How to write a CV for a master's application, and what changes by country

First step: put every programme's CV rule on one sheet

Before writing a line, open the admissions page of each programme on your list and copy its CV instruction word for word. Universities rarely agree. One asks for every period since primary school, another caps the CV at three pages, a third only says "up-to-date CV". The Universities of Rochester and Washington both send applicants to the programme page for anything beyond the general list, and LSE says programme guidance takes priority where it differs.

1. Programme name and university, exactly as they will appear on your CV header if you tailor it.
2. Is a CV required, recommended or not asked for at all?
3. Any page limit, required order (newest first or oldest first) or required sections.
4. The language the CV must be written in.
5. What travels with it: statement, essay, letters, transcripts, test scores.

Why a master file comes before any CV

Cambridge University Careers Service advises keeping a master document of everything you have done, recorded while it is fresh, and drawing each application from it. For a master's, that file holds every course, project, job, certificate and date. Each country version on this page is then a cut of the same facts, so the dates never contradict each other between applications.

The core master's CV, section by section

Rochester's graduate studies page describes the graduate CV as a concise, organised summary of academic and professional accomplishments, focused on academic work, research and coursework, and notes it may run longer than the one-page job resume. The core below follows that brief.

Education carries the most weight

Give the degree title in English with its original name, the university, city and dates, then the cumulative grade with its scale. Cambridge's careers advisers ask applicants with degrees from outside the UK to add enough detail for the reader to judge the result, such as the scale or a class rank. Add the thesis or graduation project title and three or four modules closest to the master's.

Research, projects and the thesis

A course project, a lab placement or a capstone is evidence a committee can use. Name the question, the method or tool, and the result in one line each. If the statement you write later mentions a project, the project must already be on the CV.

Work, internships and volunteering

Some programmes want all of it. The University of Washington's industrial engineering master's asks for a CV that includes all professional, volunteer, community service and military experience. Others mainly want what supports the subject, so keep unrelated jobs to a single line with dates.

Languages, tests and skills

Write each test with its score and month, matching the certificate you upload. List the software, lab techniques or programming languages the programme uses, rather than generic soft skills.

• Header: name, email, phone, city and country; the programme name if you tailor the version.
• Education: degree, university, dates, grade with scale, thesis, relevant modules.
• Research and projects: title, method, your part, result.
• Experience: internships, jobs, volunteering, with month and year.
• Languages and tests, then technical skills.
• Awards, scholarships and activities, if they exist.

Sample core CV for an invented applicant

The person, university and numbers below are invented to show the form. Every line is something a transcript, certificate or employer letter could confirm.

Why these lines are written this way

• The grade carries its scale. The reader should never have to guess whether 3.38 is out of 4 or 5.
• The project line names the method and the tools, which is what a data or statistics committee will look for.
• The research assistant line has hours a week and a count, so it reads as a real commitment rather than a title.
• Nothing here is a skill without a line behind it; Power BI appears in the internship and in skills.

What changes by country

The core stays the same. What changes is length, order, how gaps are handled and what else the university reads next to the CV. Each row below comes from one university's or one service's own page, read on 13 October 2026; other programmes in the same country can differ.

Turning the core CV into each version

1. Germany: switch to dated rows from your first school, give every gap its own row and put the application date under the CV.
2. United Kingdom: move internships and jobs up if the programme values experience, and keep unrelated achievements here rather than in the statement.
3. Netherlands: reverse the order to newest first, cut to three pages and start with personal information.
4. Sweden: keep it short and in English, and let the motivation letter expand on it rather than repeat it.
5. United States: add volunteering and any military service where the programme asks for it, and match the statement of purpose.
6. Türkiye: check whether the CV is required or only recommended for your programme, and keep the transcript's e-Devlet version ready.

Sources and the date we read them

Admission rules change every intake. Check the programme page before you upload.

Where this page stops

This is the CV only. The statement or motivation letter has its own page, and so does the CV for a PhD, which leads with research rather than education. Scholarship CVs follow the funder's call: DAAD, for example, caps its master's scholarship CV at three pages. Converting a Turkish grade into another country's scale is a separate question with its own guide.

Next steps

• Applying in Germany: read the tabular CV guide, which covers uni-assist, gap rows and signing.
• Applying in the UK: read the LSE and King's checklist, including the statement length.
• Applying in the Netherlands: read the TU Delft and RUAS checklist and the note on Nuffic.
• Going on to a doctorate later: the PhD application CV page shows how the same facts are reordered around research.

CitedCV can build each country version from one set of facts you enter, in English, Turkish or German, so the dates and grades stay identical across applications. It does not know any university's rules; check them on the pages above.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. University of Rochester, Graduate Studies: How to applywww.rochester.edu/college/gradstudies/prospective/apply.html
2. University of Washington, Industrial and Systems Engineering master's admissionise.washington.edu/mels/admission
3. uni-assist: Other documents (CV)www.uni-assist.de/en/how-to-apply/assemble-your-documents/other-documents/
4. LSE, Supporting documentswww.lse.ac.uk/study-at-lse/Graduate/Prospective-students/Supporting-documents
5. TU Delft, MSc required documentswww.tudelft.nl/en/education/admission-and-application/msc-international-diploma/required-documents
6. KTH, Technology-based Entrepreneurship entry requirementswww.kth.se/en/studies/master/technology-based-entrepreneurship/entry-requirements-for-technology-based-entrepreneurship-1.1180749
7. Sabancı University, Graduate application requirements 2026-2027www.sabanciuniv.edu/en/academic/university-registration-scholarships-and-fees/graduate-applications-requirements-2026-2027
8. Cambridge University Careers Service, CVs and cover letters for PhDs and postdocswww.careers.cam.ac.uk/files/phdpostdoccvbook.pdf