Resume for Students: How & When to Start It

When you apply to colleges, the college will ask you to explain what unique things should make your student stand out to them.  I suggest that you begin to start a resume by 9th grade. Resume for Students: How & When to Start It Click To Tweet

You can use this for brainstorming these things during all of high school. It will help you see what areas you are lacking in and what areas you’ve done well in so far.

When To Start a Resume

Do I mean that you should start it in 9th grade? YES. Absolutely.

Why? Because when you get to Senior Year, you are not going to be able to remember all the things that happened in 9th grade! Time is going to fly by and you will be better prepared if you start it now and add to it every 6 months as you go!  At the beginning of Senior year, the college applications go live and it’s time to start applying. If you have your resume all ready, you can just copy and paste from it and put the info right into your applications. This way, you can be sure you’re not forgetting anything important because you’ve already proofread it several times as you’ve been working on it throughout high school.

What Should We Record on the Resume

1. 1. 1. Activities outside of school work
      2. Awards received
      3. Highlights of best test scores
      4. Academic achievements (Example: National Latin Exam awards, Dual Enrollment College GPA)
      5. Sports
      6. Music (Example: Taken piano lessons and performed in recitals and at nursing homes since 5th grade.)
      7. Honor societies
      8. Leadership positions
      9. Clubs
      10. Ministry or volunteer work/church involvement 
      11. Travel
      12. Mission Trips
      13. Special interests (Example: if you are into robotics and you did a robotics camp or project.) (Example: maybe you sew and you made a quilt.)

Download your Free PDF of a Resume Planning Document

Click here to download your free PDF of a Resume Planning Document.  Start now to build your student’s list of awards and involvement in activities and groups. [Tweet “The sooner you start your resume, the more complete it is likely to be.”]  One of the resources that helped me when I was creating our first resume, was this book: High school Prep Genius. You can see where I reviewed it here. 

Hope this helps you in creating your first resume!  Let me know if you need any help or have any questions!

Blessings,

Michelle