high school student college admission resume for college application

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By submitting my email address. i certify that i am 13 years of age or older, agree to recieve marketing email messages from the princeton review, and agree to terms of use., write a high school student resume for college applications.

Think resumes are only for job seekers? Think again. A high school student resume gives colleges a snapshot of your accomplishments, extracurriculars, hobbies, and work history. They can also be a useful tool for prepping for a college interview or to give to the teachers who are writing your letters of recommendation .

Not sure how to get started? Follow our tips for crafting a standout resume for college and scholarship applications.

What should go on a high school student resume for college admissions?

Any of the sections below could appear on your resume for college applications. Pick an assortment that works for you!

• Heading with your name, address, and e-mail
• High school information with your graduation date, GPA (weighted), class rank, and SAT/ACT scores
• Academic awards, publications, honors, and other achievements
• Coursework (summer programs, college courses, or other specialized workshops that do not appear on your high school transcript)
• Extracurricular activities
• Community service
• Work experience
• Special skills (e.g. foreign language fluency or HTML expertise)

When should you submit a resume to colleges?

Some colleges and scholarship committees request or recommend that you include a high school resume with your application materials. (But don’t submit a resume if they don’t ask for one—following instructions is a key application strategy.) Bring your resume to college interviews and give copies to your college counselor and teachers so that they can write you the strongest possible recommendation letter.

Tips for Composing Your College Admissions Resume

1. keep it concise..

Pare down the activities you showcase to the most brag-worthy and most representative of you as a candidate. Do colleges need to know that you were on the field hockey team for one semester in Grade 9? Probably not. The standard rule of thumb is to stick to one or two pages.

2. Focus on depth and length of commitment.

When deciding which activities and accomplishments make the cut, keep in mind that colleges would much rather see you excited about one or two key experiences than sporadic involvement in 20 clubs. If having an after-school job limited your ability to participate in clubs or sports, make sure your resume plays up your work responsibilities, training, and on-the-job skills.

Read More: Everything You Need to Know About Applying to College

3. Provide detail whenever possible.

The details are what set a resume apart from a list of extracurriculars on a standard college application. For example, when describing your involvement in the French Club make sure to include:

• school years/hours per week you participated
• specific contributions (e.g. "Organized a successful after-school film series to introduce our community to French cinema and culture" )
• leadership roles (e.g. "Treasurer, Grade 12" )
• unique details that will make you stand out

4. Highlight things you weren’t able to write about in your college essays or short answers.

Use your high school resume to show colleges something new. If your devotion to photography didn’t make it on the application but is a big part of who you are, then showcase your photography cred on your resume.

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5. Formatting is key.

Make your resume easy to scan. Divide information into sections with clear headings, bulleted lists, and a consistent font. Use a system of organization that works for you. (Chronological, by importance of activity, or by time commitment are a few options.) Don’t forget to proofread !

6. Be honest and accurate.

Colleges know how to spot inconsistencies in your high school student resume, and they won’t hesitate to call your counselor to verify information that doesn't seem right. So don't tell them that you have practice for the school play for 30 hours per week—unless drama club is somehow your full-time job!

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College Application Resume for 2024 [With Examples, Tips & Template]

They say college is the most exciting time in a student’s life and we couldn’t agree more! 

The only thing standing between you and your dream university, though, is a college application resume.

You open the resume document, get ready to start writing…

And nothing comes out! After all, how can you even make a resume when you haven’t worked a day in your life?

Worry not - you don’t need any work experience to write a compelling college application resume. In this article, we’re going to teach you just how you can do that!

What Should a Resume for College Application Contain?

• 5+ College Application Resume Formatting Tips
• How to Write a Resume for College Applications?
• 3+ College Application Resume Tips

College Application Resume Template

So let’s dive in! 

Before we get into the knits and grits of writing a resume for college application, let’s first do a quick review of what your resume should contain: 

• Contact information , including your full name, address, phone number, and professional email.
• A resume objective , where you state the goal of your college application resume.
• Education section , where you list the history of your grades and exam scores.
• Relevant activities , including any work experience you might have.
• Skills relevant to a resume for a college application, e.g. soft skills such as active listening, interpersonal skills, communication skills, or hard skills such as public speaking, MS Office, or computer skills.
• Additional sections , such as awards and honors.

6 College Application Resume Formatting Tips 

Before we dive into the nits and grits of CV making, let’s talk about formatting. Here are our top tips on how to format your college application resume: 

• Choose the functional/skills-based resume format. This format is perfect for those who lack work experience , as it focuses more on your skill-set. If you DO have some work experience, though, then you can opt for the chronological format.
• Keep your college application resume one page long . As a rule of thumb, this is the optimal length for a resume—professionals with 10 years worth of work experience stick to the 1-page limit, so there’s no excuse for someone with little to no work experience to go overboard.
• Add plenty of white space , especially around your resume’s margins. It will make your resume look less cluttered and more reader-friendly.
• Include clear section headings and use the same heading for each section.
• Use an easy-to-read font. Some resume fonts (such as Ubuntu or Overpass) are resume friendly—professional-looking, easy-to-read, and yet modern. Others, like Comic Sans, are just one big NO.
• Save your college resume as a PDF. You might be used to Microsoft Word, or even think it’s the safest alternative, but MS Word has a good choice of messing up your resume format if opened in different computers or operating systems. PDF files, on the other hand, remain the same no matter what computer opens them.

How to Write a Resume for College Applications? (With Examples)

Once you’ve got the formatting done right, it’s time to get to writing your college application resume.

In this section, we’ll walk you through that process, starting with:  

#1. Order Your Contact Information the Right Way 

As we already mentioned, your college application resume should start with your contact information. 

These are your contact information section must-haves :

• Full name and address
• Functional phone number where you can be reached.
• Professional email address, preferably consisting of your first and last name.

And here’s what this looks like in practice: 

Sharon White

123 Main Street

New York, NY

Phone Number: 553-123-1234

Email: [email protected]

#2. Write an Attention-Grabbing College Resume Objective

A resume objective is a 2-3 sentence long paragraph that should communicate your motivation for getting into college or for studying a specific major.

As such, a well-crafted resume objective can instantly attract admission officers to read the rest of your college application resume. 

There is, however, a right and wrong way to write a resume objective.

A convincing resume objective is:

• Tailored to the university/major you’re applying to, instead of looking like a one-fits-all kind of statement that you can use to apply to several colleges.
• Highlights the achievements that give you an edge over the competition.  

The following example does that right: 

Aspiring journalist with a knack for creative writing looking to deepen their knowledge through NYU’s renowned Journalism track. Founder of my high school’s first online newspaper, the ‘Daily Prophet,’ which now has over 2,000 subscribers. Hardworking, with a grade A average in social sciences and commitment to improving. 

Now compare it to the following resume objective, which although articulated looks like a one-fits-all kind of statement that you can just insert into several college applications. 

Very committed high-schooler with a calling for social sciences. With an SAT score of 1400, a passion for psychology, and experience as a peer counselor, I am confident that my hard work and motivation will shine through as a college student. 

See, the resume objective is your chance to show exactly why you want to attend that college, right from the start. 

So, even if you don’t have many achievements to highlight, make sure to personalize your statement by expressing a genuine interest in your application.  

#3. 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 school’s name and location
• The date of your graduation

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

Let’s 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. 

Dunnellon High School FL

2017 - 2021

• 3rd place at the International Mathematical Olympiad 
• Vice-President of the Science Club
• SAT Scores: 1350 (650 Verbal, 700 Math)
• SAT Scores: 1400

#4. Showcase Relevant Activities

Extracurricular activities have a great number of benefits when it comes to your college application resume. Most importantly, they:

• Demonstrate you who are outside of the classroom
• Provide an opportunity to showcase your skills

Any activity and/or interest related to the college you’re applying to has a place on your college application resume,  but you don’t have to necessarily stop there. 

Any kind of interest, field, or activity where you’re good at can be of benefit to your application. 

That’s because it can prove that your interests are not focused solely on your favorite subject or desired career path and that you are engaged and well-rounded . 

So, don’t just list your college resume activities dryly (e.g. “reading” or “swimming”). Instead, be specific and creative about your interests, and rest assured that you will get extra points for diversity and commitment. 

Don’t believe us? Compare for yourself how the activities sections of two different students look like: the first has put minimal effort into it, whereas the second has put his A-game into writing it.

• Passionate about science
• Co-founder of the Astrophysics Club

Activities 

• Two-times winner of my high school’s Science Fair
• Co-founder of the Astrophysics Club, finalists of the MIT-founded THINK challenge
• Swimmer from an early age and member of my high school’s swim team during junior and senior year 
• Traveling; I have so far visited 10 countries and 15 states in the USA. 
• Photography, with a focus on architectural photography. 

#5. Highlight Your Work Experience

Now, if you’ve spent your summer holidays working any type of job for teens , that means that you also have some work experience under your belt. 

Although work experience is not necessary when you’re applying for college (meaning that you won’t get left out of college if you don’t have any), it does help to include it if you have it. 

Here’s how to list work experience in your college application resume:

• Start with the company name (e.g. if you worked at Starbucks), your job title, and the period you worked there. 
• Put your job title first if you worked, say, as a high-school tutor or camp counselor. 
• Include 1-2 of your main responsibilities in bullets. If you have achievements to show for, however, make sure to put them first.  

Let’s see how that works in a practical example.

Starbucks Coffee 

• Awarded employee of the month for 3 months straight
• Fielding customer complaints and questions
• Maintaining good customer service and speedy delivery

Even if the above position isn’t related to the student’s desired field of study, the work experience still highlights some of their skills such as commitment, time management, effective communication, and motivation.  

#6. Include Your Skills 

Skills—we all got them, but not everyone knows how to demonstrate them effectively in a college application resume. 

There are two things to consider when you include skills in your college resume:

• Know the kind of skills that are relevant to your major/field.
• Prove your skills, instead of just listing them 

Let’s show you how that works through practical examples:

• Time management
• Critical thinking

Are these great skills for a college applicant? Sure! 

But anyone can claim to have those skills (and frankly, most people do).

Rather than just listing these skills, you want to also back them up with achievements and experiences like so: 

• Attention to deadline: managed to update the high school’s online newspaper daily
• Leadership: successfully led a team of 6 reporters.
• Creativity: won the 2021 Young Writers competition 
• Self-motivation: founded the high school’s first online newspaper

Now, this is a skills section on a college application resume that proves you deserve a spot in your favorite university.

College application resume skills 

Wondering which skills to include in your college application resume? Here’s a list to draw some inspiration: 

Soft Skills

• Good judgment 
• Open-mindedness
• Communication  
• Self-motivation
• Interpersonal skills
• Active listening
• Problem-solving

Hard Skills

• Computer Skills
• Programming
• Public Speaking

#7. Use These Additional Sections

If you’ve followed all our tips till now, congrats - you’re around 90% into creating a top-notch college application resume.

Now, let’s talk about how you can take that to 100%!

In addition to the conventional resume sections we’ve 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 (spelling, art, storytelling, math, etc). 
• 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 you’re a responsible community member. If it’s somehow related to your field or future major, that’s a big plus. 
• Projects. Be them individual (e.g. you built a website from scratch, or started an informational podcast), or school-related (e.g. an art portfolio for a class, or a history documentary), projects can show that you’re 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 (which is why sports in a college application resume make all applicants look good). Do you excel at specific sports? Include them in your resume!. 
• Languages. Being fluent (or even just a beginner) in a foreign language is another plus for a prospective college student. Make sure to show it in your college application resume. 

5 College Application Resume Tips

Finally, here are some of our college application tips that didn’t fit anywhere else in the article:

• Be direct and to the point. Your college application resume is not the right place to show how many SAT-level words you know. Keep your language simple, direct, and to the point. Let your achievements and results speak for themselves. 
• Don't lie about your academic background or accomplishments. Lying about the awards you’ve won or your achievements won’t get you into college. More often than not, admission officers will see through your lies by asking behavioral interview questions . 
• Proofread your college application resume.   Spelling and grammar mistakes can make you appear like a less serious applicant. Imagine telling recruiters that you have great SAT scores and GPA but having spelling mistakes in your resume. Kind of contradictory, isn’t it? To avoid these kinds of mistakes, use spelling and grammar apps such as Grammarly and Heminway . 
• Have one or more people look at your resume before you send it out. There are kinds of mistakes that Grammarly or Hemingway cannot catch. To avoid such mistakes, have one or more people that know you give your college application resume a look. 
• Emphasize specific achievements over general responsibilities. As mentioned before, emphasizing your achievements over your responsibilities is the best way to set yourself apart from other candidates. The reason is that your achievements effectively show how well you handle responsibilities and they are uniquely yours.

Making a resume from scratch can take what feels like ages—especially if it’s your first time doing it.

You’ve got to tweak the formatting. 

You make a change at MS Word and the layout falls apart in front of your eyes. Or you end up using a bland and outdated template. 

Well, you don’t have to worry about any of these things with Nóvóresume’s free resume templates . 

With 8 free templates to choose from - college application resume included - you don’t have to worry about anything other than inputting your information.

Let our resume builder do the rest! 

Key Takeaways

And that’s a wrap on college application resumes. We hope to have made the process of writing yours easier and even more enjoyable. 

For good measure, let’s go over the main points we covered: 

• Your college application resume should contain the following sections: contact information , personal profile , education section , relevant activities , your skills , and additional sections , such as awards and honors. 
• In terms of formatting, the functional resume template fits your college application best. Additionally, make sure to keep your resume one page long and save it as a PDF. 
• Write a resume objective that doesn’t surpass 3 sentences and that clearly communicates your motivation for getting into college and your most relevant skills. 
• Make sure to give your education section its due importance by being thorough about your grades, SAT scores, and achievements. 
• Don’t forget to list all your relevant activities and passions, as well as soft and hard skills.
• Instead of writing your college application resume from scratch, use one of Nóvóresume’s ready-made templates to save yourself time and effort!  

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14 High School Student Resume Examples Created for 2024

High School Student Resume

• High School Student Resumes by Experience
• High School Student Resumes by Role

High school is one of the best times of your life, but it can also be one of the most difficult when looking for your first or second job. You’ve got to fill out applications, prep for interviews, and write your resume.

Using ChatGPT for resumes  is a cool idea, but can still feel daunting and overwhelming. We’ve all been there, and up until now, there hasn’t been a good resource for high schoolers to help  craft compelling resumes or student cover letters .

We’ve analyzed countless high school resumes to discover  what would get students job interviews in 2024 . While you may want to start with a simple  resume outline , keep reading to find 14 high school resume samples (plus writing tips) that are jam-packed with essential techniques and tricks.

or download as PDF

Why this resume works

• If you choose to use a template, make sure you adjust the  resume’s formatting  so that your text is big enough to read with one-inch margins on the side.
• However, you should write your bullet points like you would for a job. Highlight any responsibilities and accomplishments relevant to the job you’re applying for now.
• For example, if you’re looking for a job in sales, emphasize your ability to work in groups and create a good customer experience.

High School Student No Experience Resume

• If you don’t have work history, include projects and volunteer work instead. Treat them like a job and write bullet points according to your responsibilities.
• Make sure you start every bullet point with active verbs, and always double-check for typos. You’ve got this!
• Include your unique skills, your desired position, and the company you hope to work for to make your objective stand out from the rest!

First Job High School Student Resume

• To remedy that problem, add a  skills section on your resume  to give hiring managers an important overview of your strengths.
• To really highlight your abilities, incorporate the same skills in your work experience, too. Demonstrate how you used your skills to better your workplace, and you can’t go wrong!
• Adding stylistic elements like color and different fonts can help you show a bit of your personality (and make your resume more fun to read). 

Experienced High School Student Resume

• Remember, your resume is a highlight reel, so you need to include what’s most important (like your achievements and relevant metrics). 
• You can adjust your layout, font sizes, and margins, but keep it easy to read. 
• Use a bit of color and some fun fonts, provided it still looks professional. You’ve got this!

High School Graduate Resume

• Right from the first line of the career objective, you can see the candidate’s passion and willingness to work in this field. Notice how Serai’s love for photography is clearly backed by a previous project for a school newspaper.
• These details will be perfect when Serai’s ready for the AI cover letter generator to bring her application to perfection.

High School Student Scholarship Resume

• Your high school student scholarship resume should vividly show your positive contributions to noble causes, such as offering ADLs to seniors, and emphasize your impact on society.

High School Student College Application Resume

• Ensure your high school student college application resume shows your practical and classwork achievements that emphasize your grand vision to make a positive contribution to society.

High School Student for College Resume

• Before hitting “submit,” always  check your resume  for typos and other minor errors. It’s amazing what you can miss during your first few reviews.
• A good GPA can demonstrate, at least in part, your willingness to work hard. We’d recommend including your GPA only if it’s above 3.5, but anything above a 3 is a good average.

High School Student for Customer Service Resume

• Including projects, volunteer work, or club memberships is a great way to add value to your resume.
• Your resume should focus on your abilities and other activities you’ve engaged in that will show your value.
• Read the responsibilities and qualifications to look for key skills and tasks. Then, incorporate some of those skills and responsibilities into your high school student customer service resume.

High School Student Internship Resume

• For example, if the job description lists responsibilities like writing and analyzing data, include “written communication” and “data analysis” in your skills section.
• One easy way to customize your resume is by focusing your  resume skills  on things that apply to the internship. 
• Make sure you keep your resume professional and to the point. You don’t want to include anything too personal about your beliefs, religion, politics, or personal information.
• For example, you can list “volunteering at local church,” but avoid saying “fasting every weekend.” It doesn’t show off relevant skills and is a bit too forward for a resume.

High School Student Office Worker Resume

• Good projects include anything that demonstrates your leadership abilities or desire for knowledge. Senior projects, personal blogs, or even being on a sports team are all good examples to include!
• Add work experience directly under your contact information and name, then add any relevant projects if you’re low on space. 
• While there are plenty of  resume writing tips , your resume should be as unique as you. Don’t get so caught up in what you think you “should” do that your resume is bland and cookie-cutter. 

High School Student Sales Resume

• Numbers demonstrate your value, and they’re useful tools for the Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) software that hiring managers use to sort through job applicants.
• Trust us, and incorporate metrics into at least 80% of your bullet points!
• For example, you know that different  resume templates  can change your resume’s appearance, but different templates can also stretch or streamline your content. 
• Mess with multiple templates to see what your content will look like—you may find a template that allows for more room, or one that allows you to highlight your skills better.

High School Student Athlete  Resume

• Think of a time you proved you were the MVP on your team—Did you lead your team to a championship? Perhaps you made the game-winning shot in a crucial, nail-biting game?

High School Student Music Resume

• When you include hobbies like songwriting or your interest in classical music in your high school student music resume , it conveys to your recruiter that you’re super dedicated and passionate about your craft.
• You can also include hobbies that are different, too. For example, if you enjoy experimenting with new recipes from around the world, that can show you’re ready to give new genres a whirl or that you understand that music—while art—is still supposed to be fun and adventuresome.

Related resume guides

• Entry level

How To Write A High School Resume For College + Examples

Reviewed by:

Rohan Jotwani

Former Admissions Committee Member, Columbia University

Reviewed: 9/28/23

Did you know that a strong high school resume could help your chances of getting the admission offer you wanted? This article will share with you all you need to know about what to put on a high school resume before college!

Applying to college is a long journey that requires a lot of preparation and dedication. When gathering everything you need to finish an application for your education after high school, it’s common to overlook the college admission resume. 

Resumes are not just for seeking jobs or internships during the final years of college. They also have many uses for high schoolers, especially when it comes to applying for college. College application resumes are often used as supplementary material to increase your chances, but some schools require applicants to submit a high school resume . 

So, what should a high school resume look like? What should you include in your resume? How can you make sure your resume stands out? This article will guide you on how to write your resume for college applications, including examples of application resumes to help you craft your own.

What To Include on Your High School Resume

When writing a college resume, it’s always important to be mindful of what to include and highlight. A resume should be no longer than one page long , so you have limited space to work with. A poorly done resume could end up harming you, much like other components of your college application profile. 

Your high school to college CV provides a condensed overview of your academic and extracurricular experiences . Much like any other resume, it really is up to you to decide what you want to include. 

Additionally, there are plenty of high school skills you should put on your resume! However, to craft a well-written college admission resume , it is strongly suggested to at least include the following:

• Contact information (email address, phone number, and location)
• Experiences and activities
• Awards and achievements
• Hard and soft skills

At this point, you might be thinking: “Hey, these are just stuff that’s typically included in college applications!” You’d be right, but it’s one thing to have all the information and a whole other to formulate it, organize it, and present it as a well-composed document. 

Furthermore, a high school resume allows you to include more information and details about your job experiences and career aspirations, both of which college application committees deeply care about. 

How To Write a Resume for College Applications

Now that we’ve provided a list of everything you should include let’s go through each section. By understanding the details you need to include, you can better understand what to include on a resume for college applications. 

Note that your resume does not need to include all of these sections; these are just highly recommended ones. You can decide which information to put on your resume based on your experiences and accomplishments.

The objective section of your college resume is where you outline your reasons for applying to college. Making your objectives known is important even for high school students because it tells the admissions committee your plans and goals for yourself. 

Your objective should indicate your ability to self-reflect and demonstrate your responsibility and passion for what you hope to become.

As such, this is usually the most critical component of your resume. For this part, you should include your dreams for your future, why you think the school and the program you apply to will help you, and what you plan to do about your career after you graduate. Outlining these three things will help the committee understand your reasons for applying.

If you have a clear career objective and sound confident and eager, it can benefit your chances of getting admitted. 

Experience 

In this section, you should include any valuable experience you are involved in. This can include work, internships, volunteering, academic projects, extracurricular activities, or even hobbies. 

However, when it comes to experience, quality matters over quantity. Having a bunch of shallow experiences where you didn’t do anything noteworthy will only clutter your resume instead of helping you at all.

‍ When choosing which experiences to include, keep this list of criteria in mind : 

• What you’ve accomplished
• Valuable skills, knowledge, or lessons you’ve learned
• Positive impact
• Relevancy of the school/program you’re applying to
• Time (recent experiences should get higher priority)

When writing your experience and activity section, make sure you include the following:

• The location 
• The starting and end dates
• Highlights of your specific role and responsibilities and accomplishments
• Any noteworthy accomplishments

In essence, your experiences should clearly express what you’ve done and how long you’ve done it for. It’s strongly recommended to put the details in a bullet list to make the information easier to read.

Providing an overview of your education history is important when applying to college. Give the admissions committee a picture of your educational background so they have a better idea of your skills, learning experience, personal interests, and whether or not you’re a fit for them. 

You only need to include education during your high school years and onwards. For each part, put all the details in bullet list form. Educational details include your:

• Field of study
• Achievements
• Expected graduation date

However, if you’ve taken any form of education outside the regular school curriculum during your high school years, such as any classes (including AP and IB courses), lessons, certificates, or development programs, feel free to include them. 

Like with your regular school education, including important details like fields and areas of study, how well you did, achievements, and prospective graduation date. Any standardized test scores you have taken, such as the SAT or ACT , can also be included in this section. Be sure to include the test name, score, and testing date. 

A resume is an excellent place to showcase your skill set. When it comes to resumes for colleges, your skills are a great addition to building your applicant portfolio. It tells schools what you’ve gained from your education and all your experiences. 

Your skills can include your capabilities, strengths, or simply anything you’re good at. This section can just be a list. Not many details are needed as long as you make your skills easy to understand. Don’t write anything too vague or confusing, but don’t be too wordy. This section is meant to be a rundown of your skill set. Some examples include:

• Punctuality
• Determination
• Team Player
• Communicative 

Another thing to think about is your hard skills and soft skills. Soft skills (as listed above) are more generic, vague, and difficult to measure and can be applied in many different scenarios. Hard skills involve specific abilities and talents, such as web design, digital animation, software creation, or scientific experiment design. 

Awards and Achievements

Participation and experiences are good in and of themselves, but you must go somewhere with them to stand out in front of the admission committee. They love individuals who can make an impact or a difference. That's why you should include your awards and achievements in your college admission resume as well.

This section can include awards, positive contributions, noteworthy advancements, and other things you've accomplished. Keep in mind that it doesn't have to be limited to academics. However, if you want to bring up anything we’ve mentioned in other sections, make sure to include more details so you're not repeating yourself. 

Make sure to list the honor and who gave it to you, and be specific. Don't just say something vague and broad, as that can make your achievement look weak. Try to include a date or a statistic.

If you don’t have any awards and achievements to include on your resume, that’s okay! You can add any passion projects and hobbies , like a blog you’ve started, a side hustle you’re focused on, or a community garden you’ve worked on. 

Learning how to write a college application resume is a valuable skill for any high school student preparing for the admissions process. So, take these tips and do your best. It may take some time to put together a great resume, but you’ll get there!

What Not To Include on Your High School Resume

Now that we’ve gone through what you should include and understand how to prepare a college admissions resume let’s go over some mistakes to avoid . 

Anything Lengthy

Like many other resumes, college resumes must be as short and concise as possible. Unnecessarily lengthy sections are devastating to a resume’s effectiveness. This mistake is especially easy to make when describing experiences or details of something. Remember: your resume is a portfolio, not a story.

So make sure you only include the needed details in a concise and easy-to-read manner. Scan your resume whenever you’re finished writing it. If something is not needed, cut it out. 

Repetitive Information

Repeating yourself unnecessarily should also be avoided in your college application resume. If you find yourself repeating something in different parts of the resume, either paraphrase or remove it entirely. 

Of course, sometimes, you may need to repeat things. In fact, repeating can reflect emphasis or importance. But make sure you add in enough variety and minimize saying the exact same things over and over again.

Insincerity

Dishonesty is one of the worst things you can do for yourself when writing a resume for college applications. It might seem tempting to blow things up a bit to impress the admission committee, but lying not only makes you look bad but could also get you in big trouble if you submit anything false in your application.

Therefore, it’s very important to be honest in your resume. Have faith in your true self and your abilities. You’ve already been through so much throughout your high school years, and that’s something you should take pride and confidence in. 

College Application Resume Template

Creating a strong college application resume can boost your chances of getting into the college of your choice. This template is a helpful starting point for organizing your academic achievements, activities, and more. It's a way to show colleges what makes you a standout candidate . You can customize it with your own information to make it uniquely yours. 

[Your Name]

[Your Address]

[City, State ZIP Code]

[Your Email Address]

[Your Phone Number]

Optional: Include a brief statement about your academic and career goals

[High School Name], [City, State]

• Expected Graduation Date: [Month, Year]
• GPA: if applicable
• Relevant Coursework: [List any honors, AP, or specialized courses

Academic Achievements

• List any academic awards, honors, or recognitions you've received

Extracurricular Activities

• List clubs, organizations, or groups you've been involved in at school
• Specify any leadership roles held in these activities

Community Service/Volunteer Work

• Describe any volunteer work or community service projects you've participated in

Work Experience

• List any part-time jobs or internships you've held, including job titles, employers, and dates

Extracurricular Interests/Hobbies

• Highlight any personal interests or hobbies that showcase your personality and character
• Include any relevant skills, such as language proficiency, computer skills, or certifications

Achievements and Awards

• List any non-academic awards or achievements, such as sports, arts, or other accomplishments
• Optional: Mention that references are available upon request

High School Resume for College Admission Examples

Here are some samples of examples you can work off of when writing your own high school resume. 

John Anderson

123 Main Street

Anytown, USA 12345

(555) 555-5555

[email protected]

Motivated and detail-oriented recent graduate seeking opportunities to leverage my analytical and communication skills in a professional environment.

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science

Tech University, Class of 2021

Professional Experience

Software Developer Intern, XYZ Tech (Summer 2020)

• Collaborated in a team to develop a mobile app that received 50,000+ downloads.
• Conducted quality assurance testing and resolved software bugs.
• Assisted in the creation of technical documentation for internal use.

Research Assistant, Tech University (2019-Present)

• Conducted experiments in the university's lab, resulting in two published research papers.
• Assisted in data collection, analysis, and equipment maintenance.
• Collaborated with professors and fellow students on research projects.
• President, Computer Science Club (2018-Present)
• Volunteer, Local Animal Shelter (2017-2019)
• Member, Tech University Debate Team (2017-Present)
• Captain, Intramural Soccer Team (2019-2021)
• Dean's List, Multiple Semesters
• Tech University Scholarship Recipient
• Outstanding Research Assistant, 2020
• Programming Languages: Java, Python, C++
• Software Development: Agile methodologies, Git, JIRA
• Data Analysis: MATLAB, R
• Languages: Fluent in Spanish

Samantha Lee

123 Elm Street

Los Angeles, CA 90001

[email protected]

Bachelor of Arts in Psychology

Los Angeles University, Class of 2022

Research Assistant, Center for Behavioral Studies (2020-Present)

• Conducted surveys and interviews for research projects on human behavior.
• Analyzed and compiled research data, creating comprehensive reports.
• Assisted in the development of experimental protocols.

Intern, Mental Health Clinic (Summer 2021)

• Supported clinicians in providing counseling services to clients.
• Managed appointment scheduling and maintained patient records.
• Conducted research on the latest therapeutic techniques.

President, Psychology Club (2019-Present)

• Organized guest speaker events and workshops for club members.
• Led discussions on current developments in psychology research.
• Collaborated with professors on student-led research projects.

Volunteer, Homeless Shelter (2018-2020)

• Assisted in meal preparation and distribution to homeless individuals.
• Organized clothing drives and hygiene product donations.
• Participated in outreach programs to connect homeless individuals with local resources.

Dean's List, Four Semesters

Psychology Department Scholarship Recipient

Outstanding Research Assistant, 2021

Statistical Analysis: SPSS, R

Data Collection: Surveys, Interviews

Counseling Skills: Active Listening, Empathy

Languages: Proficient in Spanish

Make sure you include everything necessary, as well as additional information to help your case, and then structure your document in a style that’s easy to read!

How Important Is a High School Resume for College?

The importance of a resume in the college admissions process can vary, but it often plays a valuable role in presenting a comprehensive picture of your qualifications and experiences. 

While grades and test scores are crucial, a resume complements these academic aspects by allowing you to highlight your achievements, extracurricular activities, leadership roles, and community service involvement.

Many colleges appreciate well-rounded students who not only excel academically but also actively contribute to their community. Your resume serves as a tool to showcase your commitment to various pursuits beyond the classroom, demonstrating your dedication and passion for different aspects of your life.

Furthermore, some college programs or scholarships may specifically request a resume as part of the application process. In such cases, a well-prepared resume becomes even more important, as it can significantly impact your chances of gaining admission or securing financial aid.

In summary, while the importance of a resume may vary from one college to another, having one on hand is generally a good idea. It allows you to present a well-rounded view of yourself as a student and individual, increasing your chances of making a positive impression on the admissions committee. 

And there you have it! We’ve gone through what to include in your high school resume, how to write it from head to toe, and what you shouldn’t include in your resume. Still, have questions unanswered? Keep reading to learn more. 

1. How Do I Make My High School Resume Stand Out?

Remember to be yourself on your college resume. Show the real you to the college admissions committee. Don't worry about fitting a mould or copying others; let your uniqueness come through in your own way.

2. What Is a Good Objective for a High School Resume?

Your career objective should match your situation and goals. Remember, there's no one-size-fits-all answer, so think about why you want to apply and what you want to achieve with your university education. Your honest answers will guide you to the best objective for your resume.

3. How Long Should a High School Resume Be?

Keep your college application resume concise; it should never go beyond three pages. Aim for brevity while including crucial information. You decide what's important to showcase to college admission committees.

4. When Should I Prepare My High School Resume?

For your college application resume, start early by tracking your career-related experiences, achievements, education, and activities from your freshman year. Make a list of everything that showcases your strengths. Create your first draft before senior year, and edit it later to match your program or school requirements.

5. What If You Have No Experience?

Remember, experiences aren't limited to work. Extracurriculars, community service, personal projects, and hobbies all count! While work, internships, and volunteering are great, they're not a must. If you've had any enriching non-study activities, include them as experiences!

6. When Should I Submit My Resume to Colleges?

Typically, colleges will ask you to submit your resume with your other application materials on or before the submission deadline. We recommend submitting your application early, especially if your college has a rolling admissions cycle. 

7. What Looks Good on a Resume for College?

Colleges aren’t expecting high schoolers to have a lot of experience on their resumes. If you can have a couple of extracurriculars and/or volunteer experiences on your resume, that’s excellent. School awards and jobs also look great on a resume! Your main focus in high school should be on your grades, so make sure not to overload your schedule and let your GPA suffer. 

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, now you have an idea of how to write your high school resume. Your high school life is a journey, and your college admission resume is a storybook. Select all the highlights and the most impactful and influential moments, garnish your resume with writing, and present it proudly to the admission committee as your portfolio! 

When you think you can hand out your high school resume confidently and say, “This is who I am! This is what I’m made of! This is why you should admit me!” Then your resume is ready. But even if you aren’t feeling your best, have faith in yourself and always put your best foot forward! 

Also, remember to take advantage of college resources . They’ll offer more insight into what particular schools are looking for in applicants, so you can tailor your resume accordingly.

Best wishes on your college applications!

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High School Resume Example and Step-by-Step Guide

by Winning Ivy Prep Team | Feb 7, 2023 | High School Resume

Table of Contents

So, it’s time to write your first high school resume for college applications. Maybe you’re inclined to Googling high school resume examples and step-by-step guides to create your own. But templates are generic–you’re not!

Remember that ultimately, a resume tells a story–the story of you. Like all well-told stories, it must be formatted thoughtfully and clearly or the narrative is lost. 

So, let’s dive straight in. 

Do Colleges Require A Resume?

Short answer: Nope!

Longer answer: Might be a good idea, depending on your situation. 

Keep in mind that some schools don’t even allow you to upload a resume, while others do. For instance, my alma mater, University of Pennsylvania allows you to upload a resume. Many Ivy League and top tier schools also have this option, from Cornell or Johns Hopkins .

Our general rule of thumb is this: 

• If you have a ton of activities and extracurriculars that can’t be succinctly summarized in the activity list 
• If you have competitive schools in your college list — at least one of them will give you the option to upload a resume.

…then it’s not a bad idea to have a college application resume to upload, just in case. Plus, it’ll be useful to secure summer internships and receive scholarships this way. 

Ivy League College Resume Example + Resume Template

Now, take a look at this resume example for an Ivy League-bound student. We’ll be using his example throughout this post.

Also, here’s a Google Doc that links to this student’s exact resume template that you can use for your own resume!  

By the way, these templates are modified versions of UC Berkeley’s resume templates, so, obviously, they’re quite good 😉

How To Create A Compelling High School Resume For College Applications

1. clean contact information section on your college resume.

Refer to our high school resume example: Sam’s name is in bold, centered at the top of the page; his e-mail address is directly underneath. That’s it!

Your name and e-mail address are the only contact information needed. If you have a website, particularly one that showcases your personality, include that too. 

Again, the ideal high school resume is clean and simple. There is no need for a brick and mortar address or phone number. 

2. Don’t Include Coursework In The Education Section

As you can see in our high school resume example, there are only six items in the education section and none are coursework. In this instance, coursework is clutter. 

The only items needed in the education section are the following: 

• school name and location
• class rank 
• class year 
• SAT scores 

Bear in mind: you’re the narrator of your own story, so be smart about the information you include. Remember the goal of a resume is to market yourself, so paint yourself favorably. 

…in other words, if your SAT scores are lower than you’d like, leave them off! The ideal high school resume is carefully curated.

3. Relevant Experience Means Relevant To Major

Perhaps you’re a dedicated and gifted cellist. Let’s be frank, unless you’re looking to major in music theory, that does not belong in the “relevant experience” category. 

So, what do we mean by “relevant”? We mean this: relevance to major . Are you pursuing computer science and did you intern at a start-up? That’s relevant experience!

Take a look at our sample high school resume. Sam lists three internships (two political, one research.) We can surmise that his major is related to political and environmental sciences. 

Notice that dates are listed as well. In addition to being relevant, experience should be timely. That means you should only include experience attained during high school. 

Don’t go all the way back to middle school. Start with the summer before high school and proceed from there.

4. Use Active Verbs In Your High School Resume

Once you’ve compiled your list of relevant experience, create bullet points detailing your responsibilities using active verbs. Let’s check out Sam’s sample high school resume again. 

Sam’s relevant experience section includes the following active verbs that are quite strong: 

• coordinate 

A ctive verbs show what you DID and showcase your contributions. They tell a vivid story of your ability to take action and illustrate what you bring to the table as a student at your dream college.

If you need inspiration for action verbs, check out this awesome action verb list from UC Berkeley Haas!

5. Activities Unrelated To Your Major Are Extracurriculars  

Once again, reference our sample resume. Sam was a swim coach, a varsity swimmer and co-Captain of the School Science Olympiad Team.

Swimming might not qualify as relevant experience, but it’s still important because well-rounded candidates are strong candidates. 

Basically, any activities unrelated to your major or field of study go in the “Extracurricular Activities/ Volunteering” section.

6. Skills Are Optional And Technical

The skills section is optional, and only to be included if appropriate.

So what are skills? Perhaps you can juggle, for example. While it’s a good party trick, don’t list that here. 

This section is for technical skills, especially if you’re interested in computer science or engineering. For example, proficiency with C++, Java, and R belong here. 

Once again, though, the skills section isn’t applicable to everyone. Remember, there is no need to pad your resume. The ideal high school resume is straightforward and honest!

So, now it’s your turn to write your high school resume. Hint: This is a great exercise to do for your activities list for your UC application and Common Application. Let us know how your resume turned out in the comments section below!

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Building a Resume for College Applications

Crafting a resume can be an intimidating prospect for a high school student, but it's a super useful tool in college admissions planning. You'll have a list of your accomplishments to share with your recommenders, and to which you can refer while you complete applications and prepare for interviews. You may be wondering what exactly goes on a high school resume -- especially for a student who may not have held a job yet.

Elements of a High School Resume

• Heading with your name, address, email and phone number.
• High school name and address, along with your graduation date, GPA, class rank and standardized test scores.
• Accomplishments: Leadership positions, awards, publications.
• Coursework that does not appear on your regular transcript, if applicable -- summer courses, extension courses or any academic experiences you pursued outside of your school.
• Extracurricular activities, including the grade level and number of years in which you've participated.
• Community service or volunteer experience.
• Work experience.
• Any hobbies not covered in the above sections.
• Special skills (CPR certification, second language fluency, etc.).

If you don't have experiences that apply to every single one of these sections, that's okay -- every high school student can adapt their resume to accommodate their experience. If you're thinking about your resume in ninth or tenth grade, you might want to consider finding activities that fill in resume gaps and match your interests. No matter where you live or what resources are at your disposal, you can find opportunities to volunteer, work part-time or shadow a professional in a field that you imagine working in one day. At The Princeton Review, we offer opportunities for aspiring writers in our Student Voices program.

Resume Tips for College Applications

1. format wisely..

Your resume should be well-organized and easy to scan quickly, but it doesn't need to be a work of art. Try to keep it to a single page -- certainly no more than two pages. Avoid wacky fonts or getting overly clever with Photoshop.

2. Provide details, but keep them concise.

That might sound contradictory, but your goal is to give the maximum amount of information to counselors as quickly as possible, and you don't need to repeat information you've provided elsewhere on your application. You want to provide an accurate snapshot, not a flowery narrative. Follow the examples below:

Leadership Positions

Assistant Stage Manager, Oliver , 10th grade

Stage Manager, Hamilton , 11th grade

Supported faculty director with scheduling rehearsals, communicating with cast and sourcing and organizing props

Contributing Writer, 10th-11th grade

Sports Editor, 12th grade

The Beverly Blaze

Assigned, wrote and edited sports coverage for the school paper

Community Service

Lake Street Shelter, 5 hours/week, 9th-11th grade

Helped with meal prep for nightly dinner for shelter residents

Sunshine Daycare, 8 hours/week, 12th grade

Assisted head teacher executing activities and lesson plans for pre-school children

Work Experience

Barista, 20 hours/week, summers 2015-2017

Candy's Darling Cafe

Responsible for cash register, cafe set-up and drink preparation

Assistant Counselor and Lifeguard, 5 days/week, summer, 2018

Chelsea Day Camp

Supported head counselor in planning activities and swim lessons for 20 children

3. Quality over quantity.

Your resume should emphasize experiences to which you committed over time. If you quit French club halfway through the first semester of your freshman year, you can leave it off your resume. You want your resume to reflect responsibilities you've embraced, rather than a laundry list of activities you tried half-heartedly.

4. Above all, be honest.

Admissions officers are skilled at spotting falsehoods or exaggerations on college applications. You want them to see your best authentic self -- and you want your high school counselor to confirm all the information you submit to colleges if necessary. Share your resume with your counselor and review it for anything that is unclear. The conversation might spark some ideas for your application essay!

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There are several components of the college admission process. There’s the application, interview, essay, and yes, the high school resume. While most students reach out for support in their application, interview, and essay, many times the high school resume is overlooked. Here are some tips for building and formatting an effective high school resume.

What Is a High School Resume?

A high school resume, also known as a college admission resume, is a short, one to two page document that lists a student's academic, athletic, and personal accomplishments. While the structure may be similar to job-oriented resumes, a resume built for college admission is very different in what it includes, because it also documents personal experiences. When put together, all components of a high school resume should demonstrate to an admission officer that you are a good fit for their school.

Despite constantly evolving college admission requirements, a high school resume is still considered a powerful supplemental piece of your college application, and can make a difference in whether or not you are accepted. It allows you to offer more context into who you are as a student, and more importantly, an individual.

For those ready to start their high school resume, but unsure what components are essential to a successful layout, here’s an overview of what should be included and why this can make such a difference in your college application.

Five Things You Should Include in Your High School Resume

Authenticity is an incredibly important aspect of your college application. You want your application, resume, and college essay to stand out from the thousands of other submissions admission counselors review on an annual basis. However, there are still required components of an effective resume that all students should incorporate if they hope to be considered.

1. Important Contact Information

It’s important to include all relevant contact information somewhere on your high school resume. It’s typically listed at the top of the document, but can be moved to different sections depending on formatting and design.

The most important contact information to include is:

• Phone number
• Email address

Even though this information is included in your college application, it’s smart to incorporate it in your high school resume to give your document a more professional appearance. It also provides your personal information to the admission counselor reviewing your resume. You want to make sure they know who you are and how to contact you through every phase of the reviewing process.

2. Resume Objective

Most high school resumes include a sentence explaining a student’s reasoning for applying to a particular school. For this reason, it’s often a good idea to have several versions of your resume, depending on the reasons you are applying to your list of schools. Motivations to apply to a particular college may be different from school to school, but resume objectives are meant to speak to the college and program, rather than your desired field of study. Therefore, make sure your statement focuses on that.

3. Academic Achievements

Academic achievements are probably the most important aspect of a high school resume because admission officers want to see what kind of student you’ve been the last four years of high school. Some of these achievements can include:

• Academic awards

Not every student makes the honor roll, but that doesn’t mean you can’t leverage this part of your resume to your advantage. Even if you’re not in the top five percentile of your class, you might still be able to highlight your academic progress. For example, if you increased your grades from a C- to B-average you can highlight this on your resume to show admission officers you can work hard and progress throughout your academic career.

4. Extracurricular Activities

Extracurricular activities is another anchor section of your resume that’s essential to your application’s success. Even the best students need to have some type of socialization outside of academics to show colleges they are a well-rounded individual. Some of these extracurricular activities can include:

• Activities outside of school

Just as students aren’t always on the honor roll, not everyone can be captain of a sports team or class president. For those students, it’s important to think outside of the box. For example, if you spend a lot of your time playing video games, try to find creative ways to use that to your advantage and showcase your personality. Maybe you started an online chatroom for others to share ideas and strategies. Or perhaps you run your own livestream. These are all great things to demonstrate initiative to admission officers who would have otherwise reviewed a sparse extracurricular activity section.

5. Work/Volunteer Experience

If you’re a student who works part-time, it’s imperative to include this somewhere on your resume. Not only does this account for time spent outside of the classroom, it touches on both your hard and soft skills as a young adult. One of the most common types of business high school students work in is the service industry. This gives students valuable skills such as effective communication, time management, and problem solving.

Volunteer work is also incredibly important to a high school resume. These types of projects show admission officers that you have initiative and can take on responsibilities outside of academics. Remember, no volunteer work is too small. If you spend your weekends mowing your neighbors’ lawns, this still speaks to who you are as a young adult.

Formatting Tips for an Effective Resume

Now that you understand what a high school resume needs, it’s essential to put it together in a way that effectively communicates who you are and why you are a good fit for a particular school.

If you’re overwhelmed with the information you’ve compiled for your resume, just remember that “It's less about how much is on there and more about how to prioritize the things you put on there,” says Alex Patturelli , director for undergraduate admission. Here’s a few formatting tips that should help you through the final stages of creating your resume.

Leave Enough White Space

Despite the common assumption that jam-packed resumes make applicants look more impressive, in reality they can deter admission officers. This is largely due to the fact that “busy” resumes are too hard to read or follow. Without visual breaks, the eye doesn’t know where to start and can often get lost in a sea of text.

Find the answers to your common admission questions in this complete guide.

“You don't have to overload it,” says Patturelli. If you can’t fit everything you want without sacrificing readability, consider making some major cuts to include only the most important information. This is another reason multiple drafts of your resume may come in handy. Just like a resume objective may differ from school to school, so may the most important sections/elements of your resume. Keep this in mind when compiling your achievements.

Create Clear Subheadings

Another way to break through the noise of too much text is to format your resume using clear subheadings. With readability being so important, subheadings are essential to creating an easily scannable document for admission officers to review. It’s important to keep in mind that these subheadings increase the necessity of including all required sections to your resume. An easily scannable resume makes it easier to tell whether any sections are absent.

Put Unique Elements at the Top

As mentioned earlier, contact information is typically included at the top. This isn’t a requirement, however, especially if you leverage the top section of your resume effectively. Patturelli suggests that students use the top of their resume to highlight authentic aspects of their accomplishments.

“I think unique things are more important to put at the top. For example, everybody likes to include when they're a captain of a sports team, but not everybody can say they’ve attended a leadership program in Washington, D.C.” These unique elements can set you apart from the competition right away and set the tone for the remainder of your application.

Add Time Commitment Sections

Time commitment sections are not a requirement of high school resumes, but can be a useful tool to give admission officers more context. This is particularly important for students with sparse resumes.

“Sometimes we'll see a student who has almost nothing on their resume, but they have a part-time job listed,” says Patturelli. “And for me, a part-time job is just as much as having 10 different things on your resume.” Quantifying what that time looks like per day or week can really show admission who you are.

Why Is a High School Resume Important?

A high school resume, like most resumes, is supposed to give the reviewer some context into what you’ve done, what you’ve accomplished, and who you are. High school resumes, however, should have far more emphasis on who you are. Don’t waste this opportunity by underestimating the value of your resume.

“One of my biggest pet peeves is when a student leaves the whole resume or the activity section on the common app completely blank,” says Patturelli. “Then I read their guidance counselor recommendation and find out they're actually involved in 50 different things.”

If you’re worried about coming off as pretentious in your list of accomplishments, Patturelli suggests getting a little more comfortable with bragging about yourself. “I always put more value on the student being able to tell me what they're involved in versus the guidance counselor telling me.”

Create an Effective Resume

High school resumes are often an overlooked supplemental document that is incredibly valuable to your college application. It gives you the space to brag about yourself, reveal your passions, and even show admission officers your potential both academically and professionally.

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High School Student Resume: Building a Winning Resume for Your College Applications

College admissions time is hectic for both students and parents. There are forms to fill out, essays to write, records to request, financial aid to consider, and schools to visit. To get a head start on the process, sophomore or junior year is the time to begin gathering information for your child's application. College may seem far away to a sophomore, but application deadlines will be here before you know it.

Why have a resume at all?

• It's the quickest way to tell college admissions officers all they need to know about a person. A standard college application doesn't always give a student room to highlight all of their accomplishments and experiences. A resume will help bridge that gap.
• It will help your child keep track of their accomplishments. When the time comes to fill out college forms, it's easy to forget one or two things from the list. A written resume will help remind the student of every pertinent detail.
• It can spark a college admissions essay topic. Schools want to learn about an applicant through their essay. Reflecting on experiences from summer jobs, volunteer work, or school activities may lead to a unique essay topic that will make your child stand out.
• Activities and achievements can lead to scholarships. Scholarship committees look for participation in extracurricular activities, and some require recipients to be involved in a particular activity. Identifying areas of interest will help your student find the best scholarship opportunities.
• An impressive resume can lead to summer internships, jobs, or study-abroad opportunities that will strengthen your child's college applications.
• With a comprehensive resume, your child can organize their priorities when deciding where to apply. University life is full of opportunities, in and out of the classroom, and the choices can be overwhelming. If your child participates in something like competitive rowing, which many universities don't offer, their list of potential schools may be impacted by whether or not the school offers the programs they're interested in. Listing activities and accomplishments can help students figure out what they want to continue doing after high school, and which colleges will offer the greatest opportunities.

Why start during sophomore year?

• It can help your child target non-academic areas that need improvement long before sending out college applications. Although genuine interest in an activity should always be what ultimately inspires participation, colleges look for students who are well-rounded and have good time-management skills. If your child hasn't participated in many extracurricular activities, for instance, there is plenty of time to get involved in something new before application time.
• It can help your child identify academic areas to boost. It is recommended that students list their GPA, but only if it's above 3.0. If it's lower than that, an early resume will give your student an idea of what needs attention before it's too late to bring those numbers up. It will also get your child thinking about the importance of high SAT and ACT scores.
• A resume is a great introduction to a college recruiter. College fairs don't always allow for long talks between recruiters and students. A quick introduction and resume hand-off will give your child the chance to connect with as many recruiters as possible.
• It will get a student thinking about potential references. College applications ask for recommendation letters from teachers, coaches, mentors, and employers, and it's never too early for your child to line these up.
• Name, address, email, phone number.
• Education information. This includes the name and address of the student's high school, GPA (if it's brag-worthy), and class rank (if the student knows it). College courses can also go in this section, if the student has taken any.
• Activities. These can be in or out of school - for example, marching band, intramural basketball, or youth group at the student's church or temple. Especially important are any leadership roles the student has taken in these groups.
• Other experience. A part-time job, participation in a walk for cancer awareness, or contribution to a science fair are all pertinent details.
• Accolades. Academic awards or awards in extracurricular competition - state wrestling champion or member of the top-ranking marching band in the region, for example.
• References. Names and phone numbers of teachers, coaches, employers, or internship directors don't necessarily have to go on the resume, but it's good to have these people lined up in advance.
• Anything else that makes your child shine. A resume is the one chance a student will have to tell college recruiters everything they need to know. If something makes the student unique and interesting, by all means include it. Fluency in a foreign language or proficiency in advanced computer programs may qualify here. A word of caution, however: don't go overboard. The resume should contain only what a specific school will want to know.
• A poorly written resume can be worse than no resume at all. It should be proofread (more than once) to ensure correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
• The resume should be in a professional-looking and easy-to-read font, such as Times New Roman or Arial. The formatting should catch the eye of the recipient and bring attention to key items.
• Be honest. When students lie - or even stretch the truth - on their resumes, it can come back to haunt them later, particularly when it comes to things like GPA and test scores. Read your child's resume carefully to ensure all of the information is accurate.

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6 Tips for Your College Application Resume

Your resume will be an important part of your career life, serving as a catalog of your professional accomplishments, experience, and achievements. But even before you’re a full-fledged working adult, it’s still a good idea to start building your resume.

Many high school students use this space to record and describe their accomplishments, such as awards, volunteer and paid work, prestigious program participation, and more.

So, if you’ve taken the time to create a resume, can you submit it to colleges to augment your application? In some cases, yes. Keep reading to find out how to craft the ideal resume for colleges.

Which Schools Allow You to Submit Your Resume?

The schools allow you to submit your resume via the Common Application. This list is not exhaustive; it includes the top 20 universities and liberal arts colleges that allow you to do so.

•     Brown University
•     Claremont McKenna College
•     Cornell University
•     Dartmouth College
•     Johns Hopkins University
•     Northwestern University
•     University of Pennsylvania
•     Vanderbilt University
•     Vassar College
•     Washington and Lee University
•     Washington University in St. Louis

Should You Submit Your Resume?

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

If you don’t have something new to say, then you shouldn’t include a resume. That is, you shouldn’t 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 don’t feel you’ve been able to in the activities section or your essays.

How to Write a Resume for College Applications

1. include information you feel isn’t represented elsewhere..

As you’ll find in your career, not every experience relates to the opportunity you have at hand. When you enter the job market, you’ll learn to tailor your resume to specific positions based on how your work history relates to them. This is true of your college applications, too. For each experience you include, consider how it bolsters your overall profile — and only add the ones that do to your resume.

First, here’s the essential info you should include on your resume:

• Name and email address (no need to include your actual address)
• Education/high school info, like your GPA and test scores 

Other info you may include:

• Special projects related to your interests (if you’re a writer, this could be a list of pieces you’ve written with a description, or if you’re a programmer, you could also describe your projects).
• Publications (scientific, literary, etc.)
• Non-traditional coursework or academic activities (legitimate online certificates/courses, academic programs, etc.)
• Extracurriculars, hobbies, and skills and interests
• Professional and work experience
• Family responsibilities

2. Don’t rehash your activities section.

Again, don’t use this space to regurgitate information you’ve presented elsewhere on your application. Instead, it should be a space to share unique facets of yourself that don’t fit into other places.

For example, perhaps there’s a specific job you held that you couldn’t properly describe in the activities section. You can use this space to elaborate on the responsibilities you held. Or, as mentioned in the previous section, you can describe specific projects you’ve completed related to your interests. This is especially helpful for more self-driven pursuits, like independent writing.

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3. Keep it brief (one page) and easy to read.

Your resume should be concise. Since you probably haven’t accumulated a significant amount of experience as a teenager, you should keep it to one page (if you’re an adult student, that’s a different story). At the same time, avoid using teensy font and ultra-slim margins to cram everything into a single page — the resume should be easy to scan and read. Remember: be selective to ensure you have enough room.

Part of making your resume readable means formatting it such that it’s presentable. Use space to your advantages, along with a clear system for organizing the information; the traditional format is chronological, but you may choose to use an alternative format instead. Use headings, too, and make sure your formatting is consistent throughout.

4. Use active and specific language.

Use the active voice when cataloging your achievements. You should also be offering clear evidence. If you can, use numbers and facts to support your experiences.

For example, rather than saying, “Started tutoring business,” you might instead write, “Built a tutoring business by recruiting 15 student tutors and initiating a social media campaign targeting students in need of STEM support; personally worked with 25 students, who improved their GPAs by an average of X points.”

5. Talk yourself up, but don’t be dishonest or unreasonable.

Some students are eager to share their accomplishments. If you’re ever going to talk yourself up, this is the time to do it. You can’t be shy or reluctant to, well, brag a little. Other students will be talking themselves up, and you don’t want it to appear as though you don’t have anything to show for yourself.

At the same time, be careful of hyperbolizing your achievements. Colleges can easily verify the facts on your resume. If your accomplishments seem unfathomable, it will raise a red flag. This will lead colleges to question other aspects of your application, too.

Just as you should with the rest of your application, you’ll need to proofread your resume many times to catch any errors or typos. You should also read it over for clarity and to ensure that it’s as concise as it can be.

If you can, get another set of eyes on your resume before you upload it to your application. A peer, teacher, or guidance counselor can help you make sure your achievements are coming across the way you want them to and that you’re presenting yourself authentically.

Looking for more general guidance on the college application process? CollegeVine is here to make it as seamless as possible. Our free platform allows you to see your chances of acceptance, get essay feedback from peers, and hear from experts in daily livestreams. Sign up for your free CollegeVine account to get started.

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Published In: Resumes

How to Write College Admissions Resume (Free Templates)

In today’s world, resumes are no longer reserved for after graduation. Students nowadays must craft one as early as the ninth grade for everything from college applications to scholarship applications and internship applications. Knowing how to draft a great resume can be a door opener for you. This article will guide you on how you can draft a great college admissions resume that will help you stand out from thousands of applicants.

What is a College Admissions Resume?

A great college application resume is a summary of what one has been able to achieve during one time in high school. A college resume letter should not only highlight your greatest accomplishments but also show evidence of your character, such as initiative and determination.

Unlike an employment resume, a college admissions resume focuses more on academics than previous work experiences. If the applicant has held a job or jobs in the past, they should include them, but the resume’s biggest part should describe academic achievements and school-related activities.

Basic Contents of a College Admissions Resume

Typical college admissions resume should have the following elements and should follow the structure given below:

Academic grades and test scores: Your resume should include the grades that you attained and the test scores.

Academic activities: which activities did you partake in while in schools. Were you a member of any academic activities in your schools? Make sure to include such information.

Special skill sets: Do you have any special skill set? List down some of the relevant skills that you have.

Awards: Did you receive any awards while in high school? If yes, list them down in your resume

Previous jobs: Have you done any work before? How long, which position? Having some previous work experience will put you at a vantage position

Extracurricular activities: Were you on the football team? Which sports did you partake in?

Community services and volunteering: The applications review committee will be interested in seeing whether you like giving back to the community. If you have ever volunteered in any program before, make sure to include it in your resume.

Best Format of a College Admissions Resume

Your resume should have an appropriate heading. The heading should be short and straight to the point. 

Academic qualifications

The second item that should be included in your resume is your academic qualifications. Which grades did you manage to get? How did you perform in your tests and finals? Such information should be included. 

Extracurricular and school-related activities

After listing your academic qualifications, the next section of your resume should be about the extracurricular and other school-related activities you participated in. List down the activities and the position that you held

Have you worked before? If you have some work experience, create a jobs section in your resume and list down some of the places that you have worked before. If not, skip this part. 

Volunteering

Have you ever volunteered before? The next thing to add to your resume is the areas that you have volunteered in before. Have you worked for any non-profit organization? Have you helped in community-related programs before? List them down here. 

Special skill sets and abilities

Do you have any abilities and special skill sets? List down your special skill sets and any special abilities that you have. Don’t make the list too long; put more focus on the ones that can make you stand out.

Accolades and awards

Did you receive any awards while in high school? Your resume should have a section of your accolades and awards.

Resume Formatting Tips

Formatting and organization:  Organize your educational and job experiences in descending order, that is, starting with your most recent experience and work your way back in time as you move down the page.

Listing :  Use bullet points to make your resume presentable, clean, and easy to scan. Start each bullet with an action verb and avoid repeating verbs in your bullet points.

Font size and style:  Use a consistent style throughout your resume. For instance, if you use title case capitalization for section headings, commas, or abbreviations, stick with the same format for your entire college application resume. The same case applies to dates and the use of bold and italicized fonts and spacing.

How to Write Your Resume

When writing a college admissions resume, you can use the following step by step guide to assist you to write a great resume for your college admissions.

Create a template

Firstly, outline the areas in which you want to provide your information. Add vital elements like academics, skills, volunteering, previous job experiences, etc., and leave some space between each category to insert your achievements later. If you find it difficult to construct your template, we have provided an example in this article.

Research the college

Conduct thorough research of the institution at hand to know what is expected of you or be aware of the special information you need to include in your college admission resume. Although not a requirement, sometimes other colleges require you to include some special information in your resume. 

Gather information

Countercheck your template alongside the list of categories from step one and identify the relevant information that you want to write about yourself in each category. Your list information should be in descending order. For instance, in your jobs category, list your current job first, followed by any other positions that you held before that, etc.

Add titles and dates

Write necessary titles and dates to your list items from step three. If, for example, you have worked at a Marketing firm after school for several years, list your position in the job and the number of years you’ve worked in that specific firm.

Fill in action-oriented bullets

Include a list of action-oriented bullets to explain your role in your past or current jobs, extracurricular activities, volunteer work, academic activities, etc. your bullets should be brief, concise, and clear.

Revise your resume

Go through your document and check all the information you have included. Ensure your resume is no longer than a page. If it is, do away with the irrelevant details and shorten your action-oriented bullets.

Find a proofreader

Get a knowledgeable adult such as your parent or teacher and request them to review your resume for format and content. Once they have reviewed and submitted errors, fix the mistakes.

College Admissions Resume Templates

Not sure how to get started in creating your college admissions resume? Use our free and premium Templates to craft an outstanding resume for college admissions. We have also provided a sample resume section herein to serve as an example of writing and formatting your achievements and accomplishments. Download our free templates today and use them to condense your achievements into an easy-to-read format.

Tips to Follow

Sometimes, writing an effective College Admissions Resume may be quite challenging as you may not know what to include and what not to include. The following tips will help you to effectively write your college admissions resume.

• Tailor your resume : Do away with the habit of using one resume for all your college admission applications. This is simply because each college you apply for may require you to include some special information or slightly different details than your previous one. Therefore, you should customize your resume to reflect the college for which you are applying for.
• Be concise: Always remember to keep your resume to a single page length since it’s only an overview. Most likely, you will be required to provide other application documents in which you can write long-form information about yourself.
• Be honest : Make sure that the information you have provided in your resume is accurate and true. By all means necessary, avoid embellishment.
• Always proofread: Remember to reread your resume before submitting it. Proofreading allows you to correct the spelling and grammar mistakes in your resume and make sure that you have captured all the required information.
• Avoid linking your resume to your social media presence: Do not add your social media pages to your resume unless it is a job-specific social media site such as LinkedIn or a social media page specifically created for college admission purposes.
• Formatting is key: Tailor your college admission resume in a way that is both appealing to the reader and easy to scan. Separate your information into segments with clear heading and titles, bulleted lists using a constant font. Organize your work chronologically, either by the rank of the activity or by the time commitment.
• Highlight things: Your resume is your chance to show colleges something new. Highlight your devotion to certain extracurricular activities or skills that did not make it on the application but is a major part of who you are in your resume.

Traditionally, we have all assumed that resumes are only meant for job seekers. However, times have evolved, and high school students are now required to include their resumes in college admission applications. This is actually a good idea as student resumes give colleges an overview of student accomplishments, extracurricular activities, work history if any, and student hobbies. College admission resumes also serve as an important tool for preparing for a college interview or to give to the teachers who are writing your letters of recommendation.

Related Documents

4 Tips to Complete College Applications on Time

Starting early with proper planning is key to timely college application completion, experts say.

Completing College Applications on Time

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Planning out your college applications early can help you stay organized as you move through the process.

With multiple components and deadlines, the college application process can be daunting for some students. Since prospective students are often juggling college applications alongside high school classes and activities, experts say it's easy to fall behind or procrastinate.

"Procrastination is a stress response, and it makes sense that some students who are anxious about the college process will avoid working on their applications in a timely fashion," Angela Warfield, principal consultant and founder of admissions consulting firm Compass Academics, wrote in an email.

"This can become a real problem if students wait too long to request transcripts, test score reports or letters of recommendation. Since the students need to rely on other people to submit these materials, they need to make sure to give those people as much time as possible to get those materials in before deadlines."

There are some exceptions where applications are accepted later, and schools that offer rolling admissions may be good last-minute options for students. But May 1 has traditionally been the decision deadline across higher education, even earning the name "College Decision Day," so students typically need to follow that timeline. If a student is applying for early decision or early action , there will be even earlier deadlines to submit application materials.

A well-thought-out plan, anchored by a few organizational tips, can keep students on track with college applications. Here are four tips that experts say students can follow to complete their college applications on time.

• Start planning early.
• Create a detailed checklist.
• Ask for recommendation letters early.
• Budget time for application essays.

Start Planning Early

Because there are multiple steps involved in applying to college, many of which require help from other people, experts say the most foolproof method to alleviate anxiety is to start early.

The Common App , which is used by more than 1,000 schools, opens Aug. 1 each year, meaning students can't officially submit applications through the platform until then. But those looking to get a head start can create an account during their junior year and get familiar with the platform, says Denard Jones, lead college counselor at Empowerly, a college admissions consulting company.

And though it may not be as fun as relaxing by the pool or hanging out with friends, students would be wise to use the the summer months ahead of senior year – when they have no academic obligations – to begin or complete college application tasks, such as completing any write-ups for the extracurricular or activities section , experts say.

Otherwise, "it makes the fall of your senior year that much more hard,” Jones says. “Because you still have to do academic work, you still have to go through the semester, and now you’re trying to pull all this information together."

Create a Detailed Checklist

Keeping track of the various application requirements and deadlines can be streamlined with a checklist. School counselors and independent college counselors can typically provide students with a checklist, and the College Board also provides a list for students and parents to use.

Universities also typically have an application checklist on their website, which may include directions or items specific to them.

If applying to multiple colleges, students and parents may also want to create a master spreadsheet or other document to keep track of deadlines and when parts of the application are complete. Setting up reminders on a digital calendar for important dates can also help, experts say.

"Dates to consider include: application deadlines, testing date/score submissions deadlines, dates for recommenders to submit letters of support and important scholarship deadlines," Warfield says.

Ask for Recommendation Letters Early

Letters of recommendation from teachers, school counselors and other sources are important to providing college admissions officers deeper context and colorful details about applicants. Like personal essays, they can help humanize applicants and give schools an idea of whether a student would succeed academically or fit in socially within their campus culture.

A strong recommendation can tip the scales in a student's favor, especially in situations where there are academic blemishes. A weak or vague letter may reflect poorly and cause an application to stand out for the wrong reasons, experts say.

Students should choose the right people to write letters, such as teachers or counselors who know them best. It's equally important to give recommendation writers enough notice so they aren't asked to craft a hastily written letter.

Richard Tench, a school counselor at St. Albans High School in West Virginia, suggests giving recommenders at least two weeks to complete the letter, but in some cases it may be wise to ask even earlier.

“That will provide them the time to say yes or no," he says, "but that also provides them the time to think about it and write a comprehensive letter."

Some teachers are pressed for time and commit to writing a limited number of recommendation letters each year. Once those spots are booked, students shouldn't be surprised if their request is denied. This could force students to pivot to a recommender who doesn't know them as well.

“The more time you give a recommender to write, the better," Jones says. "That way, hopefully it won’t be this template that’s just cut and paste and doesn’t really help the admissions offices much."

Budget Time for Application Essays

Personal statements are often the most time-consuming and stressful part of the application process, Warfield says. But this is another area where students can get a head start during their junior year or the summer before their senior year.

The Common App typically announces essay questions for the upcoming application cycle in January or February, giving students ample time to prepare for or begin writing the essays. Warfield recommends students begin working on essays in early June, ahead of their senior year, which allows more time to edit and perfect their essays with peers or trusted mentors.

Schools that require supplemental essays vary on when those prompts are announced, but Warfield says students should start on them as early as possible and "work smarter, not harder" when completing them.

"Look for similar themes and questions where your answers aren’t likely to change," such as what you want to major in or what community means to you, she says. "You can revise these essays to be school-specific, but not completely rewrite them. Don’t duplicate your efforts."

Starting on essays early can be particularly helpful for students who struggle or need additional assistance with writing the essay, she says, adding that students who procrastinate may be tempted to rely on another person or an artificial intelligence tool such as ChatGPT to write their essay. While some colleges are using AI in admissions, colleges expect the personal statement to be a student's authentic writing.

"As someone who’s evaluated student writing for 30 years, it is not that hard to spot an AI-generated college essay," Warfield says. "If students try to use AI as a shortcut, colleges use AI detectors and seasoned admissions readers to detect derivative material."

This could be anything created by AI technology, and use of such language in essays could harm an applicant's admissions chances, experts say.

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What’s a personal statement for college.

Senior Associate, JPMorgan Chase

As you complete your college applications, whether it’s through the Common App or by individually applying, you’ll likely come across prompts in the application that ask you to write about yourself. Think of it as an opportunity to introduce yourself to the admissions committees of the schools you’re applying to in a different way than the insights recommendations and your transcript can provide.

Sometimes called an admissions or application essay, a personal statement, or a statement of purpose, what’s typically being asked for is information about your background, experiences, accomplishments, future goals, and any challenges or obstacles you may have had to overcome. Because of that, when it comes to any personal statements you write for college applications, the aim is usually to showcase your personality, interests, and character in a compelling and authentic way.

Keep reading for more information about personal statements, the prompts to expect, and some tips for mastering this part of a college application.

When will you have to write a personal statement during the college application process?

Many college applications require a personal statement of some kind. For applications submitted through the Common App, a personal statement is a required component for nearly all colleges and universities that use the platform. The Common App allows students to write one comprehensive essay that’s sent to all colleges they’re applying to through the system. This means you’ll write just one personal statement, which will be part of every college application you submit through the Common App. Some colleges might ask for additional shorter essays, known as supplemental essays, on top of this, so be prepared for those asks.

Many scholarship applications also require at least one personal statement or essay as part of the application process. Like college applications, scholarship personal statements provide an opportunity for applicants to showcase their qualifications, experiences, and personal motivations. A personal statement for a scholarship application often serves as a way for applicants to demonstrate their merit, express their career and educational goals, and explain how they’d benefit from and contribute to a scholarship program.

How can your personal statement impact your college applications?

Your personal statement can have a significant impact on your college applications in several ways:

• Demonstrating your character and personality: Your personal statement offers admission committees insight into who you are beyond your grades and test scores. It can showcase your values, motivations, and unique qualities, helping to paint a more comprehensive picture of you as a prospective student.
• Highlighting your achievements and experiences: It allows you to discuss your academic accomplishments, extracurriculars, and any challenges you’ve overcome. This can demonstrate your potential for success and your ability to contribute to a campus community.
• Conveying your passion and commitment to a particular school: A personal statement allows you to articulate your academic and career goals and connect them to your reasons for applying to a specific college or program. Admissions committees are looking for students who are genuinely interested in and committed to their educational and personal growth, along with being excited to attend their school.
• Setting you apart from other applicants: A well-crafted personal statement can help you stand out among applicants with similar academic credentials. It allows you to showcase what makes you unique.
• Addressing any weaknesses or challenges: If any aspects of your application may raise concerns to the admissions committees, such as a lower grade point average (GPA) in a particular semester, your personal statement can allow you to provide context and explain any extenuating circumstances. This can help mitigate potential red flags in your application.

How do you know what topic to write about in your personal statement?

Over 1,000 U.S. colleges accept the Common App, so many students will be choosing from among the Common App’s seven essay prompts.

Below is the list of essay prompts from 2023-24 Common App :

• “Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.”
• “The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?”
• “Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?”
• “Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?”
• “Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.”
• “Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?”
• “Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.”

Beyond the prompts from the Common App, which many students utilize, some schools may have their own applications with their own prompts or supplementary prompts that they expect students to complete.

For instance, at Yale University , one of the school’s supplementary prompts is: “Tell us about a topic or idea that excites you and is related to one or more academic areas you selected above [on your application].” At Amherst College, one of the supplementary questions is: “In what ways could your unique experiences enhance our understanding of our nation and our world.”

What makes a good personal statement for a college application?

A lot goes into writing a strong personal statement for college applications.

Hafeez Lakhani of educational coaching firm Lakhani Coaching told the New York Times to think of it like this: “Every college is like a dinner table. What will make you the most interesting contributor to that dinner table conversation? What will make you help everyone else have a more interesting experience?”

Lacy Crawford, a former independent college application counselor and author of Early Decision, told USA Today : “These essays should read like smart, interesting 17-year-olds wrote them. A sense of perspective and self-awareness is what’s interesting...I think most students are torn between a pathway dividing a diary entry and a press release. It’s supposed to be a marketing document of the self.”

Here are a few tips to make the most of a personal statement.

• Tell a story: Use the space to showcase your personality, interests, personal values, life experiences, and even your sense of humor. Don’t just use it to regurgitate your accomplishments, which can be gleaned from your high school transcript and other parts of your application.
• Consider emphasizing your volunteer work and other community work: Many college admissions offices look for students who are active in their communities, be it volunteering or in different ways. The personal statement is a good place to emphasize how you’re making the world a better place.
• Emphasize any extra work you’ve done to dive into your field of interest: Be it internships, college-level courses at a community college, or extracurricular activities, anything that shows you’ve done extra work to explore your chosen field of study will help to emphasize your passion. Tie this passion to why you’re particularly excited about attending a particular school, and you may have a winning formula.
• Make sure you check grammar and spelling: You don’t want to write a great essay and let a few grammatical and spelling errors get in your way. Read and re-read your essay to check for spelling and grammar, and get a few people you trust to help you proofread your work as well.

Final thoughts

A strong personal statement can make a positive impression on admissions officers and contribute to a well-rounded and compelling college application. It allows you to showcase your strengths, demonstrate your potential, and express your genuine interest in the college or program.

High School College Advisor

• College of Education
• Professional Staff
• Opening at: Mar 21 2024 at 09:00 CDT

Job Summary:

The High School College Advisor assists Texas high school students in underserved communities realize their dream of attending college by advising students with college admissions, financial aid, and scholarship applications; and coordinating information with high school staff at the student’s school.

Duties & Essential Job Functions:

1. Provides one-on-one admissions and financial-aid to any student or family seeking assistance. 2. Encourages each student to consider a broad range of appropriate college choices. 3. Develops for each student a comprehensive college timeline, including application deadlines for admission and financial aid. 4. Helps each student complete and submit admissions and financial-aid applications. 5. Assists each student in interpreting correspondence from colleges, including offers of admission and financial aid. 6. Encourages students and their families to consider, plan for, and apply to colleges and universities. 7. Organizes events 8. Visits classrooms, assemblies, and club meetings to offer advising services and emphasize the importance of college. 9. Visits feeder middle schools to encourage early planning for college. 10. Works with local community groups –churches, boys and girls clubs, social-services providers—to offer group events outside school settings and hours. 11. Establishes productive working relationships with principals, counselors, and teaches in the assigned high school. 12. Assess in consultations with the program director and school personnel, the particular needs of each school, and adapt programs and activities to meet these needs. 13. Actively seeking the advice and counsel of the on-site supervisor at each partner high school. 14. Assists in the efforts of other adviser(s) within the service area. 15. Visits other high schools in their assigned service area during school days. 16. Helps organize; provide support for, and attending evening and weekend events organized by other adviser(s). 17. Assists in the assessment and long-term sustainability of the program. 18. Assists the program director and evaluation staff to identify, collect, and interpret key progress and outcome variables to evaluate the effectiveness of the Advising Corps program. 19. Submits monthly progress reports to the program director documenting progress and outcome data. 20. Meets as appropriate, with the evaluators from the National Office or TCU Representing the Advising Corps, as requested by the program director, to potential supporters and to other interested parties. 21. Maintains expertise in admissions and financial-aid advising. 22. Participates fully in six weeks of residential training each summer on the TCU campus. 23. Consults with the program director to seek out and participate in other opportunities for professional development. 24. Performs other related duties as assigned.

Required Education & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree.

Preferred Education & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University.

Required Licensure/Certification/Specialized Training:

Preferred licensure, certification, and/or specialized training:, knowledge, skills & abilities:.

• Knowledge of interpersonal communication techniques. • Knowledge of computer software used to perform the job. • Knowledge of recordkeeping techniques. • Knowledge of customer services techniques. • Skill in the use of Microsoft Office to include Word, Excel and Outlook. • Skill in effective written and verbal communication • Ability to develop processes and standards for the specific needs of the assigned school with diplomacy and a strong commitment to service. • Ability to balance multiple projects simultaneously. • Ability to make independent decisions regarding daily activities. • Ability to collaborate creatively and effectively with others in order to solve problems and reach goals. • Ability to clearly present and communicate programs to high school students.

TCU Core Competencies:

University Core Competencies definitions may be found on the Human Resources website and in the staff performance management system.

Physical Requirements (With or Without Accommodations):

• Visual acuity to read information from computer screens, forms and other printed materials and information. • Able to speak (enunciate) clearly in conversation and general communication. • Hearing ability for verbal communication/conversation/responses via telephone, telephone systems, and face-to-face interactions. • Manual dexterity for typing, writing, standing and reaching, flexibility, body movement for bending, crouching, walking, kneeling and prolonged sitting. • Lifting and moving objects and equipment up to 10 lbs.

Work Environment:

• Work is indoors and sedentary and is subject to schedule changes and/or variable work hours. • This position requires the ability to commute between multiple job locations. • There are no harmful environmental conditions present for this job. • The noise level in this work environment is usually moderate.

AA/EEO Statement:

As an AA/EEO employer, TCU recruits, hires, and promotes qualified persons in all job classifications without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ethnic origin, disability, genetic information, covered veteran status, or any other basis protected by law. 

TCU Annual Security Report & Fire Safety Report Notice of Availability

Texas Christian University is committed to assisting all members of the campus community in providing for their own safety and security. TCU’s Annual Security Report and Fire Safety Report is published in compliance with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy & Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act) and the Higher Education Opportunity Act. This report includes statistics for the previous three calendar years concerning reported crimes that occurred on campus, in certain off-campus buildings owned or controlled by the University, and on public property within, or immediately adjacent to and accessible from the campus. The statements of policy contained within this report address institutional policies, procedures, and programs concerning campus security, alcohol and drug use, crime prevention, the reporting of crimes, emergency notifications and timely warning of crimes, sexual and interpersonal violence, and personal safety at TCU. Additionally, this report outlines fire safety systems, policies and procedures for on-campus housing facilities, as well as residence hall fire statistics. 

The Annual Security Report and Fire Safety Report can be found on the TCU Police Department website at https://police.tcu.edu/annual-security-report , or a paper copy of the report may be obtained by contacting the TCU Police Department at 817-257-7930, or via email at [email protected] .

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College Application Fee Waiver FAQs

Find the right college for you..

College application fees can really add up, but there’s good news for students. Every income-eligible student who takes the SAT with a fee waive r or as part of a district or state program while in high school, can choose from over 2,000 participating colleges and apply for free. These waivers will be delivered online to eligible students.

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f you registered for and took the SAT using a fee waiver, or were identified as fee waiver eligible as part of a district or state program, you are automatically eligible to receive college application fee waivers. Read more about SAT fee waivers .

I have registered and taken the SAT using a fee waiver. When can I expect to receive my college application fee waivers?

If you are a senior and eligible for college application fee waivers, you will receive them when you get your SAT score. If you are a junior and eligible, you will receive them in the fall of your senior year. 

If I am applying to colleges using the Coalition, Common, or Universal Applications, can I still use a college application fee waiver?

If you have received an SAT fee waiver, you may apply to any Coalition, Common, or Universal College Application college without a fee. Each of these application platforms has a process in place to allow eligible students to have their application fee waived, and generally do not require you to submit your College Board fee waivers.

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Similarly, on the Common App , you will be asked on the application whether your financial circumstances qualify you for a fee waiver-- if you received an SAT fee waiver, you should indicate that in response to this question to have your fee waived. Your high school counselor will be asked to verify your eligibility.

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Related Articles

After the Supreme Court effectively ended affirmative action in 2023, many selective colleges said they still prized racial diversity and planned to pursue it. But how might they do that?

To grasp the challenge, let’s look at one oversimplified illustration. These 10,000 dots represent the standardized test scores of a class of high school seniors nationwide, arranged by their parents’ income.

On average, students from families with more resources tend to do better on measures like the SAT.

Black and Hispanic students , who tend to be poorer and have less access to opportunity, often do worse.

If selective colleges admitted students by score alone — using, say, a 1300 cutoff — the pool would not be very diverse, by race or class.

Six percent of this hypothetical admitted class are low-income students, and 10 percent are Black or Hispanic.

Affirmative action policies helped colleges admit more Black and Hispanic students.

But admissions preferences based on race are no longer legal. To create a more diverse class, colleges could …

… move that cutoff line …

… or change the slope of it …

… or rethink it entirely.

“Low-income” refers to students in the bottom quarter of parent income distributions.

Can You Create a Diverse College Class Without Affirmative Action?

By Aatish Bhatia and Emily Badger March 9, 2024

Selective colleges and universities can no longer use race-based preferences in admissions to create a more diverse student body. But what if they gave a break instead to lower-income students? Or those from high-poverty schools? Or those who do relatively well academically despite challenges all around them?

To explore those questions — and how much racial diversity is possible without “race-conscious” admissions — the Upshot worked with Sean Reardon , a professor at Stanford, and Demetra Kalogrides , a senior researcher there, to model four alternatives to affirmative action.

The scenarios shown here are based on the real-life academic and demographic characteristics of the high school class of 2013 in America, the most recent tracked over time by a large nationally representative survey . We used this data set, further adjusted to reflect the rising diversity of students in the decade since, to simulate a representative class of 10,000 high school seniors. We then modeled their admissions prospects to the group of colleges ( Barron's Tier 1 schools ) that rank as the most selective in the country — and that have also been most affected by the Supreme Court’s ruling .

Throughout, we use SAT scores as a simplified measure of academic merit (after test scores fell out of favor with many colleges during the pandemic, several of the most selective schools have recently returned to requiring them ).

Our models simplify the complex and often opaque ways that selective colleges craft admissions (we also reserve no seats for athletes on scholarship or legacy students). But even a stripped-down exercise shows why some approaches to admissions would probably yield more diversity than others, by both race and class.

Let’s start with the simplest model and build from there:

Scenario 1 of 4 : A preference for poorer students

Admit students using …

Here again is our simulated class of 10,000 high school seniors, further identified by race.

Only some apply to the most selective colleges, a relatively small tier of about 80 schools like Stanford, Penn and N.Y.U.

Here’s where the admissions policies kick in. First, we admit 500 students , roughly in line with admissions rates at selective colleges.

Now let’s give a 150-point SAT boost to the lowest-income students.

Use the buttons to explore what happens in this scenario as well as the ones below.

In this scenario, we give a moderate boost to applicants on a sliding scale according to their parents’ income: from an extra 150 points for students from the poorest families, to 0 points for students from the richest ones. This creates the slope of the cutoff line you see above.

Because each of our scenarios admits a fixed class of 500 students, the results are zero-sum: As some students are newly admitted, others who might have been admitted under different policies no longer are. The magnitude of that effect — and whom it touches — differs depending on the criteria.

In this case, as more low-income students are admitted, some high-income students with SAT scores just above 1300 no longer get in. That trade-off creates significantly more economic diversity, as this table shows:

Change in admitted class in Scenario 1

Percentage point shifts in admitted student demographics, compared with test-only admissions

Figures are rounded. Other includes American Indian, Alaska Native and multi-racial students.

The share of admitted students from the top income quartile falls by about 12 percentage points.

But the shifts toward racial diversity are modest. The Black student share rises by just one percentage point. Why? Black families are over-represented among poorer households in America, but in terms of total numbers, there are still many more poorer white households.

For this reason, income is a relatively weak proxy for race in admissions. A preference for lower incomes produces just that: students with lower incomes, not necessarily a much larger share of Black or Hispanic students.

In this scenario, a total of 13 percent of students in the admitted class are Black or Hispanic. For context, Americans of high-school-graduation age today are about 38 percent Black or Hispanic .

It’s also worth emphasizing that we are modeling who gets admitted, not who enrolls. And Black and Hispanic students are less likely to take that additional step — enrolling in a selective college that might be expensive or far from home, even if they get in.

Scenario 2 of 4 : Adding school poverty

In addition to a preference for low-income students, what if we added a preference for those who attend higher poverty schools?

This scenario takes the 150-point income preference in Scenario 1 and adds a second 150-point preference for students in higher-poverty schools, as measured by the share of students in that school receiving free or reduced-price lunch. A low-income student in a high-poverty school could get as much as a 300-point boost.

This produces even more economic diversity than the preference for parental income alone. And it further nudges up the share of admitted Black and Hispanic students.

Change in admitted class in Scenario 2

We know that students with equally low family incomes differ from each other in many ways. For example, low-income Black and Hispanic students are more likely than low-income white and Asian students to live in high-poverty neighborhoods and attend high-poverty schools .

And so if one goal of an admissions policy is to account for the compound disadvantages minority students often face, it may help to pull in more information : not just about their parents’ incomes, but also about their households, schools and neighborhoods.

Colleges could further hone a preference like this by pulling in more factors, including neighborhood poverty rates, parental education levels and parental wealth.

Do something like that, and “now you have a group of students who have overcome a lot more in life than the ones who have just been handed everything,” said Richard Kahlenberg, a researcher at the Progressive Policy Institute who has argued for this kind of robust class preference . He also served as an expert witness critiquing race-based admissions in the litigation that led to the Supreme Court decision.

Scenario 3 of 4 : Finding the outliers

It’s possible to take the underlying idea in Scenario 2 and dial it up further, by identifying students who outperform their peers with similar disadvantages (or similar advantages).

Here, we’re not just giving a boost to students who come from disadvantage. We’re rewarding students who perform better academically than other students with similar backgrounds.

This strategy identifies, for example, a student who has an 1100 SAT score — but whose score is 250 points above the typical student who also goes to a high-poverty high school and who has low-income parents who didn’t attend college. This strategy also discounts some of the wealthiest students whose 1400 scores look less impressive when compared with their equally well-off peers.

Students who outperform their peers are academic outliers, and that may indicate something special about them: “We’re admitting students on the basis of striving: students whose academic achievement exceeded expectations based on the access to opportunity that they had,” said Zack Mabel, a Georgetown researcher who has modeled admissions scenarios similar in concept to this one .

Of the scenarios tested so far, this one does the most to produce both economic and racial diversity, compared with admitting students on test scores alone. It also produces significant shifts among high-income white students; their share of the admitted class is 27 percentage points lower than it would be in a test-only environment. The resulting average SAT score of the admitted class is also the lowest of the scenarios so far, at 1340.

Change in admitted class in Scenario 3

To gauge how we’d expect students to perform in this scenario, we take into account their parental income, school poverty level and a socioeconomic index that includes parents’ education levels and occupations. We use that data to predict each student’s SAT score. Then we admit the students who outperformed those predictions by the largest margins (until we’ve admitted 500 of them).

A college that cares more about keeping a higher average SAT score could use a limited version of a preference like this one. A school that believes students who beat the odds in high school are likely to succeed in college could embrace a fuller version.

Remember that in this scenario and each of the preceding ones, we’ve considered only students who apply to highly selective colleges (the national study we use as a reference shows which students actually did). We have effectively ignored all of the students shown below who don’t apply, including some with pretty good grades and test scores:

Students who didn’t apply to top colleges

Next, let’s think about that group, too.

Scenario 4 of 4 : Casting a wider net

What happens when colleges try to expand the applicant pool?

To create this scenario, we expanded the pool of applicants to selective colleges by modeling a recruiting strategy targeted at predominantly minority high schools.

First, we pull into the applicant pool all students of any race with SAT scores above 1000 at high schools where at least three-quarters of students are nonwhite. Then we rerun the preference for beating the odds from Scenario 3 with this larger applicant pool.

This strategy most notably captures more Hispanic students, and it produces by far the biggest shift toward lower-income students. It broadly redistributes seats held in an SAT-only scenario by high-income white students and, to a lesser degree, high-income Asian ones.

Change in admitted class in Scenario 4

Although colleges can no longer employ racial preferences in admissions, several legal scholars said they believe schools can still consider race in recruiting strategies. The Supreme Court, in turning away another recent legal challenge , has also signaled — at least for now — that it’s permissible for colleges to pursue diversity as an end goal so long as racial preferences aren’t the means to achieve it.

Of the scenarios we’ve shown, an expanded recruiting strategy requires the most work from colleges. But it’s also “the big overlooked gold mine here,” said Richard Sander, a law professor at U.C.L.A. who has worked on admissions strategies at the law school level.

Such a recruiting strategy would mean not just tweaking statistical preferences, but also building relationships with high school counselors, traveling to college fairs, and perhaps developing dual-enrollment courses that introduce high school students to college work.

This kind of outreach — “to me, it’s everything,” said Jill Orcutt, the global lead for consulting with the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. She was previously the associate vice chancellor for enrollment at U.C. Merced, the most diverse school in the University of California system.

Comparing our scenarios

In evaluating the impact of the scenarios shown here, we’ve compared each one with the SAT-only baseline in which colleges consider a form of academic merit and nothing else. But it’s also helpful to think about these scenarios in another way — in comparison to the world as it might look if affirmative action were still legal.

To make that comparison, we also created a model approximating the effects of affirmative action. We took the same 150-point boost we’ve used in earlier scenarios, and we applied it to Black and Hispanic students. Real-world affirmative action policies were more complicated than this. But studies have found that such policies gave Black and Hispanic students higher odds of admission equivalent to an SAT score boost of a few hundred points.

Across all our models, Scenario 4 — rewarding students who are academic outliers given their life circumstances, while targeting a wider pool of recruits — comes the closest to creating the Black and Hispanic student shares you might get by giving a boost directly to those students:

Black and Hispanic students in each scenario

Alternatives to affirmative action, other comparisons, low-income students in each scenario.

“Low-income” refers to students in the bottom quarter of parent income distributions. Figures are rounded and show the share of students who are admitted in each of our models, under simplified assumptions.

Notably, our simple affirmative action model produces far less economic diversity than all of these alternatives. That was also a frequent criticism of such policies: Yes, colleges used them to admit more Black and Hispanic students, but those were overwhelmingly middle- and upper-income students. In our affirmative action model, just 6 percent of admitted students come from the bottom quartile of the income distribution. That’s almost identical to the share of such students who were enrolled in the real world across these selective colleges, according to a 2017 report .

To be clear, our simplified affirmative action model also suggests selective colleges would admit a far higher share of Black and Hispanic students — nearly 34 percent — than were actually in the incoming class of 2022 (23 percent across this top tier of selective schools). That’s because our model captures the upper bound of what’s possible with such a strategy.

Some schools that were already heavily investing in expanded recruiting , like Johns Hopkins, were actually close to or even above this number. Other selective colleges that devoted more seats to legacy students and fewer resources to minority recruiting or financial aid had much lower shares. Our model, in its simplicity, effectively treats all of these varied schools as if they act in unison.

The scenarios illustrated here can't predict what will happen next — this is a model after all, if one based on real demographics. But this exercise reveals some broad lessons that probably translate to the real world: Income by itself is a weak stand-in for race. Neighborhood and school-level data can help identify minority students. And the potential of any admissions strategy is limited without casting a wider recruiting net.

The questions affecting each admissions parameter are also murky. Does more economic diversity replace some of what colleges lose with less racial diversity? Should students be evaluated in the context of all their disadvantages? How much should colleges yield on lower measures of academic merit to gain the advantages of a diverse campus?

Individual colleges will answer these questions in different ways. And they will do so considering factors, including financial aid and legacy admissions, that are more complex than the ones we modeled. But they’ll also have access to a lot more data than we do about each prospective student in trying to fine-tune what comes next. We will soon see what they do with it.

About this project

The data behind these admissions scenarios comes from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 , which tracked a nationally representative cohort of over 23,000 U.S. high school students, starting in the ninth grade in 2009. The data collected over time includes high school transcripts, standardized test scores, Advanced Placement exam results, parents’ socioeconomic status and the colleges that students applied to and attended.

In models built with Sean Reardon and Demetra Kalogrides at Stanford, we illustrate 10,000 simulated students, constructed to resemble the demographic and academic makeup of the HSLS cohort in its senior year, 2013. We further weight that group to adjust for the racial diversity of ninth-grade students in America in 2019-20, using the Common Core of Data (for public school students) and the Private School Universe Survey (for private school students). Because we begin our simulations with students in U.S. high schools, our modeled admissions outcomes do not include international students, and we exclude international students from comparisons to the actual enrolled class of 2022 across selective colleges.

We constructed standardized test scores for each simulated student using 1) reported SAT scores 2) ACT scores converted to an SAT scale (in cases where an SAT score was not reported) 3) a predicted SAT score constructed using a standardized test given to HSLS study participants, their family income, family socioeconomic status, Advanced Placement courses taken and exams passed, and their high school characteristics.

We used SAT scores for ease of interpretation. But many college admissions offices are moving away from them. And so we also modeled the scenarios here using an academic merit index combining GPAs, Advanced Placement exam results and standardized test scores. Those models produced broadly similar results to the ones shown here.

Our models simulate admissions to Barron’s Tier 1 schools . In their simplicity, our models do not consider students admitted with legacy status or athletic scholarships, and they do not take into account the likely availability of financial aid.

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From The Upshot: What the Data Says

Analysis that explains politics, policy and everyday life..

Pandemic School Closures: ​A variety of data about children’s academic outcomes and about the spread of Covid-19 has accumulated since the start of the pandemic. Here is what we learned from it .

Affirmative Action: The Supreme Court effectively ended race-based preferences in admissions. But will selective schools still be able to achieve diverse student bodies? Here’s how they might try .

Parenting: Surveys of young adults show that most parents are highly involved in their grown children’s lives. Yet in many ways, their relationships seem healthy and fulfilling .

N.Y.C. Neighborhoods: We asked New Yorkers to map their neighborhoods and to tell us what they call them . The result, while imperfect, is an extremely detailed map of the city .

Dialect Quiz:  What does the way you speak say about where you’re from? Answer these questions to find out .

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