Make a Best Resume for College Application

Some colleges and universities may ask you to provide a resume when you submit your application. Your college admissions resume provides an opportunity to highlight your academic achievements, extracurricular activities, work or volunteer experiences, special abilities, and any other of your qualifications that make you a candidate worth accepting. Knowing how to put together a well-written resume can strengthen your applications for colleges and universities effectively.

Things to Add in Your Resume for College Application

A college admission's resume describes the academic performance, extra-curricular activity, and the work or volunteer experience of a high school student. You usually submit an admission's resume along with your application to a college or university. An Admission resume is one sure way to prove to schools that you are capable of academic success.

While a job-seeking resume focuses on work experience, an admission resume is generally focused on academics. If you have had jobs during high school, you can include those on your resume, but the majority of the document covers information about your academic history and relevant school activities. Generally speaking, a college admission resume includes the following items. 

Header: A header is where you put your full name and contact information, such as your telephone number and email address.

Overview: A summary is a resume that provides a brief explanation about your academic performance and specialized skills. Also, you can write a statement about your academic or career goal to show colleges that you are serious about continuing your studies.

Education: You may want to include the date you expect to graduate and anything else that is essential for your application, such as your GPA and scores.

Activities: This would involve extracurricular activities you are participating in-sports or school clubs.

Work Experience: This section describes any work experience that you might have. Examples of things that you would put here include job experiences, but also internship or job shadowing experiences.

Skills: This can be a way to show colleges unique skills or capabilities, such as fluency in another language or technical skills.

Awards: An awards section is one way you can highlight yourself on your admissions resume and make yourself different from all those other students applying to that school. Academic honours qualify as notable awards for this category.

Volunteer work: You can make a section on your resume in case you volunteer or did community service that was of value.

How to write a college admission resume

Create or Choose a Resume Template

Begin with categorizing the information you want to include, such as activities, experience and awards. Be sure to leave space under each category to add specific information about each item. It's also a good idea to do an Internet search for templates you can use for a college resume. You can also choose any resume builder or template to create an attractive one. When you develop a template to base your resume on, remember the following formatting suggestions:

• Use 1 inch margins all around the document.
• Choose a font that is easy to read, such as Times New Roman or Georgia, and choose a font size of 10 or 12 points.
• Use bolding for your name and any section headings so colleges can skim through easily and identify important portions of your resume.
• Make sure your resume is only one page so colleges can effectively skim through in minimal time.

Research the College

Some colleges may require certain pieces of information to be on your resume. For example, a performing arts college may want to know all the roles or productions you have been in during the past few years. Research each college you'll be applying to and include information that may be requested. You'll want to make an entirely new version of your template for each college you apply to so you can tell why you are such a good fit for that particular school.

Gather Information

Using your template and the categories you have determined, you will want to know what information you would like in each space. Go ahead and take some time to get dates correct such as dates of an internship you have held. For each type of entry on your resume, you write the information in reverse-chronological order-the most recent experience first. So if you have had two part-time jobs, you would list the current or most recent job. 

Here are some examples of what you might include on your college resume: High School Course grades relevant to your intended major or field of study SAT or ACT scores Class Rank High School Overall GPA Dates of employment, extracurricular or volunteer experience.  

Describe your experience

Once you have the information you want to include, use it to fill in each section of your resume. Use action-oriented bullet points to describe your education and experience. Be specific and concise in describing your duties, activities and accomplishments. Begin each bullet point with an action verb and describe the results of each action. 

Example: If you worked at a fast food restaurant after school for several years, your bullet points may include the following. 

Worked at the cash register using math to keep an accurate till. Informed fellow colleagues about the division of labor to raise productivity through shifts. Prepared orders in rapid but calculated fashion to satisfy customers. Greeted every customer with politeness to provide the best service possible. 

Highlight your skills

Highlight in your skills section those traits and abilities that will make you an attractive candidate for admission. If you have an idea of what you want to study at college, try highlighting academic skills related to your major. If, for example, you know you want to major in computer science, then a number of technical skills may be included, such as coding or operating systems. 

It is also useful if you add some soft skills on your resume to show colleges your personality. The good soft skills one could add may involve teamwork, leadership, motivation, time management, communication, organization, active listening, etc. 

Read more: How Many Skills to Listed on Resume

Final Words

Tailor your resume to each college application, highlighting experiences and skills that match the best with the focus of the program or activities you are applying for. A neat, clear, and professional resume will go a long way in impressing college admissions committees.