Xatal

Your student resume, sometimes referred to as a ‘Brag Sheet’, is a collective list of all of your accomplishments as a student. When you fill out scholarship/college applications and ask for letters of recommendation, you’ll find yourself referring to it all the time, so it’s definitely best to get a head start on it.

My biggest recommendation is to add to it as you go. Keep a list saved on your computer of what you have done. If you take part in something that should go on the list, add it and save it before you forget. Of course, very few people are that dedicated — myself included — so chances are you’ll find yourself struggling to think of everything to write a good one at the last possible moment.

Not to worry!

The important thing is trying to remember everything you’ve done that’s noteworthy. Don’t worry about what’s applicable yet, you just want a nice big list of your accomplishments. You can always take some out based on the circumstances. Here are some aspects of your life to consider:

Academics

Pretty obvious here, but still. Are you a good student? List things like your class rank, GPA (weighted and unweighted), and classes you’ve taken. List any awards you’ve won for your academics — honor roll, maybe student of the month, etc.

Also think about any exceptional test scores you’ve had and/or awards earned from them. Was your SAT score rather high? How about your AP tests? State tests?

Extra-Curricular

Did you play any school sports? Were you involved in any clubs? Did you ever hold a leadership role, maybe in a club or in student government? Maybe you played in the school band or sung in the school choir. Try to think of any way you’ve helped your school out. Really stretch your memory here: these often hold a lot of weight.

Employment

Another extremely obvious one. Have you held a job? Write that down. It would also be good to write down some contact information for your old boss. Some applications might want him/her as a reference and you might find yourself struggling to find out how to get in contact.

Organizations

Are you a part or were you ever a part of any significant organizations? Maybe you were once a Boy Scout, maybe you were in a bowling league. Think of anything you were a part of — even if it was brief — and write it down.

Community Service

Have you done any volunteer work ever? If you did it for a school club or through another organization, that doesn’t count. Most people haven’t done a whole lot of community service, but if you have this will reflect on you very well. Think of any small roles you might have done as well. Maybe you were a volunteer moderator on an Internet forum.

Or maybe you did something through school. My German class used to teach elementary school kids basic German. Anything like that is fair game.

Extra

Have you done anything that makes you at all unique? Think of things you’ve done as a hobby. Were you part of your own band? Did you make a website? Have you ever played a big part in organizing something on your own? Extra things are great to have because they truly separate you from the crowd. You know how the 15 year old girl that starts her own business always gets “oohs” and “aahs” when she tells people? Exactly. You want those too.

Miscellaneous Skills

I couldn’t really think of anywhere else to put this, so it gets its own section. If you have any special skills or hobbies that are worthy of mention but not crowd movers, put those down too. If you’ve learned a musical instrument, that’s not exactly ‘unique’, but it does show dedication to a skill and is worth mentioning. Anything you’ve learned but never really put to use is fair game. Maybe you know how to perform maintenance on a car engine. Perhaps you’ve learned multiple foreign languages on your own. If you’ve learned something else and never put it to use, it might be good to list these as well.

Writing a quality list of your accomplishments is essential for many occasions. Try hard to remember anything you’ve done or been involved with that might help out.

Does anybody have anything I might have missed?