Old awards on a resume

October 21, 2010 7:58 PM

Should I include an old award on a resume/grad school application?

I'm 28 years old. When I graduated HS ten years ago, I received two prestigious national awards for my writing. One in particular is associated with an organization most people, even non-writer/artist types recognize, and are like, "Oh really?" about.

I'm putting together a resume/application for grad school. It's not an English program, but it is a language-based program, and I play up my past writing (creative and academic) skills in my personal statement.

Should I include these two awards on my application? They're big deals, and I'm proud of them, but I also don't want to look like I'm clinging to past achievements, or hung up on my old creative writing past.

posted by Ideal Impulse to Work & Money (12 answers total)

It's probably different in academia, but my initial reaction was "oh no, and I don't want to hear about your SAT scores either." If you can work the awards into your personal statement in an organic way

"Ever since I got Writer/Worker First Class at my collective farm in my senior year of high school, I've wanted to touch the lives of others with my prose...."

then why not? You earned the awards.
posted by Ideefixe at 8:16 PM on October 21, 2010

Response by poster: One of the awards, I should add, came with a big, fat scholarship. I don't know if that makes a difference.
posted by Ideal Impulse at 8:21 PM on October 21, 2010

I like Ideefixe's suggestion. It is kind of awkward to try to work something from high school into you resume (although to be honest I've been done it with some volunteer work I did in high school that I think is relevant to the kind of work I want to do now but haven't done since then - and I'm 26), but working it into your cover letter might be a good way around that?
posted by naoko at 8:28 PM on October 21, 2010

I don't know if this is relevant to the kind of program you're applying to, but one thing I really dislike in a personal statement for a PhD program in the human sciences is a chronological recitation of achievements. The first thing I like to see is a paragraph about what you think you'll be working on and how you see a fit with the program, e.g. which faculty you've read up on and appreciated. After that, I'm glad to read about what you've done in the past. The less important this is to who you are now, the more briefly and/or farther down you should address it, but including it is almost certainly OK if it makes sense at all.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 9:22 PM on October 21, 2010

I don't list anything older than college. I do list some major scholarships I had in college, but of course I was awarded them while I was still a senior. I think you should do that.
posted by grouse at 9:23 PM on October 21, 2010

Are you applying to a Ph.D. program? If so, I'll second Monsieur Caution's advice about your personal statement. It jibes with everything I've heard and with my personal experience: I was partially guilty of the achievement-recitation personal statement on my first round of grad school applications, which did not result in success.

List the scholarship on your resume (or on a separate awards and honors sheet, if that would work better), and maybe the other award if it's really impressive. If the awards turn out to be relevant to your personal statement, it's okay to mention them there, but probably not otherwise.
posted by Serf at 10:07 PM on October 21, 2010

Best answer: I think you should list them.

In all the (post-graduate school) grant applications I have put in, they ask you to list awards from the past 10 years. This fits into your past 10 years time frame (just barely), and if they really are national awards that people might have heard of, you should definitely put them in.
posted by lollusc at 10:07 PM on October 21, 2010

Best answer: if they really are national awards that people might have heard of

yes, this. If either/both are the sort of award that gets press coverage, (in science, an example would be the Westinghouse Science Talent Search awards), then definitely mention them.
posted by nat at 10:32 PM on October 21, 2010

Definitely include them, no question about it. Also, consider noting the amount of the award. This also looks good. It paints a picture of you as a person who consistently strived to exceed expectations. This is probably just the kind of person they're looking for.
posted by mateuslee at 6:01 AM on October 22, 2010

If you were awarded an award in high school that came with a scholarship for college, then you can reasonably put on your resume "2000-2004, xxx Scholar" instead of "2000, won the xxx Award."
posted by Maxwell_Smart at 7:11 AM on October 22, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks for the advice, all. I actually don't want to include it in my personal statement, since it doesn't really fit in to the narrative I have, and, as mentioned in previous comments, the format isn't really "these are the awesome things I've done," but "Here's the journey I took from English to Speech Pathology, and why I'm such a great fit for this program."

All the applications ask for a resume that includes awards and honors, which is where it makes the most sense to add.
posted by Ideal Impulse at 8:38 AM on October 22, 2010

I would list them. My advisor is 40. His CV still lists that he was a national merit scholar.
posted by juliapangolin at 10:38 AM on October 22, 2010