<p>Wow- pretty broad brush. Rigged elections? Votes in the trashcan? Popularity contest? This might happen, but I sense sour grapes. Good social skills are invaluable in the workplace, and REAL leadership (I absoultely agree that ‘showing up’ is never enough) is appreciated and well paid. I’m not saying that by any means it should be the ONLY skill that an applicant posesses, but I wouldn’t be too impressed by a kid with ONLY academic honors. </p>
<p>As a person in the workplace who hires people, many of them young college grads, I want to hire someone who can lead, take responsibilty and show initiative without being competitive or territorial. We’re not looking for ‘cube dwellers’ who want to show everyone how smart they are. We use college GPAs and GREs to screen applicants, but it’s in the 3.0 range, hardly CC worthy. I’m sure for technical positions, the GPA cutoffs are higher, but those tend to be the jobs we can easily outsource.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’ll heed the poster who reminded me that that CC is about academics and that ‘social stuff’ is not particularly valuable and leave you to discuss the ‘academic thing’.</p>
<p>I’ll never forget attending the first PTA meeting when my kids were in elementary school. An older, more experienced mother, when asked to head up a committee responded, “No thanks, I am an Indian, not a Chief.” She was a hard worker who contributed a lot over the years. Some people are happy to do the work, even a lot of the work, but do not wish to be the top dog. This has to be universal and I am sure admissions officers know what specific qualities they are looking for when they are reviewing applications.</p>
<p>No, there’s cynicism but no sour grapes. My kids managed to obtain the requisite leadership positions, and I’ll be the first to admit that some of these were pretty meaningless. Not because the kids didn’t show up, or didn’t do what they were supposed to do, but rather because the nature of these positions is somewhat bogus or they come with sparse obligations.</p>
<p>The real leaderhip they displayed did not happen within the confines of school clubs or teams.</p>
<p>Leadership comes in many forms. In essence, it is a quality that enables a person to “lead” another person or a group of people to a destination that otherwise would not have been possible or as timely. Destination may be physical, psychological, spiritual, or simply an accomplishment or a state of being. It is of value when the one being led is made better for it.</p>
<p>You can “lead” a friend out of despair and into hope, and potentially save a precious life. You can “lead” a child out of fear and into confidence, and add another leader to the world. </p>
<p>Search within youself and you’ll find this quality. When you do, use it to help others.</p>
<p>"You confirmed my suspicion that the better schools cannot be packed to the rafters with leaders. "</p>
<p>The top schools actually are packed to the rafters with leaders.Good leaders don’t just lead all of the time, they also are followers who do what needs to be done.</p>
<p>Harvard, for instance, has several hundred student-run clubs, more NCAA division one teams than does any other college, and dozens of student-run arts groups. From team captains to student directors to student editors at the many campus publications, there are plenty of leadership positions. The fact that the publications come out, the plays and other performances are done, and the teams play indicate that the students who are there really are doing the work, not just having empty titles to decorate their resumes.</p>
<p>I’m with mimimom on this topic. I would never dismiss the perfect SAT score and the 4.0 GPA. But I do believe leadership skills are essential to success, and in our home we have always encouraged our kids to pursue excellence in this area as well as academics.</p>
<p>S1 held leadership positions in HS. Most of them were elected; maybe popularity was involved, as one does need to be likable to be effective as a leader during the teen years. He had real accomplishments in all areas. We know that one of his teacher recs specifically spoke to his leadership qualities in academic settings. Now in college, he has been elected as one of six representatives to the Student Government Association, holds a leadership position in his fraternity and was elected to the national governing board of his fraternity. He has also started and runs two clubs at his college. He’s not a poly-sci major, he’s in engineering. But we believe that these involvements will add to the future successes in his career and life.</p>
<p>S2 is taking his leadership in a different direction with athletics and election to a state-wide hs leadership position. We’ve seen both kids blossom over the years because of their leadership opportunities. At least some leadership can be developed and displayed through high school teams and clubs. I am sure that our high school is not unique in that respect.</p>
<p>Emgamac, it warms my heart to see that your daughter was noted for “her sense of honor and kindness”. To me, this is true leadership. Last year my daughter received a note from a vice-principal of her school, thanking her for the kindness she showed a younger visiting student. This student was disabled and not in a good mood (he had been been rudely abandoned). DD noting this, quickly stepped in, wheeled him around the school, providing a monologue tour - all out of kindness. She never told me about it, until she received the thank you note from the assistant principal. Out of all her stellar grades, this note gave her, and me, the most pleasure of the year.</p>
<p>We need to actually clarify what we mean by leadership role.</p>
<p>having a pretty label does not always mean the student is a leader. I saw class presidents who basically just opened the book that said, this is when you do this, and this is what you need for this event, etc. It wasn’t really leadership, it was more managing. Being a good manager is just as important, but I think people get the two confused.</p>
<p>Being a team captain often has nothing to do with leadership, and more to do with team spirit, after all, does the captain coordinate the practices, do they decide when to have practices? I never really thought of team captains to be “leaders” more like roll models.</p>
<p>I think that the term “leader” or “leadership” are bandied about much to freely, that the label is given when it doesn’t describe the duties.</p>
<p>Leadership implies setting an agenda, guiding and mobilizing, pushing when members aren’t following through, taking the organization to a new place. Just doing the same old thing that the club has done year after year is more managing, and that is what I think the vast majority of club presidents do.</p>
<p>Sure, there are some that really shine and the idea of “leadership” is overrated and “good management skills” underrated.</p>
<p>My daughter, who graduated HS last year, was awarded the “leadership” prize at the end of the year. Although she was Junior Class President and then Student Body President at our small school, that was not why she got the award; many times it is given to someone not in an obvious leadership position. I believe it was because she had a lot of school spirit and was able to draw more kids of all kinds into participating in school-sponsored activities at a school with a large transient population (international) where little spirit exists. She is the artsy, offbeat type (had pink hair for a while) at a school in which there are very few but was able to bridge the inevitable divides among high school cliques to get them to feel more united. At least, that is what I want to believe about the award and what it says about her leadership. :)</p>
<p>It’s not about having formal leadership roles per se, but being a 'mover and shaker" as GFG says. Just because you have a title doesn’t mean you are good at it. In many HS environments, attractive and cool kids get elected. But what do they do with the position? Do they have an agenda they push forward? Do they make change? Do they implement valuable ideas? You can be popular, elected and useless, or popular, elected, and great at leading. </p>
<p>Schools look for those with energy and interest and ability to ‘make things happen’ (because they are more likely to be the ones to ‘make things happen’ in the future). That can be in a formal role or in a myriad of different ways that isn’t through an election or title or even leading other people per se.</p>
<p>ilovetoquilt’s post #28 is excellent, and helps to synthesize this entire thread. What many of us are responding negatively to is the perceived bias in college and scholarship applications toward a definition of leadership as holding a team, club or school-conferred office. In our experience, those students may be leaders, they may be just managers as pointed out, or they may be nice and popular. Where the concern comes in for some parents is whether their S or D can successfully make a case for themselves a leaders if they don’t hold an office. The very application format lends itself more to the traditional definition of leader, since there are usually charts with columns to list the activity, the years of participation, and the positions held. A student who has demonstrated leaderhip under the looser definitions provided by posters (eg. post #24), will have to make sure a recommendation or essay reveals that clearly. Often the person who could testify to that sort of leadership will not be a classroom teacher. Yet they’re the ones who are suppposed to write the principal recs for applications. And who knows whether the adcoms will agree with that looser definition?</p>
<p>For example, S believed that as a soccer referee for elite level games and tournaments he had to demonstrate leadership in order to manage players, coaches, and parents. Judging by his college interviews, S did not get the sense that anyone cared about this experience. Instead, several interviewers wanted to know why, if he wanted to major in poly sci, he had not participated in Model UN, JSA, and similar clubs. However, when he applied for some scholarships (and for summer jobs), all those interviewers focused a lot on his referee experience.</p>
<p>I wholeheartedly agree with TheGFG’s statement, "A student who has demonstrated leaderhip under the looser definitions provided by posters (eg. post #24), will have to make sure a recommendation or essay reveals that clearly. "</p>
<p>My son did not join any clubs in high school. The only way he showed “leadership” at school was by excelling in class, on the baseball field and in band.</p>
<p>At home, it was a different matter. My son was an integral part of the family farm. A lot of farming is just hot, dirty manual labor, but there is also the “running a business” side of farming, too.</p>
<p>When it came time to apply to colleges, my son let his grades and test scores speak for themselves, and on the essays, he wrote about living and working on a farm. He let me read his essays and they were funny, endearing pieces. My son never really mentioned “leadership” in any of his essays, but it was obvious that he was quite capable of running the farm in our absence.</p>
<p>My son applied to five schools and was admitted to every one.</p>
<p>A reminder: When it comes to admission, “leadership” only matters for places like HPYS, the few places that have such an overabundance of high stat applicants that they can afford to pick and choose from among that outstanding group, using “leadership” as one of the selection criteria.</p>
<p>Virtually all other schools at most use “leadership” for merit aid consideration.</p>
I’m sure for technical positions, the GPA cutoffs are higher, but those tend to be the jobs we can easily outsource.</p>