<p>You, as parents had to create and polish your resumes in order to apply to jobs, graduate schools and so on.</p>
<p>What do you think a successful format of a resume would be?</p>
<p>Are you referring to a job resume or a college application resume?</p>
<p>I am referring to a college application resume. I just mentioned the job resume as an example of how most of the parents have been through a lot of resume producing in their lives.</p>
<p>There are lots of appropriate ways to format one - ask your guidance counselor maybe. </p>
<p>The point I want to make though is what I have heard several admissions people say - make sure the document really TELLS ABOUT YOU. Do not just list a bunch of activities with dates and hours! Make sure you actually SAY what you did or accomplished or learned for each experience. Also, make sure you list things in order of importance to you. Group together similar passions to show your strength in a certain area. (For instance, if you are a musician, list all your musical activities in one place and so on.) Do not clutter it up with a bunch up irrelevant stuff.</p>
<p>For a job, in particular, and maybe for a college app, the best format for the resume depends on the individual and what aspects of her background she most wants to highlight. There is no set answer.</p>
<p>Some are best formatted chronologically within headings (Education/Professional Experience/Other Activities/Publication). If Education is the best weapon in your arsenal, you lead with that. If your Professional Experience is strongest, lead with that, etc.</p>
<p>Some are best formatted totally differently, by function or topic. Eg, a heading on Financial Experience including both work/education/volunteer experience; another heading on Management Experience; another on FundRaising Experience etc.</p>
<p>Do what shows you best. Once you have the content, you can run it by someone to fine tune the format and organization, as well as fonts, etc.</p>
<p>The way my kids did it-
After their name, address, school, grad date, etc…(I’m not sure about the order)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Leadership- (student gov’t positions, team capt, clubs, etc, plus a very brief description of what the job entailed/or a highlight…also listed organizations such as county leadership org, Boy’s State, JKB, Rotary… with brief description)</p></li>
<li><p>Scholastic- NHS, Mu Alpha, etc; Awards won, academic teams/clubs/competitions, summer programs attended, optional- GPA, # credits/honors vs AP.</p></li>
<li><p>Athletics- teams, awards, letters, highlights such as ERA, BA, school records, tournaments won.</p></li>
<li><p>Fine Arts- organizations, chair, awards won, all-state, all-county, regional ensembles, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Community Service</p></li>
<li><p>Employment</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks a lot. I have an issue. A lot of my activities overlap. For example, many of my leadership activities fall under other categories. And my summer experience goes to work experience as well. Do I amalgamate them? Or to I separate them at the expense of one of the two? Because both work and summer experiences are very significant…just an example of the quandaries I am facing.</p>
<p>Edit: Do you think your kids were successful doubleplay?</p>
<p>I did something moderately different from the norm…</p>
<p>For my interviews I created a resume similar to what’s above, but far more succinct; essentially mentioning instead of elaborating. You’ll find that to be useful as some universities require their interviewers to get a certain amount of basic information from you before hand; and having this resume eases you into the interview, gives you and the interviewer something to begin with and has a nice professional touch. Note that some interviewers however don’t want anything to do with your stats and paper qualifications and instead want to talk about you, but that’s a discussion for another time.</p>
<p>For colleges I felt that as much of what would come in a traditional resume would already have been covered in the application and would therefore be redundant. As an international applicant (I believe you’re one as well?); I felt that the one part of my application that would be very unfamiliar to the admissions committee/need explaining was the extracurricular activity section.
Therefore I used the additional information section as a sort of resume cum explanatory page, essentially stating each activity and then writing a paragraph or two writing about why I was involved in it; and mentioning briefly my major accomplishments in that activity.
This was actually a part of my application that I liked quite a bit, because I was able to effectively write mini-essays about each activity and convey another sense of extracurricular activities (which are some of the hardest things to compress into the short character limited spaces you get, especially on the common app)</p>
<p>As far as arranging it so things don’t overlap-
I would try not duplicating, because it will look like you’re padding the resume. For example, my son put Team Captain for his sport under leadership, and did not include that under athletics. Instead, he put # years played, position, awards, ERA, stuff like that. He also umpired which could be put in either athletics or community service- he put it under CS. </p>
<p>It’s sort of an art. You do it any way that it makes you look good. Get someone to look at it when you’re done because sometimes you think it’s great and to the person reading it, it’s just a confusing mish mash. In a way, you are too close to the subject. It’s hard to “define” yourself. You want to present yourself in a way that people will remember who you are- like, “OH, that’s the trumpet playing pitcher. And he keeps himself busy doing other stuff too.”</p>
<p>That’s not to say that there won’t be plenty of other, sort of miscellaneous things on the resume that you still want to include. But you want to sort of highlight the things that will make people remember YOU. You don’t want them to just go cross eyed looking at a big list of ‘stuff.’</p>
<p>Once you’ve figured out what’s going to stand out on your resume, or define you, you can also play up those things in your essays. For example, my son talked about how studying music affected everything else he does, including the way he studies, the way he plays ball, etc. Or on the flip side, he could have talked about how pitching has affected the way he studies or performs music. In one essay he talked about umpiring- the good and bad, the disappointment with the way parents sometimes act, and how great it makes him feel when the kids are having a good time. In one essay he talked about how just going into his room and playing the guitar helps him unwind.</p>
<p>As far as success- do mean were they successful in getting into college? Yes, I’m not sure it was just because of their resumes though.</p>
<p>k_twin, I agree with you to some extent.
I have personally found the Common Application to be restricting, so I am working with the resume to add all the things that I cannot express in the Common Application.
But I do like the way you worked your extracurriculars into your essay. Perhaps I ought to think about that, though I still think my CV would be integral, and I am still adamant about it. And yes, I am also an international :)</p>
<p>Edit: Thanks for the comprehensive post
doubleplay
</p>
<p>I think you misunderstood me a bit there; I didn’t work my extracurriculars into my essay; instead I used the additional information section to, well, add some additional information about my ECs.</p>
<p>Don’t worry too much about the entire process; you’ve already done the real work over the past years, your applications and the rest of it’s just a medium for you to exhibit who you are to the admissions committee.</p>
<p>Yes, that is what I meant k_twin. But I think you got the point. Anyway, thank you all for some excellent posts. Any additional information would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Everyone has given you good advice. The main thing to keep in mind is that a resume should be succinct and it should make you look as good as possible. Brief job descriptions are very useful. Nothing should be duplicated. Another simple set of categories might be: school activities, work experience (can be both volunteer and paid), awards.</p>
<p>Is a resume absolutely necessary? Wont you get enough room to list all youe ECs on the app?</p>
<p>The space is incredibly limited. Plus, in a resume you can “advertise” yourself much better I believe. The Common Application clearly does not satisfy the criteria set by stellar universities, hence the many supplements to the common app. I personally think that when a student really wants to put forward himself, the seven spaces available to list your extracurricular activities do not suffice. And as I have posted on another thread, a resume can also hurt your application. If it is not succinct and cohesive, it can decrease your chances. But that is exactly why I have been working with mine for so long, because if I get it wrong, it can be a major fallacy.
But overall, I believe it is a great advantage, as long as you can manage to put it together nicely.</p>