A lot of students might think, ‘I’m still in high school, why would I need a resume?’ When you’re in high school and are planning to apply to colleges, you might be asked to submit a resume. If your college didn’t ask you for it while applying, you can give it to your teachers and they can go through it while they’re writing a letter of recommendation for your college application. A good resume has a huge impact on your college applications and may make a difference in getting an admit or not. Here are 5 things you need to know when writing your resume as a high school student:

• Structure it properly

There would be thousands of students applying for the same course you applied to and the admission council only has a few minutes to review each resume. Unless you have too many accomplishments or experiences to add, keeping your resume length to one page is an ideal thing to do. Include your name, contact information, achievements, work experiences, volunteering work, academics, sports achievements, and extracurricular activities. Structure it so that important information is always at the beginning. Use bullet points to make your resume look clean and organized. Separate sections of the resume with thin lines or spaces.

• Keep it to the point

If you’re adding experiences or activities, keep only the ones that you think would be relevant to the course you’re applying to. Don’t write paragraphs while describing what you did while volunteering or at a soccer game. Mention the key points such as the position, contributions you made, and the duration you worked for in bullets. You might’ve taken part in the school concert in the 4th grade but adding that wouldn’t be relevant would it?

• Use it to your advantage

If there’s something about yourself that you’re extremely proud of and haven’t gotten a chance to add it to any of your essays or applications, add it to your resume. This gives the university something different to look at other than what you’ve already mentioned in your essays.

• Use action and skill words

When you describe your work experience or activities that you did, use words like led, organized, designed, worked instead of ‘did’. This gives a stronger impact and emphasis on everything that you had included in your resume.

• Be you

You don’t have to include things that you didn’t do or skills that you don’t have just to make yourself seem like an excellent student. Eventually, they’ll find out and things won’t be the way you wanted them to be. Your resume should reflect who you are as a person for it to have an impact.

Start working on your resume right from the beginning of high school. This will make it easier for you to take a look at all the things you’ve achieved right and gives you enough time to tailor it for the course and college you’re applying to.