Question 1 of the Personal Insight Prompts asks candidates the following:
Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.
Things to consider: A leadership role can mean more than just a title. It can mean being a mentor to others, acting as the person in charge of a specific task, or taking the lead role in organizing an event or project. Think about what you accomplished and what you learned from the experience. What were your responsibilities?
Did you lead a team? How did your experience change your perspective on leading others? Did you help to resolve an important dispute at your school, church, in your community or an organization? And your leadership role doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to school activities. For example, do you help out or take care of your family?
The first question about leadership is pervasive in college essays, job interview scenarios, and team-building exercises. Admissions officers, interviewers, and evaluators want to not only understand an applicant’s previous experience in leading others, but also how they lead and what their view of what strong leadership looks like. Who can blame them? Leadership can show a lot about a person. More often than not, compassionate, self-aware, and thoughtful leaders make great classmates!
Most people have a leadership story, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they talk about it well. The biggest mistake students make when writing about the first University of California prompt is conflating leadership with opportunism. Simply writing about seizing an opportunity to start an organization, volunteering as a sports team captain, or starting a student club is not actually leadership but is an example of taking the initiative (which isn’t bad, at all!). Being opportunistic enough to start a group or cause that’s important or offering to take on the responsibilities of being a lacrosse captain reflects maturity, eagerness, and selflessness. Each trait can be possessed by a great leader, but the qualities alone are not technically examples of “leadership.”
Good responses to this prompt deal with empathy in one way or another. The final question in the third paragraph of the prompt invites candidates to demonstrate their empathy: Think about what you accomplished and what you learned from the experience. Always share what you learned from your leadership experience in your response. In fact, your takeaway or lesson from being a leader should drive your entire essay, and your story should convey the overarching idea or value about leadership.
Key Insight: Qualifying your brand of leadership will allow you to stand out among the thousands of stories of leadership told in University of California college applications.
The best responses put a “spin” on what leadership means to them.
For instance, one of the best leadership essays I’ve read talked about the challenges of being a manager at a high school student events group. In the essay, the student discussed the responsibilities of catering to the demands of both the school administration and the student body. The author of the essay talked about how different kinds of communication were essential to succeeding in her role. In her concluding paragraph, she discussed how being cognizant of communicating with different people is essential to be a great leader.
Another student wrote about how his math team began to have more success at competitions after he started taking notes on his team’s success and struggles after every practice and competition. Though he recorded the team’s progress quietly, his leadership was essential. Organizing the team’s notes allowed everyone to better identify their strengths and weaknesses, helping them practice accordingly and more efficiently. His story concluded that great leadership is grounded in picking up on small details and staying organized.
Though each example describes a radically different kind of leadership, both examples do not try to tackle too much. Of course being communicative or organized are important traits in being a leader! While each takeaway may seem painfully obvious, they both remain great responses to the prompt because they form insights out of the leadership story that are relatable, thoughtful, and memorable. Admissions officers likely finished reading their essays thinking, “Ah yes! She’s the one who wrote about being a communicative leader” or “Oh, he’s the one who’s a detail-oriented math whiz.” As University of California schools receive north of 100,000 stories of “leadership,” qualifying your brand of leadership will allow you to stand out.