Lack of a resume Forum

[thedude221]

I spent most of my undergrad taking care of my sick mom so that made doing extra curricular activities difficult, should i mention that in my personal statement or will that look like im trying too hard to illicit sympathy?

[Sell Manilla]

Mention it in passing maybe?

[313D313]

I actually think this could be a positive. As applicants one of the problems we face is trying to differentiate ourselves from the crowd. in my opnion, the majority of the applicants are invloved in extra cirruclar activities but how many applicants do you think experienced a unique situation like yours? I barely have any extra cirruclar activities because i worked full time all through undergrad and i have 5 younger siblings that i was responsible for getting t to school and back on a daily basis as well as other responsibilities. (including financial)

As a result of this i am alot more mature than the average recent college grad and i have a different perspective on responsibilities and life in general. I think your situation is somewhat similar and if we can both put together a well thought personal statement that shows the lessons we have learned from our experiences i think it will be a plus.

[billyez]

This might be a little odd...but does anyone think this could be an addendum? If the OP doesn't want this to be his PS topic then a short addendum in regards to why he didn't have anything on his resume might be of some use. If you do have it in your PS, I think it would be good to have it stated in passing - something along the lines of how you had to sacrifice your desire to enjoy some aspects of your college experience in order to care for your mother - as long as it doesn't come off as being placed in there to mitigate a barebone resume.

To be clear, though, extracurricular's don't matter very much. Have a 3.9 and a 170 and see how much UT cares about extracurricular's.

[Knock]

This might be a little odd...but does anyone think this could be an addendum? If the OP doesn't want this to be his PS topic then a short addendum in regards to why he didn't have anything on his resume might be of some use. If you do have it in your PS, I think it would be good to have it stated in passing - something along the lines of how you had to sacrifice your desire to enjoy some aspects of your college experience in order to care for your mother - as long as it doesn't come off as being placed in there to mitigate a barebone resume.

To be clear, though, extracurricular's don't matter very much. Have a 3.9 and a 170 and see how much UT cares about extracurricular's.

I agree that it could work as an addendum. However, that is not to say that it couldn't work as a PS. If the OP has a better PS topic he/she wants to work with then I think a clear addendum would be the smart play. I think discussing taking care of your mother, as long as you focus it in the light of how it has made you grow as a person rather than making excuses, it could work well. As Billyez always says, you got to write it before we can tell you if it works.