How to Write a College Resume? 8 Tips to Help You Get Started

When applying for college, you’ll be tasked with writing a specialized type of resume, the Common App Activities List. Permitting 10 entries with specified categories and character limits, this list gives you far less room for variation in formatting and writing style than an independently drafted resume.

The Activities List carries a lot of weight—this is the main section for you to “show off” everything you’ve accomplished in high school and demonstrate the impact you’ve had on your school community and beyond. In order to write an effective Activities List, there are clear tips and tricks to keep in mind that allow you to leverage this format to your advantage. 

In this article, we’ll run through 8 key things to keep in mind when writing your Activities List, from ordering your activities to using the Additional Information section. 

1. Provide quantifiable details 

Many activities or achievements are common among high school students, and overrepresented among candidates. But, of course, not all levels of participation are the same. The ways you engage with a given activity can be phrased in a very generic fashion that will make it hard to stand out among other applicants.

Though descriptive details are helpful, they aren’t objective—their relevance and significance can be open to interpretation, especially for evaluators unfamiliar with what top performance looks like in a given activity.  

So, to avoid ambiguity and best prove your success, the most effective strategy is to employ quantifiable details—impressive numbers and statistics can be universally understood, no matter one’s level of familiarity with an activity or experience. Provide the regularity with which you practice or compete in an activity. If you win an award, specify how many competitors you were up against. If you formed a new club, include the number of members you recruited. Objectively impressive numbers and statistics will help turn a resume entry from good to great!

2. Think about activities broadly

Students often view the Activities List as solely a place to provide extracurriculars, limiting entries to traditional involvements such as school clubs, athletic teams, research programs, or music study. However, the actual scope is much broader. Colleges are interested in seeing any activity that was important to you, on which you spent a great deal of time, or where you built up achievements, even if it’s not a “standard” extracurricular activity.

This can range from independent non-academic pursuits to family responsibilities. For example, if you have a successful YouTube account with thousands of subscribers and views, this will be impressive—even if it’s on a non-academic topic. Or if your parents work late and you babysit younger siblings every night, this is also valuable information showing maturity and dedication to supporting others. So if you feel like the clubs you’re in don’t represent the scope of your non-academic commitments, make sure you’re not leaving out important context!  

3. Take advantage of the Organization Name 

The Common App Activities List provides 100 characters for describing the Organization Name, far more than is usually necessary for the name of a club, organization, or responsibility. Though one might assume that the rest of the character count is irrelevant after the official name has been written, there’s actually more that can be added. 

Providing context on the organization can both save space in the “Description” section and add important clarity to the entry. Some organization names do not clearly describe the organization’s goal or what involvement looks like. Rather than saving this context for the resume entry, you can add it to this section. 

For example, ‘the Best Buddies nonprofit’ provides little information about what one actually does as a member. Instead of just writing out the name, an effective student might state: Best Buddies (1:1 friend & mentor pairing to peers w/ intellectual/developmental disability). This 92-character description makes the entry much more informative and gives the student additional space later on to provide details about how they supported their buddy. 

4. Be descriptive in Position/Title

In the “Position/Title” line of the Activity List, you’re allotted 50 characters to describe your role in the organization. Just like with the Organization Name, this simple-looking part of the resume can be used strategically.

In clubs for which you did not hold an official leadership position, still try to avoid writing basic roles like “Participant” or “Club Member” whenever possible. When your resume is being reviewed quickly, the reader may assume that you had limited involvement or impact on the organization. Even simple changes like modifying your Debate Team role from “Member” to “Public Forum Debater” can make a difference. In certain cases, you can be more creative in your description by defining the role you played in the organization, even if it wasn’t an official title. This should be done carefully—you should only add an accurate description, rather than fabricate a leadership position. 

One example: Let’s say for a club you were the de facto planner for club events. Maybe you booked rooms, delegated preparation tasks, got approval from administration, and put up posters across the school. It would be reasonable in this case to describe your position as “Event Planner/Coordinator.” On the other hand, if you were a club member who only attended the events or played a minimal role in planning, this would be an unethical descriptor. 

5. Use action verbs

Students can quickly minimize the significance of their resume entries by using passive language. Small word choices can have a large impact on how impressive your involvement appears. For example, writing that you “attend practices” for the debate team makes it seem like you play a limited role at these meetings. Maybe you show up, then mainly observe others or do work quietly. 

Using action verbs emphasizes that you are a committed participant in the group. Rather than just being a member, you add value to the club. An effective way of rewriting the example above might be “Debates teammates in weekly practice rounds, collaborates on policy research, writes 2 cases monthly.” In this entry, the reader gets a clear picture of what the student does as a club member, feeling confident in their level of commitment to the club.

6. Order entries strategically 

Unlike traditional resumes, the Activities List doesn’t require you to list involvements in reverse chronological order, as students are typically involved in multiple activities at the same time. So when you work on ordering your entries, place priority on the “most impressive” choices. These choices typically include leadership positions, high-level achievements, and long-term involvement. Since the resume will be read quickly, make sure to capture the reader’s attention with the most impactful content. If you’re the President or founder of a club with national reach, make sure it’s near the top. On the other hand, if you’re a member of a group that meets once a month with limited events or impact, this entry might be better to leave towards the end. 

7. Use “Additional Information” sparingly and strategically

At the end of the Activities List, the Common App provides a 650-word text box where students can add “Additional Information” that can strengthen the content of their application and the resume as a whole. This section is tricky, as it can work both to your advantage and disadvantage, depending on your approach. 

The Common App only permits 10 entries for a reason. It keeps the application at a reasonable length and encourages students to think critically about what experiences have been most important to them. If you’ve done more than 10 activities, don’t add resume entries here. If they wanted more entries, they’d have that option built in! 

So, what is worth putting in this section? You’ll need to think critically about this on a case-by-case basis, but relevant content can generally be broken into two categories. The first includes details of significant achievements that cannot appear elsewhere in the resume. For example, if you’ve completed high-level independent research, you might include a brief abstract of your work. Links to an online portfolio, successful social media, or publication may also be relevant.

The second category includes context about personal circumstances that may have negatively impacted your academic performance. During the height of the pandemic, students wrote about struggles such as serious illness in the family or insufficient income for stable wifi, both of which could significantly limit one’s academic performance. In other contexts, students may write about personal health struggles, financial instability, or increased responsibilities at home that detracted from their schoolwork. 

Note that you have absolutely no obligation to use this section; in fact, AOs will prefer you leave it empty than add extra material that reads like irrelevant or “filler” content. 

8. Opt for review services

To finalize your work and ensure it meets the standards of your top-choice schools, application review services can be very helpful external resources. These outside services can provide an objective opinion that avoids any bias that you or your peers may have. Additionally, application review services such as Early Bird typically employ college admissions consultants or individuals who have worked in college admissions offices, which allows them to give you feedback that directly addresses how an Admissions Officer would react to your materials. So once you’ve finished drafting your Activities List, consider these opportunities to find any last improvements to make. 

One other option – Lumiere Research Scholar Program

If you’d like to pursue a rigorous research program open to high schoolers, you may want to consider the Lumiere Research Scholar Program, a selective online high school program for students founded by researchers at Harvard and Oxford. Last year, we had over 4000 students apply for 500 spots in the program! You can find the application form here. 

Also check out the Lumiere Research Inclusion Foundation, a non-profit research program for talented, low-income students. Last year, we had 150 students on full need-based financial aid!

Alexej is a graduate of Princeton University, where he studied Linguistics, Cognitive Science, and Humanities & Sciences. Alexej works in college admissions consulting and is passionate about pursuing research at the intersection of humanities, linguistics, and psychology. He enjoys creative writing, hiking, and photography.