I have always heard that sans serif fonts were not a good choice for body font because they are harder to read. The weight of the strokes and the serifs help the eye distinguish characters. I am not a student of typography myself, but this is the wisdom I’ve always been given when working with designers and production people. Personally, having read a lot of resumes, I would be turned off by a sans serif body font. Sans serif is good for heads if you want contrast..
If I were applying to graduate schools, I would choose a classic font like Times New Roman. Actually, Book Antiqua is my pet font for body copy, so that is what I would most likely use. And I’d combine it with Arial for heads.