<p>In the next couple weeks, I will be taking a long trip with my family to visit some colleges (specially, Carnegie Mellon and Case Western Reserve), and I registered to do interviews at each.</p>
<p>I was thinking that I should come prepared with something. So far, I've been creating a resume for my education, EC's, work experience, etc. but I've found that I'm running out of room (on a one page resume) very quickly, even with only a title for the activity and a very brief, one line description of each. And I haven't even included work experience or awards! </p>
<p>However, I got to thinking: is a resume really necessary, or would an activities list suffice? Has anyone had experience with this, and what would you recommend?</p>
<p>List your ten most important ECs with a one line description. Omit the rest. No college is going to be concened you were on the membership of some random 9th grade club or were on a committee for some charity/social event in 10th grade. One page. No more – please. No one is going to look beyond a 0.5second scan of your top items.</p>
<p>@T26E4 So you’re saying I should do more an activities list? Because my page is almost full with only about six activities, plus some information on my education (school name, GPA, class rank, ACT scores, etc.). Should I make it JUST my activities?</p>
<p>I would do a resume because it is more inclusive than an activities list. My D had a two page resume for college so it could include descriptions of her activities as well as internships, work experiences, and academic achievements. The two page resume was not a problem for anyone she interviewed with.</p>
<p>@happy1 Thank you! I was worried that two pages would be too much. I know that generally for things like job resumes, one page is usually the limit. Like I said, two pages would be plenty, but one page doesn’t seem like enough.</p>
<p>Also, this isn’t required (or the colleges haven’t told me they are), but I personally feel it would be nice to have one for the interviewers.</p>
<p>An activities list is just a list of your activities. A resume, especially one that you take to college interviews, should go into more detail such as listing your high school, your expected date of graduation, your GPA, any college courses you have taken and the grade you received, your ACT/SAT scores, AP scores, SAT Subject Test scores, honors and awards, work experience and then your list of activities. </p>
<p>When my son applied to college, he found it helpful to create a website which contained a detailed resume. That allowed him to keep his paper resume to one-page, yet allowed anyone to go to his website for additional details and samples of his computer games and animation videos that he created, along with published samples of his writing from student newspapers and publications. He also listed the website on his Common Application with his EC list and many colleges went to the website to view his work.</p>
<p>@gibby That’s actually a very useful way to list things. How did he go about creating that website? I actually have a lot of extracurricular activities that I am very involved in and do consistently (and have since almost the beginning of high school). So it’s very difficult to list everything you mentioned in addition to all of my activities. Thanks!</p>
<p>Although you can create a free website at many sites (wix, squarespace etc), those sites don’t allow you to create a nice user name like rkepp12.com. So. he opted to purchase his own domain name, so I think he paid $30 for a domain name and another $60 for a year of hosting on some service. It was only for application purposes so his website never was renewed after he was accepted.</p>
<p>@gibby Would it work just as well to create a separate Word document for the full resume and send it separately? The reason I think that is because I’ve never designed a website before (and don’t have the slightest idea), and I also don’t want to add more costs onto the already large amount of application fees.</p>
<p>You could certainly send an additional document to colleges with a more detailed resume, but as they will already have an EC list on the Common App. your additional document should not be duplicative. Admissions Officers only have about 10-12 minutes to read your complete file, so don’t waste their time by submitting duplicates or making them wade through unnessassary details.</p>
<p>^^ Meh. I’ve heard from a number of alumni interviewers that they think it’s pretentious for 17 year old to have a two-page resume, unless the kid has done something spectacular – like the 17 year old who had her play produced on Broadway (she went to Yale) or the 16 year old who sold his App for $10 million (he went to Harvard). IMHO, that’s when a two-pager seems appropriate. </p>
<p>I’m just having a hard time seeing how one page could be enough when you have to include awards, extracurriculars, test scores, school name, college courses, work experience and more.</p>
<p>I’m with Gibby and T26E4 on this one. If it runs more than one page, it’s time to edit. The resume is not a place to duplicate your entire application. It’s meant to highlight. You do not want to walk into an interview with an alumni interviewer, hand over a 3 page resume, and then sit in total silence for 5 minutes while s/he skims your resume.</p>
<p>Here’s a sample one page resume (It’s actually my son’s resume from several years back that he took to his college interviews. I’ve disguised some of the names for privacy reasons.) </p>
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<p>FWIW: With this resume and EC list my son was accepted to Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, Williams, Georgetown, Middlebury, Pomona, Vanderbilt, Wesleyan and Binghamton. (Although he played baseball in high school, he was not a recruited athlete.) You really don’t need more than a one-pager to highlight what interviewers need to know.</p>
<p>@gibby, question about resume - my kid volunteered for the back office of a hospital for 3 weeks and was scanning & doing data entry of records from 9am -2pm. Unpaid except for a free lunch,
Does that fall under volunteer hours or under work experience? </p>
<p>Colleges like to see that students are mature enough to hold a job, get along with co-workers etc – so, even though it was unpaid, I would have your son list it under work experience (though it could be listed under either).</p>
