High School info on Resume

[mssyAK]

In researching information about grad school resumes, I've come across conflicting opinions; do I write anything about high school on them or not? If I do, what should I include? GPA, honors and awards, or just school name, city, and years attended?

Very trivial, but really bothering me!

[AwkwardPants]

I definitely say no to the GPA/honors/awards part. School, city/state, and dates might be okay, but I don't really know if it's necessary.

[Eigen]

I had dropped most of my highschool stuff by my Junior year.

If you have some really prestigious awards, they might be worth putting on there, otherwise leave them off.

[aginath]

No need to list the school, GPA, or years attended. If you've gotten this far, then odds are good you actually went to and graduated from high school. If you really want to list any awards, place them with other awards and simply indicate the year received.

[newms]

Simply put, high school isn't relevant to grad school. So no, don't put any high school stuff on your resume.

[Eigen]

Simply put, high school isn't relevant to grad school. So no, don't put any high school stuff on your resume.

This is not strictly true.

We have high school juniors and seniors come to work in our labs every summer, and most of them do excellent work.

That kind of high school experience is certainly worth putting on a resume, as is anything else that directly highlights skills relevant to your graduate program.

[newms]

This is not strictly true.

We have high school juniors and seniors come to work in our labs every summer, and most of them do excellent work.

That kind of high school experience is certainly worth putting on a resume, as is anything else that directly highlights skills relevant to your graduate program.

I stand corrected as you have first hand experience on this, but do grad schools give a lot of weight to high school experiences like this?

[Eigen]

Research experience is research experience.

6 years of research experience in a university based research lab will always look better than 3 or 4 years. There's no reason (that I've heard) to discount it because it was during high school rather than while an undergrad, assuming the caliber of the lab worked in was equitable.

Same goes for publications.

It does all depend on how it's headed- I wouldn't put any of this under a specific "High School" heading, but papers, presentations at decent conferences, and research experience from while you are still in high school is definitely applicable to grad school applications, imo.

[mssyAK]

Thanks for the information!

[balderdash]

Actually, I was wondering if this hard and fast rule changes for a few awards. For instance, consider the award "National AP Scholar." It's not exactly prestigious, but I don't think it's something that can be thrown away offhand. Or how about something that doesn't necessarily yell "this is from high school," like Morgan Stanley Young Leader Award. If your CV just lists them like

Award X, 2005

Award Y, 2004

Award Z, 2004

and you started university in 2004, I don't think it's a problem.