A High Schooler’s Guide to Writing Resumes (Part 2): Context that Counts

In Part 1, we built the foundation for your resume — a clean structure, the right layout, and formatting choices that make you look polished and professional.

Now that your structure is set, let’s fill it with impact. This is where your resume stops being just a list of activities and starts telling a story about who you are, what you’ve done, and why someone should give you a chance.

Crafting a Powerful Summary or Objective

Your summary/objective sits right under your name and contact info. Not everyone needs one, but it can be a game-changer in two situations:

• You have limited experience and want to frame your strengths up front.

• You’re targeting a specific role or program and want to show you’re a match right away.

  
  

The 3-Sentence Formula to use:

1. Who you are – e.g., “High school junior passionate about computer science and design”

2. What you bring – e.g., “Experienced in Python, Java, and leading peer coding workshops”

3. What you seek – e.g., “Looking to apply technical and leadership skills in a summer internship program”

In general, keep it tailored. For example, if you’re applying for a research position, emphasize analytical skills. If it’s a creative role, highlight design or storytelling strengths.

Writing Impactful Bullet Points

This is where most resumes sink or swim. Instead of just listing duties, focus on action and results.

Use strong action verbs to start every bullet. Some examples are: led, engineered, organized, mentored, developed, designed, and coordinated.

Also add metrics whenever possible to make your contributions measurable, for example:

• “Increased club membership by 30% in one semester”

• “Graded 200+ assignments while providing detailed feedback”

  
  

You should use the Situation–Action–Result framework:

• Situation: Brief context — what was the problem or role?

• Action: What you did to address it.

• Result: The measurable or visible outcome.

  
  

  Example: “Organized a school-wide hackathon (Action) attracting 120+ participants from 5 local schools (Result) to foster collaboration in coding (Situation).”

Showcasing Projects & Clubs

Don’t underestimate how valuable school projects, competitions, and club leadership can be on a high school resume. The trick is to distill each experience into 2–3 impactful lines.

Example (annotated): Founder & Lead Organizer – CatHacks | 2024–Present

• Launched nation-wide hackathon (Role & Action), attracting 600+ students from 12 countries (Result)

• Coordinated event logistics and sponsorships, securing $1,000+ in prizes (Impact)

  
  

If it’s something like a research project, you can do this:

Example (annotated): Independent Researcher – Cancer Detection | 2023–2024

• Developed a deep learning model achieving 95% accuracy (Technical skill)

• Presented findings at regional science fair, winning 1st place (Recognition)

Skills & Certifications

When describing your skills, you should include both hard and soft skills. Hard skills are technical abilities, such as coding languages, lab techniques, design software, and foreign languages. Soft skills are people-oriented abilities such as leadership, communication, and problem-solving.

There are two ways to format:

• Comma list: e.g., “Python, Java, Adobe Photoshop, MATLAB”

• Skill-bubble layout: visually separates each skill into its own “tag” or small shaded box (modern look, works better in PDF format)

If you have certifications (Google IT Support, Adobe Creative Cloud, CPR, etc.), list them here with the year earned.

Proofreading & Consistency Checks

Before sending your resume anywhere, do a final quality control pass:

• Tense consistency: Use the present tense for current roles (“Organize weekly meetings”) and the past tense for past roles (“Organized weekly meetings”).

• Parallel structure: All bullet points should follow the same grammatical pattern.

• Spelling & grammar tools: Run your resume through Grammarly or a similar checker, but also do a manual read-through to catch formatting oddities.

Extra tip: Read your resume out loud, as it's easier to spot awkward wording that way.

Wrap-Up

Your resume should now have both structure (from Part 1) and substance (from Part 2). Together, they form a document that’s not just a checklist of activities, but a compelling highlight reel of your skills and potential.

When you sit down to apply for your next internship, job, or program, you won’t be scrambling to remember what you did last summer or how to describe it. Instead, you’ll already have a living document you can tweak and tailor with confidence.

And here’s the best part — as you take on new challenges, you’ll start thinking about your activities in terms of impact and results. That mindset will make your future resumes even stronger.

But even the best resume can fall short if it’s not tailored to the opportunity in front of you. That’s why in Part 3: Tailoring & Delivery, we’ll walk through how to customize your resume for specific roles, make it ATS-friendly without losing its human appeal, and use smart submission strategies to get your application noticed.

By the end of this series, you won’t just have a strong resume — you’ll know how to deliver it in the right way, to the right people, at the right time.

About the Author: I'm Jophy Lin, a high school junior and researcher. I blog about a variety of topics, such as STEM research, competitions, shows, and my experiences in the scientific community. If you’re interested in research tips, competition insights, drama reviews, personal reflections on STEM opportunities, and other related topics, subscribe to my newsletter to stay updated!