graduate application resume sample

How To Build a Good Resume for Graduate School

Why a Good Resume Is Essential for Graduate School Applications

Building a resume for grad school, how to write a resume for grad school, additional resources, frequently asked questions about crafting a professional personal statement.

Earning your master’s degree can increase your lifetime earning potential, open up a wider variety of career opportunities, and check an item off of your bucket list. But first, you have to get in. Learn how to craft a resume that increases your chances of getting an acceptance letter with this graduate program resume writing guide.

Helps you stand out in a competitive field

Graduate school is competitive. While your resume is just one part of your total application package, it could be the element that sways the admissions panel one way or the other. A well-crafted resume showcases your qualifications and academic potential and helps distinguish your application from those of other candidates.

Demonstrates academic and professional preparedness

A comprehensive graduate school resume includes both your academic and professional accomplishments to show the admissions committee that you are likely to succeed in your program. Your resume should include your undergraduate degree and GPA as well as all relevant work experience, as both are factors of consideration for your application.

Supports your application narrative

A standard graduate school application includes the application form itself, a resume or CV , a statement of purpose, and letters of recommendation from employers or professors. All of these documents need to work together to present a narrative of who you are as a graduate school candidate.

The resume plays a critical role by combining all of your experience and education into one concise document that summarizes your achievements. A resume that highlights your outstanding professional experience or volunteer work can even make up for applying to a lesser-known school or having a lower GPA.

Contact information

Best practices for a grad school resume include providing your full contact information on your resume. This should include your name, including a middle initial, phone number, and email address. If relevant, add a link to your LinkedIn profile. While you don’t need to include an address on a grad school resume, it’s not a bad idea if you have room in the header.

Aliya Jackson (123) 456-7890 [email protected] New York, NY 12345 LinkedIn | Portfolio

Resume summary

The resume summary is the first section at the top of the document. It should provide an overview of your academic and career accomplishments and indicate your interest in this particular program. Ensure that it includes keywords or qualifications that apply to your field of study.

Ambitious, recent multi-disciplinary college graduate with degrees in business administration and computer science. Proven performer with experience as a junior software developer at Microsoft, with success in significantly lowering software bugs by 25%, and as a business administration intern at Johnson & Johnson, focused on lowering operational costs by 10%. Dedicated to continuous learning, networking, and professional development.

Education section

The education section should list your undergraduate academic experience. Unless it is extremely relevant, omit information from your high school. List your degree, major, GPA, and any awards or accolades, such as graduating summa cum laude. 

An academic resume for graduate school can also include relevant coursework. If you’re applying for an MBA, for example, a class that covered entrepreneurship or business ethics is worth highlighting. 

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Business Administration, June 2022 Columbia University, New York, NY GPA: 3.9 | Summa Cum Laude

Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Computer Science, May 2020 University of Syracuse, Syracuse, NY GPA: 3.8 | Dean’s List (2018, 2019)

Relevant experience

A graduate school resume should also include your professional experience. This includes research projects, internships, and a traditional work history. For each position, provide the role title, employer, and dates of employment. Include a bulleted list of responsibilities and achievements, starting each item with a strong action verb. Highlighting research on a grad school resume can be especially helpful, as many of these programs require ongoing research work in your field.

Junior Software Developer, Amazon, New York, NY June 2021 – present

• Contributes to software development, maintenance, and troubleshooting tasks on client software applications
• Collaborates with multidisciplinary team to design user-friendly interfaces by applying the latest web development strategies
• Reduced bugs in software by 25% within the first few months of joining the team, resulting in a more seamless UX and improving customer satisfaction ratings by 32%

Business Administration Intern, Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, NJ June 2019 – May 2020

• Assisted team leads in preparing quarterly business performance reviews and updating company databases, improving operational efficiency by 15%
• Actively participated in the corporate decision-making process, suggesting cost reduction strategies that helped save the company 10% in operational costs during nine months
• Managed scheduling for team meetings and events, improving interdepartmental communications

Skills section

The skills section is a short bulleted list of your top five to seven relevant skills. For example, if you’re applying to an IT program, listing programming languages is a good idea. This section goes well in a sidebar list where it complements but doesn’t overshadow your experience. 

• Complex problem-solving
• Information systems
• Operational strategy
• Project management
• Software development, maintenance, and troubleshooting
• Technology auditing

Publications and presentations

If you’re presenting a CV with your application, it will contain a list of publications and presentations. These can be harder to fit into a standard resume, but you can narrow it down to the most relevant or prestigious or separate it into a different document to include with your application.

Publications and Presentations

Lopez, C. (2023). Integrating Digital Media in Traditional Art Education . Presented at the Annual Art Education Conference, Los Angeles, CA.

• Delivered a presentation on the benefits of blending traditional art techniques with modern digital tools, attended by over 200 educators.

Lopez, C. (2022). Exploring Differentiated Learning in Art Education . Published in Journal of Art and Education .

• Focused on strategies for adapting art education to different learning styles, contributing to ongoing discussions in differentiated instruction.

Volunteer work and extracurricular activities

Including volunteer experience and extracurricular activities on your resume shows the admissions committee that you’re a well-rounded student and can demonstrate dedication to the field and sought-after leadership skills.

Here’s a section that aligns with the advice for Volunteer Work and Extracurricular Activities:

Volunteer Work and Extracurricular Activities

Volunteer Art Tutor , Radford School District After School Program, Radford, VA January 2018 – July 2021

• Developed and led art projects for K-12 students, fostering creativity and engagement in a structured, educational setting
• Mentored students in exploring various art techniques, contributing to a 15% improvement in student participation rates

President , Gamma Phi Beta Sorority, University of Southern California September 2020 – May 2022

• Led a chapter of 60 members, organized fundraising events, and coordinated volunteer initiatives, raising $10,000 for local arts programs
• Promoted leadership development through workshops, increasing member participation in leadership roles by 25%

Tailor your resume for each program

While it can save time to have a graduate resume template to use as you apply for different programs, it’s important to tailor the resume to each one before you send it out. Adjust the content, formatting, and language as needed to meet the specific requirements of each program and show you’re the type of student they are looking for.

Examples of how to tailor a resume for grad school include adding specific coursework to show that you took electives in line with the program’s focus or moving your relevant work experience higher up on the document.

Use action verbs and quantifiable achievements

Being a strong communicator is required for success in any graduate program, and your resume is your first chance to show these skills to the admissions committee. Choose strong action verbs, such as “published,” “collaborated,” and “spearheaded,” for your professional experience, and be specific about why you’re applying to this program in your summary.  Where possible, include numbers and stats to quantify your professional achievements.

Keep your resume concise and relevant

Four years of undergraduate work plus your professional experience is a lot to cover in one resume. Focus on the aspects of your academic and professional career that are most relevant to the program. Remember, you will have room to expound on these items or include anything that didn’t fit in your statement of purpose.

Generally, a traditional graduate school application resume should be one to two pages maximum. If the program requires a CV, these are often longer to accommodate lengthy publication and research project lists.

Organize your resume for readability

Use headings, bullets, and other formatting tools to separate text, making your resume easy to skim and visually engaging. A healthy amount of white space is also necessary to avoid the resume feeling cramped or having text that’s too small to read.

Recent College Graduate Resume Template and Example

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Business Administration, June 2022 Columbia University, New York, NY

Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Computer Science, May 2020 University of Syracuse, Syracuse, NY

Certifications

• Certified Governance of Enterprise Information Technology (CGEIT), Information Systems Audit and Control Association, 2021
• Project Management Professional (PMP), Project Management Institute, 2023

Professional Experience

• College Resume Examples and Templates for 2024
• Recent College Graduate Resume Examples and Templates for 2024
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A standard resume format works well for graduate school, but it may require some formatting adjustments to prioritize your education. You could start a good grad school resume with the education section directly after the summary and then lead into your professional experience, skills, and other projects.

A graduate school resume differs from a traditional job resume in that the focus is evenly split between your academic and professional accomplishments. More space is allotted to special projects, academic coursework, and publications.

Your graduate school resume should coordinate with the rest of your application, such as the statement of purpose or letters of recommendation. If you mention a research project on your resume, you can provide more details on what you learned and how it contributed to the field in your statement of purpose. Adding a letter of recommendation from the project supervisor provides additional information.

Executive Resume Writer and Career Coach

Andrew Stoner is an executive career coach and resume writer with 17 years of experience as a hiring manager and operations leader at two Fortune 500 Financial Services companies, and as the career services director at two major university business schools.

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Gre prep online guides and tips, 4 successful graduate school resume and cv examples.

Crafting the perfect resume or CV for graduate school can be difficult to accomplish if you don’t have a graduate school resume sample to refer to. To help you construct your own high-quality resume for graduate school, we’re offering you  four original resume and CV samples  to use as examples.

First, we’ll explore what features make a great graduate school resume. Then, we’ll provide you with our own graduate school resume examples, giving you tips on what to include on your resume and how to showcase your strengths. Finally, we’ll leave you with our picks for the best online resources for graduate school resume and CV samples.

What Characteristics Make a Great Graduate School Resume or CV?

One easy way to make your graduate school application stand out is to create a compelling, eye-catching resume . But in order to ensure your resume will be memorable, it must be:

Graduate school resumes should highlight all of your major academic and professional experiences and accomplishments —  particularly those most relevant to your field of study . This means you should tailor your resume to your field of study and avoid padding it with too many irrelevant experiences. (That said, some programs may ask you to include your entire professional history, irrelevant positions and all. In this case, don’t leave anything out!)

In addition, don’t go overboard with your descriptions . Each entry (even those that are highly relevant to your field) should only contain as much detail as is necessary without devolving into verbosity. Generally, anywhere from two to four bullet points per entry should suffice.

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Clear and Easy to Follow

Structure is also an important feature of a graduate school resume. All resumes should include a header with your name and contact info ; clearly defined sections with headings; descriptions (usually as bullet points); and page numbers if your resume exceeds one page.

I also recommend arranging your entries in reverse chronological order (most recent to earliest). This way admissions committees will know right away what you’re currently working on as well as what your most recent experiences and accomplishments are.

Professional

The resume is a professional document and isn’t an opportunity to get overly creative. It’s perfectly OK to customize your resume, just as long as you’re adhering to the basic rules of professionalism : use an easily readable font (such as Calibri, Tahoma, or Times New Roman), stick primarily to black and white, and avoid inserting clip art or any other extraneous shapes and images.

Free of Errors

Finally, a great graduate school resume is completely free of errors . This means there are no errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, or formatting. (You can eliminate the potential for formatting errors by saving your resume as a PDF. Most graduate schools prefer PDFs anyway!)

Moreover, your resume should  abide by all of your program’s rules , including page limits, header and footer requirements, etc.

Graduate School Resume and CV Samples

Now that we know what makes for an excellent graduate school resume and CV, let’s look at a few high-quality samples. Graduate school resume examples are helpful resources because they give us ideas as to how to organize our resumes and what to include on them.

Below, we give you four original graduate school resume and CV samples . Each sample is unique and offers a variety of features you may incorporate into your own resume, if desired.

We’re also giving you one annotated graduate school resume sample and one annotated sample CV for graduate school . These annotated samples each contain notes explaining what features make them strong contenders for graduate school.

Graduate School Resume Samples

• Graduate School Resume Sample PDF
• Graduate School Resume Sample Annotated PDF

Graduate School CV Samples

• Sample CV for Graduate School PDF
• Sample CV for Graduate School Annotated PDF

Additional Resources for Graduate School Resume and CV Samples

In addition to the four graduate school resume and CV samples above, there are a ton of resume samples you can access for free online. To find high-quality samples, we recommend going to  university websites, specifically university career center webpages , as these are most likely to offer you direct guidance on resume and CV writing.

Before we proceed to the resources, however, note that a majority of the following resume and CV samples are actually  job oriented . The major differences between job-oriented resumes and graduate school resumes are the focus and the use of references. Graduate school resumes and CVs typically emphasize education and do  not  contain any references (since you’re already supplying letters of recommendation).

In spite of these differences, though, you should still be able to use some of the samples below as inspiration for your own graduate school resume or CV.

The Best Resources for Additional Grad School Resume Samples

Here are our picks for the best online resources for graduate school resume examples.

Through its Career Services department, UPenn offers a wide array of resume samples  for both those who’ve completed undergrad and  those who’ve completed additional graduate education (master’s degrees, Ph.D.s, etc.). Each of the graduate-level resume samples contains detailed commentary on key features and areas that could be improved.

This PDF focuses on how to write resumes if you’re a current master’s student (but can certainly be used for those applying to graduate school, too). The four samples are on pages 5-8. Each resume contains helpful introductory information explaining the purpose of the resume and how it’s organized.

Elon University

This university offers several high-quality resume samples for various career paths, including the arts and humanities, the sciences, education, and business. It also offers a generic graduate school resume  sample, which you can use to get a feel for the kinds of sections or topics you might want to incorporate into your own resume.

The Best Resources for Additional Grad School CV Samples

Here, we give you two top-notch resources for CV samples.

UPenn’s Career Services department offers a large variety of CV samples in addition to the resume samples listed above. Although all of the CV samples are geared toward employment purposes (they were all submitted by Ph.D. holders), they’re still solid resources you can use as models while crafting your own graduate school CV — especially if you’re entering the science, engineering, or math sectors.

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University of Illinois

This PDF offers two full-length CV samples and instructions detailing how to write a CV and what to include on it. Note that both CV samples are employment oriented (they both contain references and Ph.D. work); however, you can still use the general layouts of the samples to help you come up with ideas for your own CV.

Summary: Graduate School Resume and CV Samples

Most graduate school applicants will need to submit either a resume or a CV along with their graduate school applications. This is the only opportunity you’ll have to summarize  all of your academic and professional achievements in a single document.

But how can you ensure your resume or CV will impress admissions committees? Generally speaking, a memorable graduate school resume will be one that’s:

• Focused without straying too far into irrelevant territory
• Clear and easy to follow, with a header, headings, and bullet points
• Professional, with easy-to-read fonts and a basic color scheme
• Free of errors in regard to grammar and formatting

Resume and CV samples can help you figure out how to structure your own resume or CV  and give you tips on what kinds of sections and topics to include . We’ve provided you with four original resume and CV samples you can use as references while drafting your own resume or CV for graduate school. For additional samples, try browsing university websites and career center webpages.

Remember, if you can produce a compelling graduate school resume, you’re bound to leave a positive impression on admissions committees! So don’t be tempted to slack off with the resume portion of your application — it could very well be what ultimately entices a school to accept you.

What’s Next?

In addition to samples, we’ve got a quality collection of graduate school resume and CV templates — and they’re entirely free for you to use!

Need tips on what to include on your resume or CV?  Read our expert guides on  how to write a graduate school CV and how to write a graduate school resume !

When should you apply to graduate school? What do you need to apply?  We answer all of these questions and more in our articles on graduate school requirements  and graduate school deadlines .

Ready to improve your GRE score by 7 points?

Author: Hannah Muniz

Hannah graduated summa cum laude from the University of Southern California with a bachelor’s degree in English and East Asian languages and cultures. After graduation, she taught English in Japan for two years via the JET Program. She is passionate about education, writing, and travel. View all posts by Hannah Muniz

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7 Grad School Resume Examples [& Templates]

Grad School

Best for senior and mid-level candidates

There’s plenty of room in our elegant resume template to add your professional experience while impressing recruiters with a sleek design.

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Like this template? Customize this resume and make it your own with the help of our Al-powered suggestions, accent colors, and modern fonts.

• Grad School Resumes
• Grad School Resumes A-M
• Grad School Resumes N-Z

As a graduate student, you’ve dedicated years to the pursuit of knowledge and the betterment of the world. And if that weren’t enough, you’re paying the bills and building your expertise along the way.

But even though you can tackle research and jobs with a cool head, writing an effective cover letter and grad school resume can feel like a shot in the dark. How are you supposed to know what to include, and how can you showcase all your skills without going over a page?

We’ve created seven grad school resume samples based on the best resume practices for grad students . These examples have helped scholars make a resume to get job interviews at prestigious universities, private corporations, and federal laboratories across the country.

Grad School Resume

or download as PDF

Why this resume works

• We’d recommend using a  resume outline  to structure your thoughts initially—just jot down everything you can think of. Then go through and narrow it down so it contains only the essentials.
• Then you can  format your resume  so it’s easy to read and pleasing to look at. Don’t forget to keep your section headers distinct with a different font and color.
• You can include metrics about any rates you improved (like efficiency or time saved), the amount of grant money you helped earn, your GPA, how many publications you produced, or the number of people you worked with or assisted.

Graduate School Resume

• If the institution caters to a specific subject like history then mention how you’ve used your skills to truly pursue excellence in this field via projects, internships, etc. Decided to study when everyone else was partying? Don’t be shy! Showcase your academic brilliance by adding a high GPA of at least 3.75.

Grad School Application Resume

• Whether it be scoring an internship at a big company like NVIDIA or even using your skills to create various solutions, ensure you highlight the best parts! Let the university recruiters know your desire and ambition to contribute to society by pursuing higher studies there!

Biology Grad School Resume

• An objective is best if you’re changing careers or have only a few years of experience in your field. If you have over 10 years of experience, use a  resume summary  instead.
• Make sure your objective is personalized for every job application by including the specific job title, company, and relevant skills each time you submit your resume.
• For example, what areas of research are you familiar with? How did you assist with experiments, and what were the results of your research? Did you improve lab processes in any way, and if so, how?

Nursing Grad School Resume

• Quantifiable metrics can include patient satisfaction, the number of successful procedures you performed, how accurately you filled out paperwork, and number of patients you cared for per shift.
• Before you submit your application, always  check your resume  so it’s completely free of errors, like present tense verbs, missed commas, and typos. You’d be surprised by what you can miss on the first few revisions!

Psychology Grad School Resume

• Hiring managers use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to streamline the initial stages of applicant cuts. The ATS catches keywords in your resume and matches them to skills preselected by recruiters. If you don’t include enough skills in your resume, you’ll be eliminated. So, read the job description to add similar skills in a dedicated skills section.
• We recommend adding six to eight skills in your skills section to demonstrate your technical capabilities.
• Getting a job in psychology isn’t easy, so if you’ve got any special licenses or certifications, add an optional “certifications” section to your resume to show off your credentials.

SLP Grad School Resume

• While you can certainly list those skills in your skills section, it’s best to include them both in your skills section  and  in your work experience bullets.
• Explain how you used those skills to make a positive impact on your patients and in your workplace. Always think of the “how” questions and try to answer them in your resume for the strongest effect.
• Including your interests can make you more personable to the hiring manager, which is vital when the hiring team considers who they’ll interview!

Related resume guides

• College Graduate
• College Student
• Entry-Level

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