Should I start preparing a resume now that I'm in 12th grade for U.S. university applications?

The word resume is slightly misleading for US applications, since most schools don't want a polished corporate-style document at this stage, they want you to have accurately tracked what you've actually done, which is a different and more useful task to start in 12th grade.

What 12th Graders Should Actually Track Now

• Academics: grades, subject olympiads, competitions and any academic recognition.
• Extracurriculars and leadership: clubs, sports, music or debate, with specific dates and hours per week.
• Projects: apps, research, websites or personal initiatives, with your actual role spelled out.
• Impact, not just participation: for each activity, note what you did, how long, and what measurable difference it made, for example organising sessions for a specific number of students rather than simply noting club membership.

Why a Traditional Resume Isn't the Real Deliverable

Most US applications, particularly through the Common App, ask you to fill in an Activities section listing up to 10 entries rather than upload a multi-page resume, so what you build now is really a master record you'll later condense into those entries. A resume upload does still matter for specific programme types, such as art portfolios or certain scholarship applications, so having the fuller document ready is useful even where it isn't the primary submission format.

My Advice

In my experience, students start doing activities purely to pad this list rather than documenting what they're already genuinely involved in, and admissions readers can usually tell the difference. Spend your remaining 12th-grade time on sustained, meaningful involvement in one or two areas rather than collecting a longer list of shallow entries, since depth reads better than breadth in a US application.