Academic CV for Graduate and Scholarship Applications

Industry resumes compress. Academic CVs document. Do not force a two-page academic record into a one-page corporate resume unless the program explicitly asks for a resume. If the portal says “CV”, use the academic format below.

1. Header: full name, email, phone, city and country, plus ORCID, Google Scholar or portfolio links. No photograph unless a country’s convention requires it.
2. Education: reverse chronological. Institution, degree, field, dates, thesis title, supervisor, and grade or distinction if it is strong. Add selected coursework only if you are early in your career.
3. Research experience: the heart of the CV. Lab or group, supervisor, dates, and two to four bullets stating what you did and what resulted (dataset, method, paper, finding).
4. Publications: peer-reviewed first, then preprints, then work in progress. One citation style. Mark submissions honestly.
5. Presentations and conferences: title, venue, city, date. Separate oral from poster if relevant. Browse conferences if you are still building this section.
6. Grants, scholarships and awards: name, amount if public, sponsor, year. Scholarship committees score this section directly.
7. Teaching and supervision: course, role (TA, guest lecturer), institution.
8. Skills: methods, lab techniques, languages, software — grouped and honest. If you cannot demonstrate it in an interview, move it to “familiar”.
9. Service and references: reviewing, outreach, society roles. Names and emails only if the application asks.

• One clean font; consistent dates (for example “Jan 2023 – Present”).
• No multi-column layouts that break applicant-tracking systems or printing.
• Quantify: sample size, team size, ranking, funding amount, or output.
• Reverse chronology in every section.
• Export PDF named FamilyName-CV-Institution.pdf unless the program specifies another pattern.

Remove high-school achievements unless you are still in that phase, unrelated jobs written at resume length, references unless requested, and objective statements such as “hard-working team player”. Every remaining line should demonstrate research capacity or fit with the program.

You do not need a different CV per application. Reorder emphasis. A data-heavy program: move methods and computational skills up. A development-focused scholarship: lead with fieldwork, community projects and awards. The facts stay identical; the emphasis follows the rubric.

When you apply for fully funded scholarships or internships, keep titles, dates and supervisors identical across CV, SOP and referee brief so nothing contradicts.

• Would a stranger reconstruct your research trajectory from this document alone?
• Is every claim checkable against a transcript, publication or letter?
• Does the first page end on your strongest material?

Committees rarely say why a CV failed, but the same errors repeat. Each one is fixable before your next cycle:

• Inflated grades or a rounded-up GPA. Transcripts are attached to the same application; a mismatch can end the file, not just the section.
• A wall of club memberships. Ten lines of society names say less than three lines describing one project you finished.
• Inconsistent dates. A gap between your master’s end and your job start will be read; explain it in one line if it matters, but do not close it by shifting months.
• Skill ratings with bars or stars. “Python 80%” is meaningless. State what you did with the tool and in what context.
• One CV for every portal. A research fellowship and an industry internship reward different sections; reorder emphasis per application.

The top third of page one is read first and remembered longest. Keep the header to two or three lines: name in large type, then email, phone with country code, and city and country. Add ORCID or Google Scholar only when the profile exists and matches the CV.

Under education, one line per degree is enough unless the call asks for more. A clean example:

• M.Sc. Environmental Science — University of Lagos, 2024–2026 (expected). Thesis: “Flood exposure mapping in coastal wards”, supervisor: Dr. A. Okonkwo. Grade: Distinction (top 5% of cohort).
• B.Sc. Geography (First Class) — University of Lagos, 2020–2024. Final project: 200-household drainage survey, dataset archived with the department.
• Selected coursework (only if early-career): Remote Sensing, Statistics for Environmental Data, Research Methods.

A useful research bullet has a verb, a method or object, and a result. “Helped in the lab” is not enough.

Lead with education, a substantial course project, a capstone, an internship, or a volunteer data or fieldwork role. One well-described project beats a page of clubs. You can still apply for internships and research opportunities to add a line before the next cycle.

Do not invent publications. A poster at a student conference belongs under presentations, labelled as such.

A CV for a scholarship, a PhD place and a research assistant job all use the same facts but emphasise different parts.

• Scholarship: lead with academic record, awards, leadership and any service or community work the call mentions.
• PhD or research master’s: lead with research experience, methods, publications and a short statement of research interests.
• Research assistant or industry research role: lead with skills, tools and results, then education.

If you have published or presented work, a persistent identifier such as an ORCID iD helps readers find your outputs and avoids confusion with people who share your name. Add links only to pages you control and keep up to date.

Save the CV as a PDF with a clear file name, check that the text can be selected and copied, and keep dated versions so you can see what you sent to whom.

Check dates, spelling of names and journals, and consistent formatting of every entry. Ask one person from your field and one from outside it to read the CV. A single clear mistake in a name or a date can make a reader doubt the rest.