Preparing and submitting a resume as part of your college applications allows you to describe your extracurricular activities in greater detail, as the Activities section of the Common App only allows for ten activities and a 150-character description. A resume can also be an opportunity to demonstrate your interests and values to colleges. Furthermore, composing your resume can help you get a head start on completing the Activities section of the Common Application, as well as prepare you for college interviews.
Having your resume drafted and ready to go will also be handy if you decide to apply for summer internships, academic programs, or part-time jobs. In fact, you can begin crafting your resume as early as sophomore year and update it throughout high school as needed.
Read on for tips regarding the organization and descriptions of your activities and accomplishments.
How to Select Activities
Before crafting a resume comes the all-important step of doing the extracurricular activities you will include on it! Becoming engaged in activities during high school will strengthen your candidacy as an applicant, as colleges in the U.S. place significant weight on your activities and community involvement as a measure of your interests, character, and values.
But participating in extracurriculars isn’t just for show; these activities can also help you develop your personal, social, and intellectual skills. And, if you choose wisely, they’re a lot of fun.
As you consider which activities to select, try to identify your genuine interests and passions. Do you come alive through performing arts? Are you happiest when you’re on the soccer field? Do you love competing in academic settings, like mock trial or debate? Feel free to try different activities to see which you enjoy most, a process that you can begin as early as middle school; it’s hard, if not impossible, to know what you like before actually doing it!
In the end, it’s more rewarding to narrow your commitments down to a few activities that are genuinely meaningful to you than to jump around to as many activities as possible in an effort to impress colleges with quantity over quality. You can (and should!) continue to explore new interests throughout high school, but by sticking with a few of these extracurriculars over a longer period of time, you’ll have the opportunity to demonstrate growth on your resume in the form of increased responsibilities and/or leadership positions, such as serving as captain of an athletic team or president of a club.
Think of your interests in terms of themes (such as service, sports, research, performing arts, writing and journalism, politics, cultural identity, and advocacy) and develop depth in a few of these areas instead of attempting to be a jack of all trades, master of none.
Organizing Your Resume
Your resume should be organized by section headers, such as Education, Extracurricular Activities, Community Service, and Work Experience/Internships. Depending on your experiences or specific academic programs you are applying to, you may want to add additional section headers such as Research, Athletics, Performing Arts, Creative Writing, Publications, Entrepreneurship, or Social Justice. At the end of your resume, you can have an Honors and Awards section to list any notable recognitions or achievements. You may also want to consider adding a Skills and Interests section, where you highlight special skills (in areas such as coding or research), language proficiencies, and unique interests.
Overall, you want to begin your resume with your education followed by your most meaningful and current activities and/or employment, and end with activities that you weren’t actively involved in or didn’t participate in recently. When listing your activities, think about most important to least important.
Resume Writing Tips
Education
- High School: Include expected graduate date (month and year) and any academic honors and awards specific to your high school, if applicable; include GPA and test scores if strong.
- Summer Educational Programs: Include courses you took for credit or enrichment, along with dates (month and year) and a brief description.
Extracurricular Activities and Employment
- Organization: Sequence your activity categories starting with the most recent and meaningful (those activities that you’ve devoted the most time to and are still involved in) to the least recent/significant. For activities within each category heading, sequence from the most recent to the least recent.
- Format: Bold the title of the activity or organization. If it is outside of your school, include the city and state where the organization is based. Include which grade level(s) during which you participated in the activity, from lowest to highest, e.g. 9, 10, 11, 12.
- Role/Position: State in italics the position in which you served, such as President, Peer Leader, Researcher, Member. Begin with your most recent positions, e.g. Vice President (12), Member (10-12).
- Description:
- Use bullet points to summarize your responsibilities and accomplishments.
- Order the bullets from most important to least important.
- In the first bullet, describe the objectives of the club or organization if not generally known. (You can combine this with a description of an accomplishment; for example: “Co-launched and edited opinion section and internal blog for national online college guide”)
- Use active verbs to start each bullet, vary your word choice, and omit pronouns (I, we).
- Use the present tense if the activity is ongoing, and past tense if the activity has concluded.
- Indicate if you were selected, elected or awarded for any leadership positions or special recognitions, if appropriate.
- You can repeat honors and awards in an Honors and Awards section at the end of your resume.
- Hours/Week; Weeks/Year: Note that the Common App requires you to enter your time commitment for each of your activities; on a professional-style resume, this info is not necessary.
Summer Activities
- Organization: State the full name of the organization, town, and state.
- Year: Include time period, e.g. June 2016 (4 weeks); hours are not necessary.
How to Submit your Resume to Colleges
Common App Colleges:
Each college that accepts the Common App now has the option to request a resume on their Activities or Writing section, if they so choose. For example, here is what it looks like on Tulane’s application:
If a college does provide this option, assess whether the Common App Activities section has already adequately summarized your responsibilities. If you feel more detail would be helpful, upload your resume as a PDF.
Non-Common App Colleges:
If colleges with their own applications offer the option to upload a resume instead of completing the Activities section, we recommend doing so since the resume format has more room to include specific details.
Sample Lists of Colleges’ Policies on Including a Resume
Colleges that accept a resume include:
- Barnard College
- Boston College
- Brown University
- Bucknell University
- Claremont McKenna College
- Dartmouth College
- Georgetown University
- Northeastern University
- Northwestern University
- Santa Clara University
- Tulane University
- University of Maryland
- University of North Carolina
- University of Pennsylvania
- UT-Austin
- Vanderbilt University
- Vassar College
- Washington University in St. Louis
Colleges that do not accept a resume include:
- Amherst College
- Brandeis University
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Duke University
- The George Washington University
- Lehigh University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Pomona College
- Stanford University
- Syracuse University
- Tufts University
- University of Chicago
- University of Michigan
At Collegiate Gateway, we are passionate about helping each student highlight their unique qualities through an effective resume. In addition, we have experience in developing specialized resumes and supplementary materials for students who have special talents in athletics, the arts, or research. For more information, feel free to contact us. We’re always happy to help!
