<p>Just a point of clarification: Harvard is adding (has added?) theater and film majors, and also visual art major. Drew Faust made a big speech last year about enhancing the arts on campus, and I have heard she wants the campus to have more artsy types to balance all those pre-med, pre-law and pre-business careerists.</p>
<p>My daughter got very excited, as she wants to study performing arts and wasn’t considering Harvard at all; however, when I went to the website, it said theater was not a major (see below) but you could build a special concentration with theater as a component. Was this what you were referring to?</p>
<p>About Theater at Harvard</p>
<p>The Theater community at Harvard is a unique environment where undergraduates have the opportunity to make quality theater with unfettered creative freedom. Theater at Harvard is different from programs at other universities. Although Harvard doesn’t currently offer a Theater or Dramatic Arts concentration, courses are offered through the Committee on Dramatic Arts and a newly created secondary field in Dramatic Arts. In addition, many other departments offer related courses. It is possible to build a special concentration with theater as a component (contact the Registrar for more information about Special Concentrations).</p>
<p>The practice of theater at Harvard University is largely extracurricular, and for the most part, student organized and managed. Over 60 productions almost entirely produced, directed, designed, acted, and run by students are presented each year. There are more than a dozen theater organizations on campus, including the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club (HRDC), Hasty Pudding Theatricals, Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert & Sullivan Players, Hyperion Shakespeare Company, BlackCAST, Dunster House Opera, and Lowell House Opera.</p>
<p>Thirty five years ago my roommate built a special concentration in Dance and dance history by cobbling together courses and activities. She’s now an English professor concentrating on Dramatic arts though at the time she was thinking about journalism.</p>
<p>I find all this talk about showing leadership qualities a bit puzzling. I have a number of friends and relatives who attended top schools. In fact, I am probably one of the black sheep in the family.</p>
<p>Of those that attended Ivy schools and top notch LACS, I wouldn’t classify any of them as leaders, and this was particularly true for those folks that I know that attended Harvard. They did, however, have one amazing passion about something. One was quarterback of his football team. One was passionate about languages who studied abroad, wrote an op-ed piece in a foreign paper, and got 800 on the SAT II in that language. One was so good on the piano that he could have been a concert pianist. One person was an all-state Oboe players. One person loved to write and wrote about half a dozen op-ed pieces for the newspaper. One was a top basketball player and became an all-American at Stanford, and one kid who attended our high school,where there were two different magnet program offered, participated in both programs and got certificates from both programs! He attended MIT.</p>
<p>Yes, maybe there were some leader types in these top schools, but, from my experience, admission was more about passion and drive. Maybe others have a different experience.</p>
<p>Anneroku: “Actually, we don’t need to wait until the future – our system already seems pretty strange to many outside of this country.”</p>
<p>It seems pretty strange to many of us in this country. DS’s reactions when he first saw the tone of a lot of the application essay questions, “Who ARE these people?” His impression was that the whole process was weirdly voyueristic. Stanford’s “Write a letter to your future roommate,” (they want to read my personal mail?!!!) and MIT’s “Tell us about a time that felt like the end of the world to you,” (wannabe therapists?!!!) topped the list.</p>
<p>I value leadership, too. But if colleges want leaders to come out of their institutions, they ought to teach leadership, not just try to select people whose parents, coaches, churches and mentors have already taught them leadership. Just a thought.</p>
<p>“One was quarterback of his football team.”</p>
<p>By virtue of their position, quarterbacks have to be leaders. If they’re not leaders, I don’t think they get to remain as quarterbacks.</p>
<p>I think that often people don’t realize what colleges mean when they look for leadership. Inspiring others to do their best; generating ideas that help a group achieve its goals; pitching in and doing what needs to be done and encouraging others to do so; organizing projects are examples of what students who exhibit leadership do. </p>
<p>Often people exhibit leadership in things they are passionate about. It’s possible that only the people involved in those projects know about what the people have done. It may not be anything that the students share with anyone else. They’re just living their lives doing what needs to be done. </p>
<p>I am taking an acting class for fun at my local community college. I created a Facebook group for the class, and have provided the students with regular information about local auditions, and productions. I’ve also made some suggestions about assignments such as suggesting that the professor assign us to our roles instead of having us pick our roles. I figured that with his experience, he’d do a better job than we would, and that has worked out wonderfully.</p>
<p>I never thought that what I was doing was any big deal, but yesterday, the professor told the class that I have literally been acting as his assistant, and have helped him improve the class, and he named me class CEO. </p>
<p>Not saying this to brag, just as an example so that people can see that leadership is an action, not a title. I believe that many of the many helpful parents who post on CC probably do similar things in their own lives and – for that matter – here on CC.</p>
<p>From my experiences with music nerds: Many do leadership by starting music groups or by encouraging laggards in their orchestras/bands to learn the music.</p>
<p>“I value leadership, too. But if colleges want leaders to come out of their institutions, they ought to teach leadership, not just try to select people whose parents, coaches, churches and mentors have already taught them leadership. Just a though”</p>
<p>Colleges do teach leadership – through coursework and through having activities that students can participate in, activities that depending on the college, may be supervised by experienced faculty.</p>
<p>The colleges like HPYS that use leadership as an admission factor best teach leadership by letting students run with their ideas. For instance, students are fully responsible for running Harvard’s daily newspaper including supervising the press operations. When I visited it about a 20 years ago when I was recruiting interns for a major newspaper, students at the Crimson told me about how they were making decisions about whether to buy a new printing press (cost around $1 million). These were exactly the kind of decisions that professional newspaper executives were making in the “real world.”</p>
<p>Probably the majority of colleges don’t view their mission as producing leaders for communities, corporations, countries, etc. Most colleges view their mission as helping students to graduate from college. It’s only a few colleges that have such sky high graduation rates (93-97% at many Ivies and similar schools) that can have more far reaching missions.</p>
<p>Maybe that’s a good indicator of future success (however defined). Does Harvard look at its graduates 20, 40, or 60 years later and wonder if they picked the right ones? Probably a ‘Yes’ in most cases. I’d say ‘yes’ for those who are active on CC.</p>
<p>Alum of Harvard’s undergrad schools have reunions every 5 years. These reunions are planned by the alum with support services from H’s alum office.</p>
<p>They include: a book in which each alum can write an essay about whatever they wish to share about their life. It also includes reunion activities that include: panel discussions and workshops featuring alum, and – at least in the case of my class – a survey that finds out alum’s professions, marital status, health status, how happy they are in their careers and a variety of other things. The classmates who put that together are social scientists.</p>
<p>My class also had a variety show that featured alum. The emcee was an alum who is a household name. The other performers ranged from clcassmates who are professional entertainers to those active in their community theater. One was, I think, “Slugfest queen.” When she’s not doing that, she’s a professor.</p>
<p>My 25th also included a lecture by a classmate who was an international leader.</p>
<p>(Not putting names to this because being so specific about classmates could make me identifiable…)</p>
<p>Anyway, Harvard fairly easily can track alum, and from what I’ve seen, in general alum do serve as leaders in their community and elsewhere. Even some classmates who chose to be housewives (One friend did this as after a very lucrative career in an Internet start-up) are on boards – locally and nationally.</p>
<p>Of course, as is the case for any college, there are people who didn’t do that well due to mental illness and other problems, but in general, from what I’ve seen, Harvard alum tend to be the type of people who have some kind of impact on their communities (which could mean on the PTA of their kid’s school) and elsewhere. I think that’s due to the selection process of chosing people who already are having an impact. I don’t think it’s due to Harvard’s magically changing passive people into being assertive.</p>
<p>I could substitute the name of our state school in the sentence above and it would be equally true. I’m not sure Harvard’s selection process has much to do with the achievements of alums.</p>
<p>“I could substitute the name of our state school in the sentence above and it would be equally true. I’m not sure Harvard’s selection process has much to do with the achievements of alums.”</p>
<p>Proportionately, I think that more alums of Harvard and similar schools are involved in leadership positions including in things like PTAs than is the case of public and other types of universities. By proportionately, I’m referring to the percentage of alum who are thus involved, not the raw numbers. Obviously, a university that has 15,000-35,000 undergrads, as is the case for many state schools, is going to have more alum involved in leadership roles than is a place like Harvard, that has about 6,500 undergrads.</p>
<p>There also are likely to be more public school college alums in general in any particular location than alum of schools like Harvard.</p>
<p>I read The Gatekeepers about 6 months ago and will probably re-read it now…</p>
<p>I think Northstarmom is on point with the qualities of leadership vs leader by title.</p>
<p>as a parent in the wings at many many school events, programs etc etc
It has been interesting to see the kids who are quite the “position grubbing” type–they have to be THE titled star/leader etc…However when the dirty work, tedious details etc need to be done–they are often flirting, playing and hanging out. They get excused to leave early, and they slyly tell their friends how they “are around enough to still be counted part of the team/club etc”
They have a list of ECs a mile long which are an inch thick if that…and overstate the impotrant of what they contributed…</p>
<p>the real leaders do often lead by example–and are doing the work–seeing it through til its done–</p>
<p>Persoanlly I am counting on schools and alumni who interview the up and coming class to see behind the smoke and mirrors… Our nation’s future depends on it.</p>
<p>I think rather than leadership, what some schools are looking for could be described as initiative. Sometimes that coincides with leadership, if someone starts a project and others get on board, or simply takes the reins to get something moving. But initiative can also manifest itself in solitary, when someone takes it upon him/herself to solve a problem or develop a new way of doing things. I think people with that quality make more of difference than people with just good organizational skills or charisma.</p>
<p>though I heard the MIT AdCom say it is in groups that science advances…and they want group collaboration…not individuals…they want people who want to be team players…</p>
<p>Be that as it may–sometimes the leader is the one lone voice in the wildeness that sees the problem, addresses it and then when people see the light–they jump on board ;o)</p>
<p>I would take that young lady who was the band uniform mistress anyday–she say need and sought a solution. And she was willing to work --do it with pride–and without fanfare…
pretty impressive character there.</p>
<p>They are only human. Even the most well-meaning, well-trained, non- anti-Semitic admissions counselor can’t always tell the difference between a narcissist or a sociopath and someone who is perfectly genuine. </p>
<p>And in the end, as far as community service at least, does it really matter? If someone builds a school in an impoverished city, does it matter why they did it? If it helps people, it helps people; I’m not sure that it’s better to demand purity oaths from all volunteers. People can have multiple reasons for doing something, both mercenary and altruistic. I would never ask if the firefighter who pulls me out of a burning building is a passionate volunteer or a salaried employee…</p>
<p>As the OP, I <em>knew</em> there would be a problem with the word “leader.” I tried to clarify, but obviously did not do a good job. Even as I wrote it, it didn’t feel like the right word, even to me. So, let’s adopt Wildwood’s word, Initiative. Much more appropriate. For example, when I gave my son a TI-83 calculator way back in 9th grade, he not only learned to use it, he learned the assembler (machine) code, wrote a programming tutorial on the main TI caclulator site, and it became a hit. At it’s peak, it was being downloaded 200 times a day. He received emails and IMs from around the world seeking advice and help. That’s’ not “leadership” as such, but it is initiative. </p>
<p>So, substitute “initiative” for “leadership.”</p>
<p>And also keep in mind that I was discussing the book, which talked about the elite colleges, or at least trying to extrapolate the Wesleyan process to a more general statement</p>
<p>That distinction really helps. I do see the word “leadership” used, even by the colleges on their “what we look for” pages, and it is disheartening to me as the parent of a child who hasn’t had traditional positions of “leadership” in organizations, although she [at least used to] put herself out there for consideration. But I think if I can encourage her to reframe those questions in terms of “initiative,” she will have an easier time pointing to things she’s done.</p>
<p>^those same colleges do define leadership in a variety of ways and make that point to their applicants. There is a certain highly selective LAC that is ALL about leadership, but makes it known that leadership can be defined beyond the traditional view. It really is not limited to titles or president of a high school club.</p>
<p>That being said I do have issues with the buzzwords in admissions circles. Passion, leadership, intellectual vitality and the like do seem to be overused.</p>