<p>I think it shows your interest if you do send in a resume. Not to mention colleges often have no clue what your ECs mean. A resume helps them in that area.</p>
<p>Hmm... yes, this is true... should I send it with my secondary school reports if I am applying online do you think?</p>
<p>Also, do you think that what I have heard from some people applying to yale should be heeded a bit more "A thick application means a thick applicant?"... as in dont send one in?</p>
<p>I don't understand the point of a resume? I explained my extracurriculars in more detail in the "Additional Information" section. Besides, anywhere I've read about resumes everyone says NO.</p>
<p>I agree that it is better not to have a resume. It makes the application too repetitive, and nobody needs to know all of the details of each activity. The titles are usually self-explanatory, and you can give a short explanation on the activities list. Write about the more important one(s) in your activities essay or a supplementary essay.</p>
<p>People always think resumes are an opportunity for you to make your activities look impressive, but think about the perspective of an adcom who has looked through thousands of applications. There are many people who participate in the same type of activity, and thus they are very familiar with most ECs. So, if you think writing "Multi-Cultural Experience in Spain" will benefit you instead of writing "Trip to Spain", you are wrong...adcoms know that you are just trying to dress something up for more than it is. I think resumes look pretentious and are unnecessary, unless your ECs are very unique and you feel that the adcom might not know what you are talking about. Even then, like shainaloves suggested, put it in an "Additional Info" section instead of putting it in a resume.</p>
<p>On the other hand, (short) resumes may be useful for submitting to teachers that you are asking for recs, local scholarships, etc. I don't hate the idea of a resume but I do when it isn't necessary.</p>
<p>I dont think it is pretentious at all. It gives the admissions officers a good run down of your interests. On my application I did not explain my ECes in the actual app but attached a resume and even a cover letter to my portfolio that i sent to the college im EDing. I wondered about this as well and consulted my GC, my dad (did admissions at caltech as a postdoc), and a friend of my mom's who works at Columbia and is on the admissions committee. All three said that a resume is a good idea and a cover letter even better to declare your interests especially for top schools</p>
<p>well, it depends on personal preference. i think if you want to do a resume the least you could do is to fill up the one given first. don't just write there "see attached".</p>
<p>Well the additional information would be on like a separate page one way or another. Basically it will just be three things. The App, the Essay and the Resume. I think it is a more elegant way to present it than with just an App filled with tidbits about what your ECes are. I dont know about others but I want the adcom to look at my app, have a decent idea what i am about even though it isnt very detailed, look at my essay and get a better idea. Finally it comes to my portfolio. My resume reiterates my interests in greater detail (not too much, too much is bad i agree). Then they see my actual works. Finally they read my cover letter (ppl usually read it last) which is basically declaration of interest in the college.</p>
<p>It comes down to that a 1-2 page resume in a good format is a good thing in my oppinion. Anything over that is a little bit too much.</p>
<p>What if you dont have any crazy crazy ECs... but still find it difficult to inlude all. I would much prefer to write out "I volunteered at such and such place, and did such and such... and went on such and such mission and such and such," than writing 'Church Volunteer services"... maybe put that stuff in additional if you are a bit short of phenomenal on ECs?</p>
<p>Bump.
I have 2-3 extracurriculars that I feel are fairly uncommon and 2 are national level, so I want to be able to explain them better.
Would it be acceptable if I kept the resume quite short, to a little less than a page, just to elucidate on the depth of some of these EC's? Especially considering how awfully short the common app space is.
As for the essay idea: I did do that to some degree, I would use my activities as topics, but clearly using that as a place to LIST other things you did in that Ec would be counterproductive.
I am applying RD to: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, UPenn, Pomona, Vanderbilt. Do any of these schools really hate the idea of the resume? Do you think it would on balance benefit me to submit a resume (I'm not going into a lot of details but suffice to say I have a national-level awards in debate and speech, and national level leadership in service/community action organizaitons).</p>