Going to College is both an exciting and an overwhelming chapter in life. Education is essential, but many students worry about what to pay for university. To assist cover the cost of tuition and other college expenses, many students look for college scholarships.
Many scholarships are fiercely competitive and demand a carefully constructed application to be a recipient. Students who want to make a great first impression on scholarship selection committees must understand how to build a strong college scholarship resume. Resume samples do exist online, and they do help you outline your resume. But for more knowledge, let’s talk more about writing your scholarship resume.
What is a Scholarship Resume?
A scholarship Resume should showcase your academic and professional interests and aspirations to let the scholarship selection committee better understand you and why you would be a good fit for their support. Although submitting a scholarship resume is not often required for college applications, most of them allow you to do so willingly. Graduate students can write a scholarship resume, create a graduate school resume, or even Ph.D. applicants. However, scholarship resumes are often for high school students preparing to start their first year of college.
The first step in obtaining the desired scholarship is updating your resume. You can use your scholarship resume as a guide when completing your college applications and scholarship entry forms. You can be sure that you won’t miss any crucial details from your scholarship resume, which could help you get your desired scholarship or get accepted to the college of your choice.
What should be the content of your scholarship resume?
- Contact Information. It tells the admin how to contact you, so don’t forget to always include your name, phone number, email address, and address (city or state should be fine). Remember to put your active contact information. Knowing you were in the running for a scholarship but lost out because they couldn’t reach you would be the worst feeling in the world.
- Objective Statement. It’s a concise essay outlining your academic achievements, job aspirations, and motivations for returning to school. Your goals, successes, and interests are part of your compelling introduction at the top of the page. You should emphasize your solid academic background and record, extracurricular activities, job objectives, and (most crucially) how they fit your motivation for further education in your scholarship resume objective.
- Academic Experience. In addition to learning about your educational objectives, the committees that choose scholarship applicants will require a thorough analysis of your academic background to determine why you are a strong candidate for the scholarship you want. List the most relevant educational experience, the institution’s name, dates of attendance, study subject, and GPA.
- Awards and Achievements. You can highlight any outstanding accomplishments in your academic career to the scholarship selection committee by including awards and accolades on your scholarship resume. You can list the following awards: Dean’s lists, Academic honors (science fair, subject-related, etc.), Publications in a student magazine, Non-academic awards, Volunteer awards, Academic/professional societal affiliations, and Previous awards for scholarships.
- Volunteer and Work Experience. It describes your volunteer and employment history, including the name of the employer or organization, dates, position title, and tasks or obligations. Members of the scholarship committee prefer to see well-rounded individuals who have active lives inside and outside the classroom. You might not have much work experience yet, though, if you’re like most students applying for scholarships. If that’s the case, keep in mind that your work experience section isn’t required to only include jobs with a salary component. Additionally, you can list internships, club activities, and volunteer work.
How to write a scholarship resume?
- Set up each section. You should start by including your contact information at the top of your resume, including your name, phone number, email address, city, and state. Then give each area of your resume a heading. The purpose statement, academic experience, awards, honors, and volunteer and job experience sections should all have headers. To make each area of your resume easy to distinguish, each heading should be slightly different from the rest.
- Write your objective statement. As mentioned above, this part is brief, but you tell your goals. Highlighting a solid academic background, involvement in extracurricular activities, and your motivations for continuing further education should be the main goals of this section. Clarify academic accomplishments and describe particular goals and ambitions to employ data that quantifies and supports your claims.
- Do the rest of the section using reverse chronological order. When adopting reverse chronological sequence, start each section with the most recent experience pertinent to the topic and move backward. Don’t forget to include the details that will best demonstrate why you are an excellent fit for the scholarship you want.
- Proofread and Save. Check your finished scholarship resume for spelling and language mistakes, and ensure all the material is current, correct, and relevant. When done, save your resume as a PDF file to preserve the formatting.