<p>I have good test scores and some really talented skills. I also take part in lots of extracurricular activities. However, I have almost no leadership experience in my 12 years of education.
I spent my first 10 grades in China, where the bureaucracy is so prevalent even in schools due to politic issues. For example, a class president may be partisan and biased to some students. The Communist Party just cram these detrimental values to students. In China, if a students' president don't use some "power" to monitor students, he would be overthrown and lose his "prestige". I know it's really hard for you to understand this but in China it do exists and it's really pervasive.
Therefore, being weary of these "politics", I built up some reclusive philosophy and I even advocate anarchism in schools(not that kind of anarchism that being considered as a hate group).
Say, I just don't like organizations like students' union. I join many clubs but I refuse to do any leadership positions in the club(though my talent make members nominate me). My childhood experience just affected me so much that even after I've finished my junior year in America where those bureaucracies don't exist, I'm still reluctant to do any leadership jobs. I'm very willing to vote for others but I myself just don't want to be a candidate(however my girlfriend has tons of leadership experience lol). But I've heard that many colleges evaluate applicants' leadership abilities very much. Is that obligatory? Will they understand my philosophy and let my other talents compensate that? I know my experience is so unusual.
Though I am reclusive to leadership, I have been an active advocate of liberty and democracy in China, which is part of my reason I want to study in America.(You know I'm really anti-communism)</p>
<p>What’s more, is this kind of experience which shifted my philosophy so much something that I can write in my personal essay? Is it a proper thing to write?</p>
<p>Actually I had been some leadership positions in the class in my elementary school years in China. However, because of the darkness of the officialdom, and because I was repelled by other “class officials”, I resigned every position that I had and refused to do any similar things since my 7th grade. They just unwelcome me because I was upright and free from those student cliques. Now you know why China’s political corruption is so incorrigible because since people’s childhood, they form these evil partisan habits and they bring these to everywhere in the society. This is my story.</p>
<p>I know leadership in America is innocent, but this is my childhood shadow that I can’t overcome it in a few years.
Sorry for writing such political thread in CC…</p>
<p>It is certainly possible to get into some excellent schools in the US without leadership experience. One of my kids was admitted to U of Chicago and Swarthmore, for example, with no leadership. She had some good ECs, and was near the top in our state in an academic competition she competed in every year. But was never a captain or held an office in any club.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this is such a good essay topic. It seems sort of negative (why I am NOT involved in leadership). It points out the gap in your application and sort of highlights it. And it is also important to make your essay about you. To tell the admissions committee something about yourself they can’t learn from the dry information on the Common Application. I don’t think writing about your reaction to the Chinese system is necessarily a good topic for that. And it could easily be more about the system than about you…</p>