4 Fundamentals that Make Up a Successful College Resume

There are many important elements of the college application process to think about. Some of them—your current GPA, for example—are already set.However, there are important parts of this journey that you can still control. Your essays and your resume both give you a chance to tell your story in your own words.We’ve already focused on ways to help your writing. If you missed it, check out these great tips for writing a first draft. For now, let’s focus on how you can take your resume to a higher level. There are many different templates you can use, and some of our families find it easier to start with one. But regardless of the template, there are fundamental elements each college resume must execute properly to grab the admissions officer’s attention.Let’s take a closer look at them so you can write a more successful resume.

Strong Verbs

Each bullet point should convey some meaningful action you took. The reader should not have to guess the impact that you made.Stay away from passive verbs when crafting your resume. Likewise, search for the most precise verb available. Let’s compare the following two bullets that might be true of an athlete:

Captain of water polo team.
Organized voluntary summer workouts and team-only film sessions.

While it’s great to be the captain of a team or leader of a group, knowing how you helped cultivate that activity is much more valuable. Here’s another example, this time about community service:

Volunteer at afterschool program and worked with underprivileged kids.
Created individual math lesson plans for six 5^th graders in the afterschool program.

Clearly the second bullet is more valuable to the reader.In an early draft of your resume, make a list of your responsibilities within each of your extracurricular activities. That will help you organize your thoughts to choose a more precise and active description.If you need help, consult a thesaurus, or better yet, a professional who can assist you in fine-tuning your language.

Quantifiable Evidence

Wherever possible, support your statements with tangible achievement markers. This adds credibility to your resume and makes the reader take more notice of what you’ve done.List awards won, records broken, rankings earned, writings published, and promotions granted. Admissions officers will appreciate seeing how you’ve progressed over time.A friendly reminder: don’t fabricate evidence. Stick to what is true for you! Some students may be tempted to inflate the hours they spend doing certain activities or make up titles they didn’t actually gain.Avoid this trap. It’s not only unnecessary, it rarely works on a trained professional and in a worst-case scenario could make you appear dishonest in your application. Instead, focus on fully highlighting your passions by providing meaningful evidence.

Consistency

Style matters in a resume. You don't have to be overly creative, but the formatting of your resume should not be a distraction for the reader. Most importantly, your resume should maintain a professional look and tone.Make sure that every bullet point or column is properly aligned. And stick to one font for the entire document. Each heading should be bolded or underlined consistently as well.Think about it this way. The admissions officer who reads your resume is only going to spend a few moments looking at it. Do you want their time spent figuring out how to read it or digging deep into the content found within it?Make their job as easy as possible by properly formatting your resume, which includes checking for spelling and grammatical errors. Even if you don’t have pages of activities to list on your resume, you’ll demonstrate professionalism just by presenting a well-organized, mistake-free document.

Priority

Be sure to list the items on your resume in the order of importance for you (in other words, you don’t have to put them in chronological order). If you participated in six clubs during junior year, put the one that means the most to you first. Theoretically that will also be the activity where you’ve sought out the most leadership opportunities or had your greatest successes. Make it clear to whomever reads your resume what your passions are.This will make it easier for the overarching themes of your story to shine through. A successful resume leaves the admissions officer with deeper insight into your high school experience and equips them with solid evidence to use when they advocate for you in their committee.

Writing a Successful College Resume is as Easy as 1, 2, 3, 4 !

Now that you know the basics of what your resume must have, you are well on your way to wowing those admissions officers!Take pride in all that you’ve accomplished so far. Represent it well by using precise active verbs, including quantifiable evidence, maintaining consistency, and showing priority. For rising juniors and younger students, consider creating a resume now so you get an early start. This will also help you identify areas where you can increase your involvement and impact while there’s still time.The expert admissions consultants at Wise World Prep have helped hundreds of students maximize their potential of being admitted to their top choice colleges and universities. Over 20 years, we have successfully guided students through each stage of the application process – from choosing competitive high school courses to building an appropriate college list to drafting winning essays to writing persuasive update and appeals letters. We would be happy to answer your questions and partner with you to create a successful admissions roadmap.Ready to get started? Schedule a complimentary 20-minute conversation today!Want to stay informed? Subscribe to our newsletter.See what others are saying about us

Blog PostsAugust 8, 2019