Extracurriculars and Resume

Varsity sports are based at schools while club teams are community based. Varsity athletes play for their schools and, while club athletes can come from the entire community and even broader. Clubs are perfect for athletes who want to push themselves to higher levels and to play off season from school sports. If you're planning on playing at your college or professionally, you will need to consider club sports.

Experience, experience, experience. You literally get experience within certain fields. If you're interested in video games, you can get an internship with a video game company. Though you don't paid, you come out way ahead with experience in the field. Unpaid internships help you try out different career fields. You can get as much exposure as you want. These internships can make you stand out in the college admissions' process, give you something to write about in your essays, and ultimately help you decide which career you ultimately pursue.

Resumes for college are not about jobs--they are about activities and engagement. Of course, jobs are not as they reveal maturity and responsibility. To make an impressive resume, you need to begin early with activities-in and out of school. Try different activities and commit to a few. Try to get responsibilities and show your leadership and initiative. You can built a resume through your willingness to participate in different activities.

The resume is vital to a college application. Whether it is a formal resume or an activity list, colleges are looking for students who have been active throughout high school. They want students to be active on campus. They are looking for where students show consistency, development, leadership, and initiative. The more you can show what you have achieved through power verbs and strong sentences is key.

Don't buy it. Colleges can smell fabricated or inauthentic resumes. You need to follow your passions. Don't feel you have to go overseas or attend expensive programs. Following your passions is key. Please spend time on crafting a real resume that is filled with your development through several activities during the school year and summers.

Passions, passions, passions. Colleges want kids who will actively engage in all campus activities. From your academics to your activities, you will be evaluated based on your commitment to what you do and you leadership and initiative. Some kids are outliers with outstanding athletic, artistic, scientific, or other talents. The rest of us try out things but try to make a difference through our commitments. Please do not sit still. Be active. Find out what you like to do. Experiment. Get a job. Volunteer. That's what colleges are looking for: authentic, active resumes.

If you can get a paying job in a field you're interested in, it's always helpful. However, if paying internships are not available and you have to work to make money for school, don't worry. You can get experience in your field through working with professors, doing special projects, applying for fellowships and possibly even doing an unpaid internship during the school year or summer if you can afford it.

Some colleges, generally state schools, are not particularly interested in a resume and make decisions mainly on the basis of GPA and standardized tests. However, for schools that are interested in extracurricular activities, your resume should show that your activities were long-standing and showed some depth and possibly leadership qualities. Don't just be a serial joiner of clubs. Join one or two clubs and try and become an officer or lead a project. If you feel that the leadership of school clubs is often a popularity contest, start your own school club or outside project. Schools like to see that an applicant has taken advantage of existing opportunities and maybe even created new ones. Engage in meaningful community service. If your school has a community service requirement, go beyond the hours required. This will show that you really cared about a project or population and weren't just doing it because of a school mandate.

If a school has indicated that they they welcome a resume, then by all means provide one. Some schools prefer to manage with the categories and blanks provided in their application. It never hurts to create a resume at this point in your career. You may need it to share with the person you are asking for a recommendation. You may need it for a scholarship application. Once you've created a template, it will be easy to continue to update over the years. You will be so happy when you really need one down the road.

Don't make something out of what doesn't exist. There are a lot reasons why students don't have work experience. Represent yourself honestly and save the "domestic engineer" label when you really were just a babysitter.