How Do I Design a Brag Sheet/Résumé?
The brag sheet/résumé/extracurricular activities list is a way to compile all of your activities to demonstrate your interests and leadership skills. A résumé should be between one and three pages. It highlights the clubs, organizations, work and summer experiences, and community service in which you participated. You can also list any honors or awards, including honor societies, sports awards such as Most Valuable Player (MVP) or Most Improved Player (MIP), subject awards, participation in contests or competitions, and other accomplishments.
The résumé should be an honest reflection of all of your activities inside and outside of school since ninth grade. It can include activities you plan to continue or pursue in twelfth grade. Your résumé needs to show a progression of activities and a demonstrated passion for one or two areas, such as science, math, community service, leadership, music, writing, etc. If you can do so, you may want to present a unifying theme tying together many of your activities so your participation in an activity or club makes sense. So for example, if you have a passion for science, being a judge in a middle school science fair, entering science competitions, founding a science research club in your school, and tutoring peers in science are all linked in some way. If you don’t have a clear passion or interest in something, that’s okay.
Some colleges want you to list your activities in order of their importance to you, and others leave the order up to you. You can list your activities in chronological order or you can start with activities in which you had a leadership role. Take the same care in preparing a résumé that you would in completing your essay and the rest of your application. A well-designed résumé can give admissions counselors a clear window into who you are and what you care about.
TIP: Some colleges verify activities which students list on their brag sheets, so don’t be tempted to exaggerate your accomplishments.
Tips for Creating a Brag Sheet
“Students help themselves most when they send a concise and comprehensive list of chief activities, passions, and accomplishments. List the activities in order of depth of commitment and importance to you. Do not inflate your level of involvement. Do not join clubs just to have another listing on the brag sheet/résumé. Admissions officers can always see through that strategy.”–Paul Marthers, EdD, Dean of Admissions, Reed College
“We look to see what the student has added to their high school experience. We’d rather see a ‘short’ list of activities that the student has enjoyed in depth, rather than a ‘long’ list of activities that the student has only just joined in the junior/senior year likely to beef up their application to college. Are they a leader, do they work well with group projects, have they given of their time (other than what’s required by the school) to do something for others? A student who has had to work to help support their family may not have a long list of activities, but the work they’ve been doing shows that they can shoulder responsibility, can learn new skills, and can work to the best of their ability at whatever that job entails. That can be just as important as the list of clubs or sports that many applicants can talk about. If a student has not found activities of interest to them in their school surroundings, they can tell us about their community or religious activities such as scouting or volunteer groups.”–Joan Isaac Mohr, VP and Dean of Admissions, Quinnipiac University
Cliffsnotes Roadmap to College Copyright © 2009 by Karen Wolf. All Rights Reserved. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
