Do colleges care about strong displays of leadership in all of their acceptances even though it doesn’t make sense to have 100% leaders in one place? Or is it more like, they want to see some leadership but for some applicants the lack of a lot of leadership does not matter since the college is already accepting the next president and stuff?
They want to see leadership from most students in some way–if you’re a comp sci major, for instance, they’d like to see you head an app team or a computer club, if you’re into MUN they’d like to see you chairing some events. Leadership doesn’t equate to “next president”–whatever your interest, the top colleges want you to be the best at it in your school/area/state/country.
That said, plenty of “non-leaders” get in, as well, so it’s not a deal-breaker, but rising to leadership positions conveys two things: 1) excellence and 2) respect of peers and adults. And it should come as no surprise that those two things are considered predictors of future success to some extent. @theofrelord