<p>I already posted this one to the College Admission Board, but since there are a lot of parents here (who I consider most knowledgeable :)), I'd like to hear your opinon as well!</p>
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<p>Hey, </p>
<p>I'm currently wading through the various application forms, and I am well aware of the fact that the admissions officers don't have enough time to their hands to check on every applicant and fight themselves through unorganized applications. </p>
<p>I want to avoid that - I already heard about the saying "the thicker the envelope, the thicker the kid". In order to keep my envelope slim, I wanted to compose a well-written and well-organized resum</p>
<p>My son enclosed a resume, but also filled out the specific college forms. I know each application is a little different, but we felt that the admissions committee would like to see the info in the format they were accustomed to. It will help to make a work sheet (or resume) that has all of your ECs, dates of employment, courses, etc. so the process of filling out the form goes a little faster.</p>
<p>You will find that some applications specifically request that you NOT attach a resume: they want to see your most important and meaningful accomplishments highlighted on their forms. Many students will bring resumes to their interviews.</p>
<p>Start by making a list for yourself of your achievements, awards, scores, grades, classes, and extra-curricular activities for each of your years of high school, and the summers in between, including summer jobs, travel, or coursework. Then see if there is a way to group these into perhaps 3 or 4 meaningful categories. Rearrange them to highlight the items that are most important to you and that you think tell the most about who you are, and list them briefly with dates, leadership positions, etc.</p>
<p>For instance, my son made one up for interviews last fall. After his contact information at top, his first section is "Main scholarly interests" and has a few items listed for each of the 3 main areas he is interested in. This is followed by "Extracurricular focus areas" and highlights the 4 areas he puts the most energy in (including those where he found summer jobs). At the end, he includes "Casual/recrational" and notes a few more things he does for fun. (If you want, you can add a table of standardized scores and GPA at the end, but usually they'll have that information elsewhere.) Reading his "resume" now, I'd say it gives a reasonable picture of the kind of person he is, but you'd have to read his essays to <em>really</em> get the idea... which is, I think, why some schools ask you not to send a resume.</p>
<p>There is no set format for these student resumes, I don't think, so experiment. The idea, if you're going to use one at all, is to organize all your major accomplishments, skills, and awards into one place. And it must all fit on one piece of paper! Good luck.</p>
<p>Instead of a resume, my daughter made an activity list. You can organize it in any way that highlights your achievements - but what makes this different from what you put on the application is the explanation of each activity, which you don't usually have room for on the application itself. This also give you a place to mention hobbies and interests that you might not put on your app.
One entry from my D's activity list looked like this:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Ecology Club (11,12): 1-6 hrs/wk. As an active member of our club, I participate in habitat resoration in the school canyon, write letters to government officials to support environmental legislation, paricipate in local coastal cleanups, and serve as a docent in nature programs for young children.
Awards: Audubon Youth Environmental Service Award for 50+ hours of service to the enviromment.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't think it has to be any more specific, as far as dates and such go, than that. Also, keep it all on one page. This is easily done now with word processing, as you can always shrink the font a bit. Give each sport and activity a separate entry, and you can also list and explain miscellaneous awards (not related to activities, like cum laude) at the end.</p>
<p>My S didn't send a resume with his app. I don't think it's necessary. I'm not sure how/when it became a popular idea to send resumes. But, IMHO, if your ECs and accomplishments aren't too broad, you can fit it all in on your app.</p>
<p>I would keep it to one page by working with the format, font, margins, etc. After all, how much experience can a high school student have? If you have more than one page, you are probably putting in too much detail. Someone is more likely to read your resume if it is one page and in a easy-to-read format (ie, don't jam everything in 8 point font with half inch margins!). Organize your sections according to areas like "academic awards", "extracurricular awards", "volunteer activities", or whatever fits your life.</p>
<p>SOmethi9ng I have heard is to be sure and "bunch" up like activities- for instance, put all volunteer work under one heading, all sports under one heading, chronilogical order isn't what they want, they want depth...</p>
<p>clean and clear is better then stuffed and obtuse</p>
<p>My D would not be impressed with my quoting her work and putting in so many typos that aren't in her originals. Any other parents find that their fingers just don't work as efficiently as they used to? I hope that the kid's reading this give us some slack. (and when I quickly proofread, I don't even see the errors.) Which brings me to another point.
Be sure to have several people look over your activity list or resume and make comments as to clarity and accuracy!</p>
<p>But what about supporting it with some sorft of pictures an the like?</p>
<p>I'd love to see a sample essay, if at all possible!</p>
<p>And the problem I'm facing is that I'd very much like the adcoms to know about the national awards I have won, the activities (student goverment, newspaper founding etc.) and so on ... </p>
<p>I don't want to use my essays for that, since I simply don't want to list my successes - my essay should be about one or two main topics - that's not enough to cover all my accomplishments, I think!</p>
<p>My daughter didn't submit a resume, and got into all schools she applied to. I think that if they wanted one, they would ask for one! Less is more, IMHO.</p>
<p>I'm not sure why you would include a resume. The purpose of a resume, whether for a job hunt or other purpose is to introduce the candidate and develop interest. In this respect, you would put one together for a college coach or perhaps someone in a particular area like music, art, debate, or something else to see if they would have an interest in recruiting you and supporting your application. </p>
<p>What you seem to be calling a "resume" as just an extension of your application because you don't think you can get your most important accomplishments across effectively without it. I would urge you to work harder on the app to make sure you cover the most important accomplishments as strongly as possible. For the rest, I would suggest that you discuss it with your GC and see if he or she would include them in the GC recommendation. These items when mentioned by a third party can come across much more impressively than if listed by yourself. </p>
<p>You should give them the essence of what you are all about in your application and essays, and let the GC rave about you giving more details. That's how we did it (with many thanks to the GC who set this strategy) and it worked very well - not just for us, but for very many in D's senior class.</p>
<p>twking - You're not going to get a concensus on this. Still I admire your passion! I'll probably draw some fire for my perspective on this, but here it is anyway.</p>
<p>Any BWRK (Bright Well-Rounded Kid) is going to have done LOTS of stuff by age 18. Some of this the GC knows about, most the GC does not know about. So unless your GC is absolutely the tops, I think it's up to you to communicate your many wonderful accomplishments. Fortunately, the Common Application makes this easy. You fill in the data and "short answer" pieces and print out the result. Then you create your Supplementary Information sheet and attach before sending the whole package off together with the application fee. Granted, you may have to modify the format of the Supplementary Information sheet for those schools who require college-specific application forms, but that's not too difficult a task.</p>
<p>I agree that (in theory) the application should be trim and muscular, and that the GC should expand on this information to give colleges a "full picture" of the candidate. My D's experience did not support this theoretical view. I'm pleased for all the parent and students who were able to successfully utilize this strategy. But it's hard for a GC to put in his recommendation letter something like "Twking did not participate in sports at our school because he was training for the national XXX team, a quest that was unfortunately not fulfilled due to injury." </p>
<p>I just think that I'll have to think about that. But NewHope33's strategy sounds pretty good - even though I wouldn't want my school report to be a simple listing of my accomplishments ...</p>
<p>NewHope-- being new to this game, please explain the Supplementary Info sheet where you have apparently provided resume-like info. Where does this go? Is the opening to submit this on the Common App or is it on the college-specific Supplement (i.e., where the Supplement invites supplementary materials like arts or scientific works to be provided)?</p>
<p>My son filled in the blanks on the form AND (when it was permitted or not forbidden) attached a 2-page resume, referenced on the main application by (see attached resume). This worked really well.</p>
<p>Just remember that the resume should not present every trivial accomplishment and activity, but highlight the major and significant ones (most important first).</p>