“Leadership experience” is pretty easy to “get” if your kid joins a club and they give everyone a title. That’s what happens at some grad school clubs, for example. “Career Secretary” “Co-treasurer” “Head of Fundraising”
Yeah. . . . it happens.
IMHO for grad school these are the keys – law and med – GPA + test scores + some credible relevant experience
Ph.D. is more loose depending on your area of study AND the school and program you wish to complete. This is because you’re applying to be mentored by an individual professor, often, and so you’re subject to that person’s needs at the time and his/her evaluation of your abilities. It’s more idiosyncratic. Not all Ph.D. programs are funded by the school. It depends often on how much grant money has come in (GOP tends to cut that budget for science and research grants and is currently attempting to tax grad students on their waived tuition benefits–a potential cost to each student of $8K to $10K per year. The student doesn’t see this money but the GOP bill as passed by the House would still charge them taxes on it. They are broke and they will need to pay taxes on money they never see.)
Masters – many masters programs are money-raisers (tuition-getters) for even top schools – Ivies included. They may or may not lead to a job. They may or may not lead to a Ph.D. program. And they usually cost a lot of money.
There have also been a proliferation of certificate and “executive” programs and concentrations – or whatever the schools decide to call them. I call them “educational products.” Even top schools are creating programs like this to bring in cash. This can be expensive for a student. So choose wisely.
Schools are businesses. They bring in cash and they produce educated people holding pieces of paper printed in Latin.