Grad School Resume: Examples & How to Write

A grad school resume should be included in your graduate school application to give admissions committees a better idea of your qualifications.

In addition to the grad school resume writing resources on this page, we have other resources to help you build a competitive resume for a grad school application here:

• How to Start A Resume
• How to Write a Resume
• Recent College Graduate Resume
• College Student Resume Example
• Recent Graduate Cover Letter
• Internship Resume Example
• MBA Resume Example
• How to List a Sorority or Fraternity on Your Resume
• How to List a Degree on a Resume
• Scholarship Resume
• Student CV Examples

How to write a resume for graduate school

Grad school resumes should focus on your education (relevant coursework, honors, awards, and accomplishments), internship/volunteer experience, and your skills relevant to the program you’re applying to.

Follow these tips to help you write a strong graduate school resume:

Write a resume objective for graduate school

A strong resume introduction will help you capture the interest of admissions committees and convince them that you’re the right candidate for their program. While there are several different types of introductions, a resume objective is the ideal choice for grad school applicants because you can use it to directly target a university’s hiring committee.

Resume objectives inform committee members about your achievements and goals without focusing heavily on your work history or specific skills (which you might be lacking at this point).

A graduate school resume objective is usually two or three sentences long, and should highlight your:

• undergraduate degree and grades
• provable hard and soft skills
• relevant internship/volunteer experience
• name of the program and university where you’re seeking admission

Here’s an example of a well-written graduate school resume objective:

Undergraduate Economics student (3.8 GPA) with proven leadership and research skills. Six months of international internship experience with the UNHCR. Seeking admission into New York University’s Master’s program in Economics with a specialization in Development Economics.

Write a detailed education section 

Your resume education section is one of the most important parts of a graduate school application because it gives hiring committees an overview of your educational achievements and background.

To put together an impressive education section, include the following information about your qualifications:

• Name of university or college
• College location (city, state)
• Graduation date (month and year)
• Degree(s) (including minors)
• GPA on your resume
• Awards or honors (such as magna cum laude on your resume)

Additionally, mention the Dean’s list on your resume if you made it more than twice or if you attended a particularly prestigious university (such as Yale or Stanford).

Here’s an example of a well-written education section for a graduate school resume:

Swap work experience with relevant coursework, internships, and volunteer experience

Your experience section is where you should highlight any important accomplishments on your resume.

If you’re like most graduate school applicants, you probably don’t have much formal work experience to list. In this case, your experience section should highlight any relevant achievements that demonstrate you’re a great fit for the program. This includes:

• The relevant coursework you finished during college
• Your internship experience(s)
• Volunteer work or extracurriculars
• Part-time or on-campus jobs
• Relevant study abroad experience

While applying to grad schools, make sure you only list coursework that qualifies you for the program you’re applying to. If your coursework isn’t relevant to the program, leave it off your resume.

Below is an example of how to list relevant coursework on your resume for graduate school:

Here’s an example of what internship experience on a resume looks like in a relevant experience section:

Volunteer experience demonstrates your commitment to serve society and highlights some of the skills you possess.

Below is an example of how someone with strong volunteer experience lists it on their resume for grad school:

Highlight skills you learned as an undergraduate

You don’t need formal work experience to show admissions committees you have a strong set of skills. Use your resume skills section to highlight the hard and soft skills you acquired as an undergrad that seem applicable to graduate school.

Through your coursework, part-time work, and extracurricular activities, you’ve likely acquired a variety of transferable skills, such as:

Hard Skills

• Computer programming languages
• Translation
• Proficiency in one or more foreign language(s)
• Photo Editing
• Writing and editing
• Research

Soft Skills

• Stress management
• Critical thinking
• Communication skills
• Efficient time management
• Leadership
• Public speaking

Graduate programs highly value candidates with a strong set of soft skills and technical skills, as these candidates are more likely to have the tools needed to succeed in a variety of environments and industries.

Graduate school resume template

Here’s a graduate school resume template that you can paste into Microsoft Word or Google Docs and fill out. It includes an outline for each section of your resume, and what information you should list.

Grad school resume examples

To help you construct a great grad school resume, here are two graduate school resume examples to take inspiration from.

Graduate school resume example (current undergrad)

Here’s an example of a grad school resume example written by a current undergraduate:

Graduate school resume example (recent graduate)

Here’s an example of a graduate school resume example written by a recent college grad: