While a resume for a career will focus on work history, a college resume should focus on academic experience and successes, as well as extracurricular and volunteer activities related to the major you are applying for. The admissions counselor who is viewing your resume views your prior school performance as an indicator of how you will perform in college. While extracurricular activities show you as a well-rounded individual, and work experience may show your maturity, those skills are not completely valid proof of your future college success.
Online resources serve as great examples of what a high quality college resume ought to look like. Sites such as www.curriculumunits.com or www.resume-help.org and books such as such as "The Complete Idiot's Guide To The Perfect Resume," by Susan Ireland and "The Resume Catalog: 200 Damn Good Examples," by Yana Parker provide tips and templates of good ideas on how you can construct your resume. If you don't feel capable of producing your perfect college by yourself, there are companies such as www.getinterviews.com or www.resumewriters.com that will write your resume for you. For a fee, you simply provide personal data such as GPA, volunteer activities, AP classes and academic leadership experiences and they do the writing and formatting for you. Be sure you shop around for the best price if you are going to use a professional service. Also, be sure the service you choose specializes in college resumes, rather than IT and executive resumes.
Be sure your contact information is at the top of your resume. Use an email that is mature and generic. If you have a silly or controversial email get a new one with just your name and initials to use just for college resumes. Under your name, address, phone and email comes your high school or any trade schools you attended. Put the diploma or degree and the school name. Write any types of accomplishments, awards and achievements that differentiate you from your peers. If you have a GPA over 3.0 or a high class ranking, list them.
Have organized sections such as "Extracurricular Activities" or "Work Experience." Detail special projects you've been involved with such as science fairs, beach clean-ups, and tutoring. Try to transform accomplishments into points related to your major. For example, if you are an Environmental Studies major, you would detail beach clean-ups you were involved in. If you are a Political Science or Psychology major, you would want to type more details about you leading the group, defining the team's goals during the clean-up, if you resolved communication and interpersonal problems during the task.
End the resume with any awards, recognitions and trophies you won. Be sure to have both academic and other adults that can be used as references. Double check your resume for spelling and grammar mistakes.