate his grit and determination through the tough times. "

– CEA Parent

"We are all so pleased with how her essays turned out. I’m glad [our daughter] chose to write about her dyslexia diagnosis in the Additional [Info] section. It is part of her story but, like you said, it does not define her. [Her Advisor] was especially kind and encouraging. We are appreciative."

– CEA Parent