not a leader

Northstarmom
Sat, 31 May 2008 09:39:36 +0000

The colleges where leadership and nonathletic ECs count for admission are the top colleges in the country – places like HPY. They know that leadership is far more than having a title. That’s a reason why they interview their applicants – to find out the real person behind the application. At best at most other colleges, ECs count for merit aid consideration.

Of course, all colleges know that people who lack leadership positions aren’t useless. In fact, most colleges are filled with students who didn’t have formal leadership positions in h.s. After all, most students lack leadership offices, yet about 60% of applicants get into their first choice college.

At some point in your life, it will be important to get some experience as a leader — heading committees, organizing projects, etc. If you don’t, it will be hard to advance in your career because except for entry level jobs, in most fields, promotion will entail some supervisory responsibilities.

You’ll also learn a lot about yourself and others by getting yourself in a position in which you help organize something. As I’ve indicated before, you don’t need an office to get that kind of leadership position: You need ideas, and a willingness to work hard.

When you were running for office did you have a plan for how you’d function in those positions, and did you have ideas to better the organization? If so, did you let the other students know about your plans? Had you been an active, hard working member before you ran? After you lost, were you still an active, hard working member, and did you also try to implement any ideas you’d had when you ran?

If after you lost, you basically faded into the woodwork, that indicates that you ran only to decorate your resume.

One of the most impressive applicants I ever saw was a student who had unsuccessfully ran for a position in marching band, an EC that she was passionate about. After she lost, the advisor offered her the position of being in charge of the uniforms, which meant keeping track of hundreds of items of clothing and making sure they were cleaned and repaired after every performance.

Many people would have turned up their noses at such a lowly position, but because she truly loved the band, she happily took it, becoming the first student to hold that position that normally an adult volunteer held.

Not only did she do the position well (which required hours each week of thankless work), she also started a program to help freshmen and other new members learn about the band and feel welcomed by it.

That was the only leadership position that she had. She got into Stanford.