I am a junior from an extremely competitive public high school and am hoping to apply to very selective colleges.
However, all of the top schools (and the Ivies especially) stress leadership, which is making me nervous because I have never considered myself a leader-- I get anxiety when I have to do public speaking (I have strong writing skills and could write an amazing speech but never have the guts to deliver it) and frankly feel uncomfortable wielding authority over my peers. I much prefer working in a group setting, discussing problems together and having varied sources of input before making decisions.
Although I am involved in many extracurriculars and dedicate a lot of time to them (NHS, Youth in Philanthropy program, track team, 6th year playing flute), I’m not the president of any. The closest thing I have to a leadership position is being a camp counselor teaching science to kids (I’m hoping to major in bio).
Would you say not being a leader would decrease my chances of admission to a highly selective school? I’d like to think that the world’s diligent followers have to come from somewhere, but perhaps not an ivy!
Are you first chair in band, or section leader in marching band? These things count as leadership also!
Perhaps you could lead an effort through your Philanthropy group, such as a food, clothing, or bottle drive?
I recommend you try to push for more leadership roles. Colleges want to see that you’re not only in EC’s but you’ve made major contributions.
Hope this helps!
Anecdotal evidence is all you’ll find on this site, so here’s a touch of mine: I have practically no leadership (unless you count section leader in choir - lol), and at the end of the process, I’ve found myself with more waitlists than acceptances or rejections. BUT - I did get into Dartmouth. So make of it what you will.
I think it’s worth it to note that initiative is also incredibly important. It’s less qualifiable than “leadership,” but here’s how I see it: if you’ve never looked for anything more than what you’re given, that’s quite telling. The kids who go out on a limb and do independent research or start a club or business or teach themselves Urdu are, as a general rule, the ones who are successful in the admissions game.
A lot of the top school interview students and there is where you can make up for your lack of leadership. We’re not looking for someone who is the president of everything as the only student we’re looking to admit. If we did that, ever club at the University would have a president, VP, secretary, treasurer, and no members.
What we’re looking for is your ability to be invested in something and contribute to a group. For example, if you noticed that there were a lot of elementary students nearly getting hit by card during dismissal and you approached your principal about it to implement a crosswalk/crossing guard/traffic light/some other solution, you probably don’t have a title. (Though admittedly ‘defender of the small children sounds kinda cool’). But if you can talk about this in your interview, we still see that you made a contribution to the community. Similarly, if you are a group member in your band, and you found that your band had an issue with flute reeds (yes I know flute don’t use reeds, but this is an example!) or with music distribution, and you took on a small project, once again, it’s not going to have a leadership “title” but it still shows you making a contribution towards a group.
That is what we are looking for. In the interview write-up, one of the questions asks about what EC’s were talked about, but that’s just a list–there is no place to even mention leadership of the groups here. The second relevant questions asks us what we think this student will contribute to the University community. Oftentimes, this is where we can mention specific leadership positions to support our answers, but there are many other ways of supporting this answer including mentioning a students initiative towards his or her group/school/community.
