When it comes to your college resume, be sure to take it seriously. Your college resume outlines the activities you have participated in during your high school career. Whether it be sports, clubs, leadership positions within a club, enrichment activities, awards/honors, academic achievements, hobbies/skills, work experience, and community service they should all be featured on the resume. This is where you can tell colleges about yourself outside of the classroom.

It is never too early to start working on your college resume. You could even be working on it and not realize it. If you’re a freshman it is a wonderful time to start. Broaden your horizons and join a club or two.  If you are going to join club, be sure it is something that you are interested in and not just something you choose to be a part of solely because you want to fill up your resume. I remember being a freshman not knowing what clubs to join and what activities to partake in. But then I saw the Curtis Log and thought it might be a good idea to try my hand at writing an article. I am currently a senior and I am still on the staff.

Now, there is a lot of hype about participating in as many events as possible, but if you do too many things, chances are you aren’t committing much time to any of these activities. What you should do is establish a long-term commitment to as many things as you can; just don’t bite off more than you can chew. It is perfectly okay if you only participated in few activities, clubs, or sports-just as long as you have remained committed to those things. Ask yourself these questions: What is this club/activity about? What is done here? Does this interest me? Why does it interest me? Can I commit to this? Does my schedule permit me to participate?

When it comes to community service, you should be doing it. Not only does it help your college application, but also benefits your community. In many cases, this can earn you scholarship money or organizations may write you a letter of recommendation. There are a plethora of places to do community service, but it is up to you to find them. Typically, people volunteer at hospitals, soup kitchens, or as tutors in an after-school program (depends on what your preference is).

In regards to enrichment activities, it can be very helpful to participate in a couple (you don’t have to, but it can be really helpful). Enrichment activities are programs geared toward helping you gain early exposure to a specialized field of interest such as law, medicine, engineering, business, language etc. The list goes on. The college office is a great place to seek out these opportunities.

One thing I will warn you about is that some enrichment activities require you to pay money to participate. I know people who received a letter in the mail saying they were specially selected for a certain program and the letterhead has a really nice medallion indicative of ¨wow what an honor!¨ Many of these things cost between $1000-$5000+ and promise to enhance your resume and stand out in your college applications. DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! IT IS A RIP-OFF! (well for some of these you can apply to have these fees waived, but it doesn’t happen for everyone). There are so many enrichment activities (with a lot of prestige) that you can do for FREE. For example the Museum of Natural History has free programs for high school students and so does Weill Cornell Medical College, Memorial Sloan Kettering, and Rockefeller University.

I can’t emphasize enough about the importance of enjoying yourself in these endeavors. During my freshman year, I joined the track team, but discovered that I didn’t really care for the sport. I’ll admit that I even blew off practices until I finally told the coach that I just wasn’t interested anymore. This was a time for me to explore my interests and the track team happened to be an unsuccessful exploration and that’s okay.

Keep folder of all the things you have done both achievements and extracurricular activities . So when it comes time to actually structure your resume to submit for applications, it will be easy because everything will be on hand.