How to list olympiads and awards in the Common App honors section

If you are applying to universities in the United States, and to some elsewhere that use the Common App, your olympiad results and other competitions need to fit into a few small boxes. Done well, a reader who has never heard of IOQM or NSEJS understands in a few seconds what you achieved. Done badly, a genuine national-level result looks like one more certificate.

This guide covers where competitions go on the Common App, how to choose and word them, and how Indian private universities typically ask about the same achievements. It is written for students in Classes 9 to 12 and for parents helping them.

Where competitions go on the Common App

The Common App has two main places for this.

The Honors section (in Education)

Common App, which uses US spelling, calls this the Honors section. It lets you list up to five academic honours received during high school. For each one it asks for:

• the honour’s title,
• when you received it, as a grade level (US grades 9 to 12 match Classes 9 to 12), and
• the level of recognition. Common App’s own examples are regional and national; the choices run from your school up to international.

The title box is short, so every word has to earn its place.

Activities and experiences

You can list up to ten activities. For the 2026–27 application, Common App renamed this section “Activities and experiences” and made the position or leadership field optional; the character limits did not change. They are:

• position or leadership description: 50 characters,
• organisation name: 100 characters,
• activity details, honours won and accomplishments: 150 characters.

Each activity also asks for the years you took part, hours per week and weeks per year.

The honours section records results. The activities section records commitment. Serious olympiad preparation over two years, a maths circle you ran at school, or a science club you led all belong in activities, even if you also list a result in honours.

Additional information

If you need more room to explain something, Common App points to the Additional Information question in the Writing section. A few plain sentences there explaining India’s olympiad stages can make your honours list much easier to read.

What counts as an academic honour

Good candidates for the honours list:

• qualifying for a later stage of a national olympiad (for example RMO, INMO or an Indian National Olympiad),
• a merit certificate given to a small top group, such as the state top 1% certificates IAPT awards in its National Standard Examinations,
• a high rank in a large competition,
• academic scholarships and school academic prizes.

Weak candidates: participation certificates, and results you can’t explain in one line. Five slots is a small number on purpose. Leaving a slot empty is better than filling it with something that dilutes the rest.

Choosing your five

Order them by how selective they are, not by date. A rough guide:

1. International medals or selection for an international team.
2. National training camps or national-round results.
3. Qualifying beyond the first stage of a national olympiad.
4. State or regional ranks and merit certificates.
5. School-level academic awards.

If two honours come from the same competition in different years, consider listing the higher one and mentioning the other in the activity description.

Writing titles a reader abroad understands

Admissions readers abroad see applications from many countries. They will not know every Indian exam, so name what it is, who ran it, and how far you went. Some examples of the style:

• “Qualified for INMO, India’s national maths olympiad round”
• “NSEJS state top 1% merit certificate, IAPT junior science exam”
• “Regional Mathematical Olympiad qualifier (stage 2 of India’s IMO selection)”
• “SOF International Mathematics Olympiad, zonal rank 4, Class 9”

Avoid unexplained acronyms, and avoid adjectives such as “prestigious”. The facts do the work.

Picking the level of recognition

Match the level to the pool you were actually ranked against, not to the competition’s name. Several school olympiads have “International” in their titles; a zonal rank in one of them is still a regional result. Selection to a national round is a national result. An international medal is international. If a result could fit two levels, choose the more modest one and explain it in Additional Information. Common App asks you to affirm that what you submit is true, and an inflated level is easy for a reader to spot.

Activities: making preparation visible

A sample entry, kept within the limits:

• Position: Self-directed preparation
• Organisation: Indian national maths olympiad programme (IOQM, RMO)
• Details: Two years of weekly problem sets; cleared IOQM to RMO in Class 10; now lead a lunchtime problem circle for Classes 8 and 9.

Notice that the details line shows growth: preparation, a result, then something given back.

How Indian private universities typically ask

Application forms for Indian private universities vary, but most ask about achievements in some of the same ways:

• an achievements or extracurricular section, often with space to upload certificates,
• a statement of purpose or short essays,
• an interview, where you may be asked to talk about a competition you listed,
• sometimes a portfolio for design, media or liberal arts programmes.

How much weight each university gives to competitions is rarely published and varies by programme, so don’t rely on claims that a certificate guarantees anything. What helps everywhere is being clear, consistent and able to talk about what you learned. If you list a result, expect to be asked about one problem you found hard.

Keep a record from Class 9

Applications come at a busy time. Start a simple table now and update it after each competition:

Scan certificates as soon as they arrive and save the official result pages. Organisers’ websites change, and old results are sometimes taken down.

A note on practice ranks

Some students also have a ranking from a practice platform. If you list one, describe it exactly as it is and put it below selective competitions. Ado’s rank, for example, compares a student only with others the same age, builds from their best three subjects, never resets and can’t be bought. A family will be able to create a verified rank statement with a code anyone can check at adorank.com/verify. It shows steady effort over time; it is not an olympiad result, and it shouldn’t be presented as one. Our page on the Ado Rank on applications explains what it does and doesn’t show.

Quick checklist

• Five honours at most, ordered by selectivity.
• Every title says what the competition is and how far you went.
• Levels match the pool you were ranked in.
• Preparation and leadership go in activities, within the 50, 100 and 150 character limits.
• A short explanation of India’s olympiad stages sits in Additional Information if needed.
• Certificates and result pages are saved.

For what each olympiad level signals to colleges, read are olympiads worth it for college?. Always check the current application on commonapp.org, as sections and limits can change between years.