How To Format A Resume For College Applications

Pick The Ideal Resume Layout

The hard part is over. Youve written your resume, and are feeling confident about getting that interview. Now its time to take a moment and consider your resumes design.

Depending on the industry you work in or the job you want, you may need to adjust your resume layout to fit the expectations of the hiring manager.

College Application Resume Tips

Finally, here are some of our college application tips that didnt fit anywhere else in the article:

How To List Your Activities

You want to have categories for different sets of activities, such as athletics, volunteer/community service, extracurricular activities, summer programs, work/internship experience, to name a few. Within each category, list your activities in the order of importance, which can be defined as the amount of time spent in each activity along with how many years and how recent the activity occurred. With each activity, be sure to list what school year you participated in each activity. Include the average hours/week and weeks/year that you participated.bFor example 4 hours per week, 20 weeks per year. For special accomplishments, note the year in which you received the honor or accomplishment.

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Best Tips When Writing A High School Resume

As you write your high school resume, keep these tips in mind:

• Make it concise. When you write your resume, make sure to highlight only your best and most relevant accomplishments that make you a good candidate for the college you’re applying to. Avoid a long-winded resume and stick to one page.
• Highlight accomplishments you didn’t highlight previously. Your high school resume is a great opportunity to highlight any hobbies or other things you didn’t mention in your college essays or other application materials
• Be honest. Make sure you are honest and accurate in your resume. Don’t provide colleges with false information as it could leave them with a false representation of your background and qualifications.
• Use the right format. When you create your resume, make sure the formatting is consistent. It should be visually appealing and present your background in an organized fashion.
• Proofread. Before sending in your resume, it’s important to proofread and check for any spelling or grammar errors.

Here are some examples of high school resumes to consider as you create your own:

Start Your Resume Before Your Senior Year

As you make your way through high school, it’s important to keep track of your hobbies, awards, accomplishments and activities you’re involved in. This will remind you of what you did throughout high school, beginning with your freshman year. It will also let you see where you need to improve. For example, if you don’t have any volunteer work listed, it gives you time to gather volunteer experience before submitting your high school resume.

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Experience Example: The Secret Advantage

Many college students and new graduates simply give up on this resume section. Without a history of employment, many job seekers don’t see the point. You do, however. So let’s look at how this resume section can give you an edge by reflecting your life experience and your vibrant, productive personality.

So let’s look at how this resume section can give you an edge by reflecting your life experience and your vibrant, productive personality.

• Internship experience. This is one of the most impressive substitutes for “full” employment experience. Recruiters pay special attention to this when considering student or graduate resumes.
• Summer / temp jobs. Experience as a waitress, clerk or nanny counts for more than you might think in terms of transferable skills. Courtesy, patience, discipline, dependability, willingness to work long hours are just a few examples.
• Social initiatives / volunteer work. These are almost always impressive on a college student resume. Volunteering demonstrates altruistic traits and a cooperative team spirit.
• Self-directed or community projects. Cite examples of commitments and collaborations that extended from your personal interests and talents.

Statistics from the Department of Education show that students who work 12 hours per week or less actually have stronger grades, perhaps because working forces them to have better discipline and time management skills.

Below is a resume example for a college student with experience as a teacher’s assistant.

Tips For Formatting Your Resume

• You need to showcase your most recent achievements and skills. To do that, use a chronological format. This format allows you to write information in a reverse chronological order where you write the most recent information first then go back to the oldest ones.
• Make sure the readability of your resume is intact, use one-liner bulleted points to write statements/points. Further, use action verbs to begin points throughout your resume.
• Avoid the usage of full-stops as points in a resume arent complete sentences, and do not incorporate the usage of first and second-person pronouns.

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Use These Additional Sections

If youve followed all our tips till now, congrats – youre around 90% into creating a top-notch college application resume.

Now, lets talk about how you can take that to 100%!

In addition to the conventional resume sections weve covered till now, you can include the following to help you stand out in a sea of other applicants:

• Awards. Here, you can list any awards won in competitions .
• Volunteer experience. Did you clean up your town, or maybe you volunteered at an animal rescue center as a high school student? Any kind of volunteering can help your college application resume because it shows youre a responsible community member. If its somehow related to your field or future major, thats a big plus.
• Projects. Be them individual , or school-related , projects can show that youre passionate and creative.
• Sports. Poet Juvenal said a healthy mind in a healthy body. This means that physical exercise is an important part of mental and psychological well-being . Do you excel at specific sports? Include them in your resume!.
• Languages. Being fluent in a foreign language is another plus for a prospective college student. Make sure to show it in your college application resume.

What Is The Best Approach To Writing A Resume

The best resumes are concise and packed with substantive information.

Remember, admissions officers and hiring managers are busy people, so you need to include pivotal information in your high school resume while wording your accomplishments in a concise and pithy manner.

Last, your resume needs to be formatted correctly. A resume that is formatted properly is easy on the eyes and, thus, will be much more enjoyable to read.

• Admissions officers and hiring managers are more likely to pay attention to resumes that are easy to scan and absorb.

Remember these four things when writing your high school resume:

• The wording must be concise
• All relevant information should be included
• Resume formatting should make for an easy and pleasurable read anything that looks sloppy will reflect badly on you
• Try to keep the resume as close to one-page long. Over one page is OK for high school resumes, but itll be frowned upon later in your career.

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Conduct Research On The Desired School And The Major

Applicants should gain more information before initializing the application processes via the internet. Browse web pages that compare each college and major curriculum. They introduce the differences between majors under the same department, or describe the student life studying in a specific college, allowing senior students to develop interests in universities and majors to different extents.

On top of that, inquiring current students of the interested schools and departments is also helpful as they can solve questions rapidly and effortlessly.

How Many Pages Should A Resume Be

The short answer is that one page is the ideal resume length for most candidates. However, if you have a lot of relevant work experience, it can be two or even three pages.

Just note that unless youre applying for an upper-management position or an academic post, one page will be enough for hiring managers. Even Elon Musks resume could be tightened into one page.

If youre applying for an academic position, youll need to send a CV instead of a resume. Keep in mind that CV templates are often several pages long, and contain more information to show the progression of your academic career.

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Arrange Your Contact Information

Now that you know the format youre going to use, its time to start your resume. First things first, employers need to know who you are and how to contact you.

List the following contact details in your resume header at the top of the page:

• Name
• Telephone number
• Email address
• Link to online portfolio
• LinkedIn profile

Traditionally, you would also include your mailing address on your resume. However, this is no longer mandatory because most job applications are sent via email.

Here are two examples of how you can format your contact information section:

Should You Submit Your Resume

Its a good idea to submit your resume if there is important information youre unable to include on the rest of your application, such as professional experiences or special projects.

If you dont have something new to say, then you shouldnt include a resume. That is, you shouldnt regurgitate information the adcom can find elsewhere on your application. You can, however, use it as a space to expand on or illustrate accomplishments if you dont feel youve been able to in the activities section or your essays.

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Tips For Returning Or Adult Students:

As a returning or adult student, you have the unique experience of having been away from school for a number of years. While the tips for all résumés listed above apply to you, you want to take extra care constructing your résumé. First, if an activity, job, experience, or award is over 10 years old, leave it out. Fill your résumé with relevant and current activities. If youve had the same job for a number of years and are worried about filling up a page, there are some steps you can take:

• Go into detail about the jobs that you do choose to include. Instead of just one bullet point describing your responsibilities, list two or three.
• If youve held different positions with the same company, separate them. This sample résumé lists two separate positions with the same employer and goes into detail about how the responsibilities differ between the two.
• Add information about career development or job training that youve completed. This can either go into your education section or as a bullet point beneath a position detailing informal training that youve received while on the job.

Page last updated: 05/2019

Hard Vs Soft Skills: Whats The Difference

Heres the difference between hard skills and soft skills:

Hard skills

Hard skills are quantifiable, job-specific abilities learned through education, training, or on-the-job experience. Language skills, computer skills, and being able to operate heavy machinery all count as types of hard skills.

Heres a list of 24 popular hard skills to put on your resume:

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What Not To Do On Your Resume

There are not a lot of ground rules when it comes to writing your high school resume. You can and should include anything that you think is relevant to you as a student. However, there are a few things you should avoid to make sure your resume stands out. Students should be careful not to:

• Embellish or fib – It might be tempting to make yourself stand out more by embellishing a leadership position or saying you were involved in something when really you attended one meeting – but don’t. Colleges want to know who you are, not who you wish you were.
• Highlight negative information – If you weren’t a top student, focus on how you’ve improved your grades over the last few years rather than just giving a GPA. If you have high test scores but mediocre GPA, put the test scores higher on the resume.
• Include more than one page – If you have so much information that it takes up two pages, you have to choose your highlights.
• Talk about middle school – College admissions counselors do not care about what you did in middle school unless:
• It’s part of an ongoing theme
• You won a major, nationally or internationally known award

College Application Resume Template Examples

Use this resume section as an example of how to write and format your own accomplishments. The Balance also provides several resume templates you can use to condense your achievements into an easy-to-read format.

Education:

• Graduated third in a class of 425 students
• Attended Harvard University s Summer Pre-Law Program

Experiences:

• Treasurer, Student Government Association, Grades 9-12
• Captain, Soccer Team, St. Georges High School, Laramie, WY, Fall 20XX Spring 20XX
• Volunteering:

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Turn Your Work Experience And Skills Into Assets

Yes, your work experience does matter.

Its obvious youre not going to show bags of professional experience on your scholarship resume, but its not the point.

The point is to show the scholarship committee members

• Spanish
• German

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This is how to write a scholarship resume:

Building A Resume For College Applications: Where To Start

The summer is a great time for students to catch up on their college prep, including pulling together some materials that will be helpful when it comes time to fill out your college applications. Putting together a resume of your activities, awards, internships, and more is a great way to organize all the information you want colleges to know and set you up for a smoother college application experience.

How exactly is a resume used? After all, many applications, including the Common Application, have an activity list section where all of the information on the resume will be entered. Its important to remember, however, that many colleges still ask students to upload resumes or other documentation with their applications. If youre applying to outside scholarships, a resume might be required with your scholarship application. Resumes might also be required when applying to summer programs and internships. Its also good to have an updated resume to send to your college counselor or other teachers when asking for recommendation letters. That way they have additional context for their recommendation.

A resume is also a great point of reference to use when filling out your actual applications, as all the information you need is housed in one place and has been updated throughout your high school career.

Heres how to get started on your academic resume this summer or fall.

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College Application Resume Guide And Template

Put one more item on your to-do list, high school seniors. Its time to prepare a college application resume.

Not the kind of resume youll need when you look for your first post-college job or a brag sheet youve put together for someone writing a letter of recommendation, but a resume designed for a high school senior.

Put Weight On Your Education

Taking into consideration that, as a student, you most likely lack significant work experience, your education is the first thing admission officers will look at.

As such, you should give your education its due importance in your college application resume.

For starters, make sure to include this must-have information:

• Your high schools name and location
• Your GPA
• The date of your graduation

In addition, though, combine that with some relevant achievements that can make your education pop out.

Lets take a look at two examples. The second student has simply listed out the essential education information, whereas the first has taken their education section to the next level.

Correct Example

• 3rd place at the International Mathematical Olympiad
• Vice-President of the Science Club
• GPA: 3.6
• SAT Scores: 1350

Incorrect Example

• SAT Scores: 1400

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