A quick resume pointer Forum

[Tip Walker]

TLS,
I've read "don't include anything from high school on your resume," but I was co-captain of the varsity hockey team my senior year in H.S. and played varsity football as well.
The strength in my app is going to be my LSAT and my resume (a quite prestigious national award for writing, lots of political involvement, lots of volunteer experience), and so I'm selling myself not quite as a nerd (although I would if I could), but a bright well-rounded young man.
I don't have a high school section or anything, but under interests I list sports (I coached H.S. hockey while in college so that appears on my resume already) and am considering throwing in "varsity football, co-captain varsity hockey" in brackets after "sports" appears on my interests. Some thoughts condemning this or affirming it would be appreciated. To any hockey fans, the notion of co-captains might sound strange but just ignore it. Regards,

Tip

[20160810]

Listing HS sports on your LS resume is going to make people think you're one of those pathetic guys who keeps reliving his high school glory days into his 30. Further, it's irrelevant by almost any definition of the word. Don't do this.

What you can do, however, is, as you seem to already have kinda done, just throw general mentions of those sports under "interests." Your interests section should be 1 or 2 lines at most, at the bottom of your resume, and shouldn't mention specific high school sports you've played, but it's fine to throw hockey and football on there generally.

I have football listed as one of my interests, and it did come up every now and again in interviews and provide some decent fodder for conversation. Bear in mind that for admissions purposes however, nobody is going to give even 1% of a shit about your high school sports experiences. You're going to be going up against hundreds of applicants who played D1 sports in college - if adcomms care about sports, it'll be those kinds of experiences, not high school.

[3ThrowAway99]

nobody is going to give even 1% of a shit.

I imagine the only exception to this would maybe be if you had something truly phenomenal (like a nationally recognized honor or achievement- olympic medal type stuff) that occurred before your college days..

[Tip Walker]

I agree it doesn't matter that you played sports in high school, pretty much everyone applying to law school did, but I think having captaincy on a varsity team says a little about yourself and that's the whole point of a resume. It's not really there to impress people, just to give some more information so the adcomm's can have a more accurate picture of who I am as an applicant, or so that's my reasoning for including it. If it's taboo then of course I'd leave it off.

[ahduth]

Don't dilute the rest of your application by including something from high school.

[things fall apart]

Unless it was something phenomenal (being on the U19 USA hockey team), I say leave it off.

Its like if you won state in mock trial in HS, I don't think they give a ****. It was a regional thing and HS to some of your future classmates and some adcomms is over a decade past them. I think it will subtract the legitimacy of your resume and to me it would look like your resume is just a list of activities you did to look good on said resume.

[20160810]

I agree it doesn't matter that you played sports in high school, pretty much everyone applying to law school did, but I think having captaincy on a varsity team says a little about yourself and that's the whole point of a resume. It's not really there to impress people, just to give some more information so the adcomm's can have a more accurate picture of who I am as an applicant, or so that's my reasoning for including it. If it's taboo then of course I'd leave it off.

Being the captain of your hockey team says nothing that adcomms will care about. At all. Seriously don't put this on your resume, it's incredibly unprofessional. You can get away with a personal interests section, but that's it.

[Helicio]

I agree it doesn't matter that you played sports in high school, pretty much everyone applying to law school did, but I think having captaincy on a varsity team says a little about yourself and that's the whole point of a resume. It's not really there to impress people, just to give some more information so the adcomm's can have a more accurate picture of who I am as an applicant, or so that's my reasoning for including it. If it's taboo then of course I'd leave it off.

Being the captain of your hockey team says nothing that adcomms will care about. At all. Seriously don't put this on your resume, it's incredibly unprofessional. You can get away with a personal interests section, but that's it.

Agreed.

Ability to play hockey does not equal ability to succeed in law school. If you want to look well rounded, maybe include it in an essay (and as a very, very brief sidenote).

[krad]

I agree it doesn't matter that you played sports in high school, pretty much everyone applying to law school did, but I think having captaincy on a varsity team says a little about yourself and that's the whole point of a resume. It's not really there to impress people, just to give some more information so the adcomm's can have a more accurate picture of who I am as an applicant, or so that's my reasoning for including it. If it's taboo then of course I'd leave it off.

Being the captain of your hockey team says nothing that adcomms will care about. At all. Seriously don't put this on your resume, it's incredibly unprofessional. You can get away with a personal interests section, but that's it.

[Tip Walker]

It's not the ability to play hockey, but more the ability to lead a determined, motivated group of your peers that I think adcomm's would care about, or so that's the reasoning for including it in brackets after 'sports' under interests if I decide to. Not considering including anything else from high school - had a ton of volunteer hours and community involvement, but of course I've been out of high school for 5 years now, so why would an adcomm care about that.
They might care about your ability to lead a group of your peers, and that you can work well and lead within a team, and also take direction from your superiors (thinking about once you leave law school, a smart law school want grads that can excel at whichever firm they go to). I had other leadership roles in college, one was quite significant, but didn't play any sports aside from intramurals.
Thanks for the pointers, TLS,

Tip

[EricBerry]

I disagree about not listing HS sports captaincies on law school resumes (unless you've been out of HS for 5+ years). Being named captain of a varsity team has nothing to do with athletic skill (the captain of my football team was a third stringer) and everything to do with leadership and other qualities that would be impressive to law schools. I bet none of you would leave out an academic award from freshman year of college, but you'd say it's "unprofessional" to mention an honor you earned just one year earlier in HS? It seems like such an arbitrary distinction. I'd probably leave it off on a professional one-page resume if I needed the space for other information, but I don't think there's any reason not to include it on a resume with no page restriction. I can tell you that 5 high-level business leaders in a 5-person mock panel interview that I had recently shared that sentiment.

[ahduth]

What if you were the captain of the debate club?

[EricBerry]

What if you were the captain of the debate club?

I definitely discussed my debate awards from HS in my law school resume.

[Rand M.]

What if you were the captain of the debate club?

I definitely discussed my debate awards from HS in my law school resume.

I was Captain of the debate team in high school, and definitely did not include it in my law school resume. Including things from high school calls into question the amount you accomplished in the four years of college. Surely you can fill that page with stuff from just those four years. And nothing you did before that is going to show an adcomm anything that's really all that impressive. You may think it will, but it probably won't.

[EricBerry]

What if you were the captain of the debate club?

I definitely discussed my debate awards from HS in my law school resume.

I was Captain of the debate team in high school, and definitely did not include it in my law school resume. Including things from high school calls into question the amount you accomplished in the four years of college. Surely you can fill that page with stuff from just those four years. And nothing you did before that is going to show an adcomm anything that's really all that impressive. You may think it will, but it probably won't.

Sure, don't include it if it's a one page resume or if you're using it to compensate for a lack of accomplishment in college. Most of the schools I applied to encouraged applicants not to limit their resume to one page. I felt that winning several national circuit tournaments with more than 200 competitors was an accomplishment well worth throwing at the bottom of the second page. Especially since success in debate hints at several qualities of a successful law student. It won't be a major addition to the application, but I definitely can't imagine it hurting you.

[SisyphusHappy]

Sure, don't include it if it's a one page resume or if you're using it to compensate for a lack of accomplishment in college. Most of the schools I applied to encouraged applicants not to limit their resume to one page. I felt that winning several national circuit tournaments with more than 200 competitors was an accomplishment well worth throwing at the bottom of the second page. Especially since success in debate hints at several qualities of a successful law student. It won't be a major addition to the application, but I definitely can't imagine it hurting you. I'm hoping throwing around HS titles will distract adcomms from everything I didn't do in college.

FTFY.

[EricBerry]

Sure, don't include it if it's a one page resume or if you're using it to compensate for a lack of accomplishment in college. Most of the schools I applied to encouraged applicants not to limit their resume to one page. I felt that winning several national circuit tournaments with more than 200 competitors was an accomplishment well worth throwing at the bottom of the second page. Especially since success in debate hints at several qualities of a successful law student. It won't be a major addition to the application, but I definitely can't imagine it hurting you. I'm hoping throwing around HS titles will distract adcomms from everything I didn't do in college.

FTFY.

I have no regrets about college. 4 jobs, community service, fraternity leadership, student organizations, tutoring, etc. Average softs, but I definitely had plenty to talk about in my resume outside of high school.

[Ragged]

OP, don't do this. I played "serious" HS sports and won some awards as well and the only place I put it was..... the interests section of the app.

I know you don't like the answers you are getting and are probably still very proud of playing hockey in HS as you should be I guess, but the reality is that it can only hurt your app and will definitely not help. It's your call though.

[BrownBears09]

So, say you were elected to a leadership position on a nationally ranked high school team and garnered a number of regional accolades. After, you decided to to continue the sport on a collegiate level. Eventually, you develop into a vital role for that team, in effect garner additional accolades, and achieve feats unlike any other team in the history of your school.

Why would this obvious line of leadership skills (equating to maybe 1-3 lines in total) be seen as harmful on a relatively fresh from UG resume?

[ahduth]

So, say you were elected to a leadership position on a nationally ranked high school team and garnered a number of regional accolades. After, you decided to to continue the sport on a collegiate level. Eventually, you develop into a vital role for that team, in effect garner additional accolades, and achieve feats unlike any other team in the history of your school.

Why would this obvious line of leadership skills (equating to maybe 1-3 lines in total) be seen as harmful on a relatively fresh from UG resume?

By giving the adcom a clear sense of how the applicant is not very far removed from high school.

[EricBerry]

So, say you were elected to a leadership position on a nationally ranked high school team and garnered a number of regional accolades. After, you decided to to continue the sport on a collegiate level. Eventually, you develop into a vital role for that team, in effect garner additional accolades, and achieve feats unlike any other team in the history of your school.

Why would this obvious line of leadership skills (equating to maybe 1-3 lines in total) be seen as harmful on a relatively fresh from UG resume?

Because it was high school, dude. It's totally fine to mention that honor society you joined freshman year in college, but mentioning a national award from senior year of high school is just unprofessional!

[HowdyYall]

I disagree about not listing HS sports captaincies on law school resumes (unless you've been out of HS for 5+ years). Being named captain of a varsity team has nothing to do with athletic skill (the captain of my football team was a third stringer) and everything to do with leadership and other qualities that would be impressive to law schools. I bet none of you would leave out an academic award from freshman year of college, but you'd say it's "unprofessional" to mention an honor you earned just one year earlier in HS? It seems like such an arbitrary distinction. I'd probably leave it off on a professional one-page resume if I needed the space for other information, but I don't think there's any reason not to include it on a resume with no page restriction. I can tell you that 5 high-level business leaders in a 5-person mock panel interview that I had recently shared that sentiment.

no, if he had natural talent as a leader he wouldve had some sort of college activity or club position that showcased this intrinsic trait

[BrownBears09]

So, say you were elected to a leadership position on a nationally ranked high school team and garnered a number of regional accolades. After, you decided to to continue the sport on a collegiate level. Eventually, you develop into a vital role for that team, in effect garner additional accolades, and achieve feats unlike any other team in the history of your school.

Why would this obvious line of leadership skills (equating to maybe 1-3 lines in total) be seen as harmful on a relatively fresh from UG resume?

By giving the adcom a clear sense of how the applicant is not very far removed from high school.

Obvious bitter non-athlete is obvious.

[dextermorgan]

Listing HS sports on your LS resume is going to make people think you're one of those pathetic guys who keeps reliving his high school glory days into his 30. Further, it's irrelevant by almost any definition of the word. Don't do this.

Yeah, don't be this guy:

[hokie]

To OP, coming from someone who was captain and MVP of their HS team [and nationally ranked], don't do it. What I have learned through my experiences has been that listing any achievements in HS (with exception to truly unique experience like the olympics or something) degrades the "quality" of the resume. However, it is a great topic to talk about in interviews and even better to segway into it through a current piece on your resume (club sports, similar leadership position in fraternity, etc.). But for your resume, definitely a big no-no