Writing a CV or Résumé for Graduate School
Graduate School applications often require you to submit a CV or résumé. This page shares some general advice on how to create such documents. However, this general advice may not be applicable to every situation or discipline, so it's best to consult with trusted mentors in your field in addition to the advice here.
What's the difference between a CV and a Résumé?
In our view, there are 3 types of document you should know about: traditional CVs, résumés, and grad school CVs.
Traditional CVs: CV" stands for "curriculum vitae"(which is Latin for "course of one's life," roughly translated) and refers to an old-fashioned, long-form résumé used by established academics (i.e., instructors, professors, administrators) to apply for academic positions. CVs can be quite long. For example, some academic "rock stars" have CVs that are 20 pages or longer, listing their teaching appointments, publications, students they supervised, and many other achievements. Also, CVs generally have minimal formatting and lack bullet points or descriptive paragraphs for listing accomplishments. In most cases, you would not submit this kind of CV as part of a graduate school application. See this blog post by the writing expert and trained anthropologist Dr. Karen Kelsky for more information on traditional academic CVs.
Résumés: Résumés are generally used to apply to non-academic jobs. Good résumés list all the experiences that qualify you for the particular job you're applying to, and nothing else. In other words, don't think of a résumé as a summary of everything you've ever accomplished. Instead, think of it as a summary of your qualifications for a particular job. Résumés are usually 1-2 pages long and use bullet points or brief paragraphs to list key accomplishments for each work experience listed (these accomplishments should be relevant to the job you're applying to). See this article by the technical writer Jack Molisani for more information on job-search résumés.
Grad School CVs: Graduate school applications will sometimes use the terms "CV" or "résumé," but what they usually want you to submit is what Karen Kelsky calls a "CV-résumé hybrid" and what we'll call simply a "grad school CV." In other words, they usually want a shorter document (2-3 pages at most) with minimal formatting (no garish colors; no photographs or emojis) but with bullet points explaining details or accomplishments for each experience (e.g., work, laboratory, clinical, or volunteer position) listed.
What should a grad school CV include?
As stated above, different disciplines and programs will have have different priorities. So, use your best judgment along with the advice of trusted mentors in your field. However, the following is a rough guide to the categories or headings that will be included in most grad school CVs:
- Education
- Research Interests (if applicable)
- Publications (if you have them)
- Conference Presentations
- Research Experiences
- Teaching Experiences
- Skills/Trainings (e.g., languages, specialized software)
- Professional Organizations
- Honors & Awards
Obviously, if you don't have anything to put under one of the headings--for example, you don't have any research experience--or one of the headings is irrelevant to your field, you can omit it.
Also, notice that the headings are listed in order of importance; since graduate school is an educational experience, the first heading is almost always "education," in which you list the previous degrees you have earned. Less important headings, like honors or awards, will be listed further down on the page.
How do you know whether a heading is important? You should ask yourself: Is the information under this heading likely to play a big role in whether I'm admitted or not? If the answer is "yes," then the heading is important and should be listed closer to the beginning of the document; if the answer is "no," then the heading should be listed lower down.
So, if you're applying to grad school in a field like clinical psychology, which usually requires applicants to have research or clinical experiences, then anything related to such experiences (e.g., volunteering at a clinic, working in a research lab, or presenting your research at a conference) should be listed higher on the page. On the other hand, relatively minor achievements, like being honored as a "student of the month" or placing on the Dean's list, are less likely to play a major role in admissions and can thus be placed lower on the page. As impressive as these achievements are, it's hard to imagine an admissions committee member thinking, "I wasn't considering this applicant, but now I know that they were on the Dean's list for two semesters, I'll have to reconsider."
How should a grad school CV be formatted?
The Graduate Center has compiled several resources that can help you format your grad school CV:
First, you can download this Word doc template (direct download link) that uses tables to organize the CV into columns.
Second, this video from Microsoft explains how to create such tables from scratch, as well as how to make the table gridlines invisible.
Finally, the Graduate Writing Specialist's CV-résumé page has a wealth of resources related to CVs and résumés, including samples, handouts, and instructional videos.
How can I get more help with my grad school CV?
The Graduate Center is available to provide feedback on your résumé/CV for graduate admission by appointment. You can also submit your materials using the "submit your draft for review" button at the top right of this page.
