Beyond Academics: Highlighting Your Leadership and Community Involvement

Webinar Transcription

2024-05-14 – Beyond Academics: Highlighting Your Leadership and Community Involvement

Sydney: Hello, everyone. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, wherever you are. Welcome to today’s webinar, Beyond Academics, highlighting leadership and community involvement today on May 14th, 2024. My name is Sydney Mantell. I use she, they pronouns, and I will be your moderator today. I’m also a senior advisor here at CollegeAdvisor, and as a proud first generation college student and graduate of North Carolina, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, go Heels!

Uh, I love giving back to the next generation of students with CollegeAdvisor. I also have my master’s degree from Duke University, where I studied, uh, Environmental Management, and I currently work in science communications at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. To just quickly orient everyone with the webinar timing, we will start off with a presentation and then answer your questions in a live Q& A.

So you can go ahead and download today’s slides on the handout tab, and you can already start submitting your questions if anything pops up for you along the way, uh, in the Q& A tab. All right, so now let’s meet our presenter, Mariko Rooks.

Mariko: Hi everyone, it’s so great to see you today. Thank you so much for tuning in to this webinar.

As Sydney mentioned, my name is Mariko Rooks. Uh, I use they or she pronouns, and I graduated from Yale twice, actually. Once in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in the history of science, medicine, and public health, and another one in ethnicity, race, and migration. And then a year later in 2022 with my master’s in public health in social and behavioral sciences.

All of those many words, uh, basically boil down to the fact that I work in health equity and focus on developing community solutions for health disparities that we see throughout, uh, the world. mostly the domestic United States. I’m really excited to be talking to you a little bit about leadership and about building your leadership portfolio as you navigate college admissions.

And feel free to drop any questions you might have for me, uh, in the Q and A and in the chat.

Sydney: Great. And to go ahead and kick off today, we just want to get an idea of where everyone in the room is in terms of what grade you’re in. So if you could go ahead and start answering the poll question, we’ll just get an idea of. Kind of who the audience is tonight. Um, and while people are answering the poll, I’ll just ask you, what was one of your favorite leadership opportunities in high school that you participated in?

Mariko: Absolutely. So I am part black and part Japanese American, and I was really lucky that throughout, throughout my entire high school career. I had access to a Japanese American youth advocacy and leadership organization called Kizuna that operates out of downtown Los Angeles in Southern California. And I think through that experience, I had a lot of hands on on the ground training in how to develop different leadership skills as well as applying those leadership skills to issues facing the community.

So everything from advocating against gentrification to supporting. Bone marrow donations for Asian Americans and other minoritized groups who have trouble finding matches when they have life threatening conditions such as cancer. So I think that really expanded both my skill set and also allowed me to identify what I really cared about when it came to deciding what I wanted to take a leadership role in.

Sydney: Wow, that’s incredible. I love how you were able to blend your identity and your interests in subjects that you’re interested in school kind of together for your leadership role. opportunities. So I’ll go ahead and close this poll. It looks like we have mostly juniors in the room today, but a couple of ninth and 10th graders and, you know, wherever you’re at in your college advising journey, we’re happy to have you.

Mariko: Okay, so I think we’re going to get started today by talking a little bit about the context of leadership within your college applications. Leadership is of course a really broad term that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but within the context of your college applications, it really allows you to showcase Three things that are really important about yourself that colleges will be evaluating to get a better sense of what kind of candidate you are as they start accepting people into their schools and also to just get a better sense of who you are as a person.

And so the three things that leadership is going to be able to show you, and this leadership, as we’ll talk about in a couple of minutes can come in many different forms. Uh, the first is purpose and initiative. So your why, um, I think that it is. a little bit overused to say that, you know, everyone needs a passion, a deep and burning passion.

I think at the age of 16, at the age of 26, at the age of 86, it’s okay if you don’t have one singular passion or one singular cause that you’re passionate about. Really encourages you to get out of bed in the morning, but what you should have when you’re thinking about leadership opportunities and what leadership can show colleges is why you choose to do the things you do.

So why do you care about what you care about? Is it improving your community through need based service? Is it another cause that resonates deeply with you because of something in your personal life, in your family history, in the experiences that you’ve had so far? Why are you choosing to do what you’re doing in The classroom and outside of it.

So that’s the first thing is going to be your purpose and your initiative. The second thing that leadership allows you to showcase in your college applications are your skills. Leadership is a very all encompassing and very broad category of Ultimate skill, but you can have a lot of very specific leadership skills that you can demonstrate within the context of specific organizations, projects and campaigns.

So some of those skills could include mobilizing. How do you activate others in your community to work towards a specific cause? Teamwork. How do you work with others on that team to build whatever it is you’re trying to build? What kinds of goals are you setting and how are you going to achieve those goals?

How do you work with other people, maybe not just on your specific team or with your specific organization, but pulling in different community and government and local and national stakeholders to collaborate towards the same ideal vision? And of course, management. How do you make sure that whatever it is you’re doing is running smoothly, that people know what they’re doing, right?

People are supported in their tasks and that you can assign tasks in the first place that will align with your goals and with who you’re mobilizing and why you’re mobilizing them. So lots and lots of different skills that can be showcased in your college applications via different leadership initiatives.

The last thing, of course, is outcomes, right? Ultimately, you take on a leadership role because you want something to happen in the world, or you want services to be available to other people or populations in your community. So, some of the outcomes that you can demonstrate are, first of all, your impact, right?

What exactly are you doing? How exactly are you making the world around you a better place? You can also talk about scale. Maybe you have a really specific and localized project that really focuses on something at the community or even the neighborhood level, and you can demonstrate your deep and rich knowledge of that specific local area through the scale of your project.

Maybe you’re dreaming really big and you want something that affects the whole world. People at the state level at the national level, whatever it is, you can show scale in a way that demonstrates what your priorities are and what you’re capable of doing as a high school student. And the last thing is resources, right?

What resources are you obtaining in order to see out whatever project it is you’re doing? What resources are you cultivating for the community around you? And how are you using the resources you’re given to you? That are given to you or that you get for yourself to achieve the goals that you want to achieve within a leadership based context.

So when we look at why colleges ask about leadership and why colleges are interested in leadership opportunities, here are some things that your leadership can show a college admissions committee. Okay, feel free to drop any questions about this slide in the chat. I’ll go ahead and move on, but you can always see these slides via the download that is in the handout section of the webinar right now.

All right, so I’ve just told you what leadership can do for your applications, but why do colleges care? Again, it demonstrates your individuality and personality. It allows you to, it allows colleges to understand who you are beyond grades or test scores or other numbers, and more about what you choose to do in your spare time, and how you choose to use the knowledge that you’ve gained via the classes you’ve taken and the tests that you do well on, uh, in order to, uh, Make the world around you again, hopefully a better place in whatever realm that might be.

It also gives colleges a chance to see a little bit more of your individual personality. As we’ll talk about later in this webinar, there are lots of different types of leaders, and they want to get a sense of what kind of leader you are so they know how you might fit in with the rest of the class that they’re recruiting because they’re hoping that You will compliment the other people that are in that recruiting class.

The second thing, and to be like, quite frank about it, is that admissions are investments, right? The first thing that they’re going to ask is, how are you going to contribute to your college campus, right? If they let you in, how are you going to make their school a better place? And so whether it’s improving school structures, class offerings, curriculum development, whatever that might be, whether it’s supporting the lives of other students at a social and cultural level, Or it’s contributing to the surrounding community, right?

Every college is located in a different place, and surrounding communities have different needs, depending on everything from urban versus rural to the level of income in the community that interacts with the college. Your college’s campus. So that’s the first thing that they’re going to be asking about.

And in the long term, they’re also curious about what your postgraduate potential is, right? Employment and professional success statistics are very important for every college in being able to recruit more excellent students to their campus. And they want to be able to have a graduate that they can hopefully brag about.

And also, These alumni, these graduates who are professionally successful also give back to the school. So whether it’s, they can rely on you to help recruit a new generation of students, whether you’re involved in alumni organizations and engaging other alums in your region or across the country, or of course, whether or not you’re donating.

So there are lots of different reasons why admissions officers want to see your leadership skills and will start to make Investments in you based on what leadership skills you can demonstrate and also what kind of growth and potentially you might be able to demonstrate in future leadership as a member of your college campus and beyond.

Okay, so I’m going to go ahead and move on to the next slide. So there are three places where you can really highlight your leadership experiences in your college applications. The first and perhaps the most obvious is the extracurricular section. The majority of colleges, particularly more selective colleges, will have a place on applications where you can put in information about your extracurriculars or what you’re doing outside of school.

On the Common App, for example, which Hosts the majority of private colleges and some public colleges in the US, you’ll get 10 total slots for extracurriculars and you’ll have descriptions for your role, the organization around how many hours you put in and a description of what you’ve done. On the UC or University of California application, you get 20 of these and sorry, I have to mention California because that’s where I’m from.

I love being from California and so that allows you to again, right? Give folks a description of your roles and the responsibilities that you’ve taken on extracurricularly. There’s also a small section in most applications for awards. So if you received any awards related to your leadership, you can put them there.

The second thing is your essays, and your essays allow you to go into more depth about one or more leadership opportunities to give a little more information on how you accomplished whatever it is you accomplished and why you decided to pursue the activities you pursued. And so this kind of personal insight is the more qualitative aspect or, uh, sort of, Less numbers based aspect of what you can demonstrate within your college application essays are also a great time to demonstrate growth, and we’ll talk a little bit more about how you can do that a little later in this webinar.

The last place, and I think this sometimes gets overlooked is in your letters of recommendation. A lot of colleges will require somewhere between 2 and 4 adult. In your life, mostly adults, to talk a little bit about who you are as a student and vouch for you as your recommenders. Whether you’re choosing teachers or they’re asking for a community member that isn’t a teacher, I would highly recommend choosing people who can speak to your leadership strength and your growth within the context of either the classroom or however you know them, as opposed to just choosing the classes where it was very easy for you to start High grade and you didn’t put much effort in and you didn’t spend as much time knowing the teacher when you have more personalized letters of recommendation that cannot just speak to what you accomplished, but also how you accomplished it.

And the kind of student in person. You are that can add a really helpful dimension from trusted. outside academic sources and outside community sources that could really strengthen your application. Okay, so I mentioned essays and I want to dive a little bit more into the essay portion because that’s where you can sort of really get the most variety and the most information out of your leadership experience and into the hands of college admissions advisors.

So, when you’re talking about incorporating your leadership experience throughout your essays, again, the first thing you always want to discuss is your why. And it doesn’t have to be a super profound why, but you do want to sort of give context for why you ended up in the leadership opportunity that you ended up in.

Sometimes you can choose to discuss something that you’ve always cared a lot about or that you wouldn’t know who you are without that why. Sometimes, it could be entirely an accident or a happy happenstance that you’ve stumbled across something that you really enjoy. I definitely had essays that featured both.

The second thing that you can really do is demonstrate your ability to both take initiative And perform above and beyond, so taking initiative in terms of not just being handed responsibilities or handed. You know, this is what this organization always does, but showing how you expanded upon and willingly grasp responsibility and leadership in whatever context that you’re discussing and.

In both the things that you have taken on for yourself and the things that are being asked of you. How did you perform above and beyond, right? How did you take whatever this was to the next level? And the last thing that you can do here is provide examples of both collaboration and lessons learned. So how and in what ways did you navigate collaborating with other people and stakeholders within the context of your leadership?

And what lessons did you learn as you were trying to grow and develop as a leader? I think it’s really important to note here that growth isn’t always pretty, and there’s a reason why a lot of college essays will have a question about failure or responding to challenges. Being able to demonstrate that you are a resilient, adaptable, and teachable candidate is far more important than pretending that you’ve always been perfect and always have been successful.

Being able to acknowledge, admit, and learn from failure is going to be a much better marker of you as a student and as a contributing member of society in the long run, because at the end of the day, No one is perfect. And so being able to respond to failure and challenges is again far more important than making this a round two or second iteration of a brad sheet here.

So, I think it’s really important to acknowledge and to be able to sit in that, even though I know that can be really tough, given the competitiveness and the persona development that you have to create during this process that often is about putting your best foot forward. Okay, I’ll turn it back over to Cindy.

Sydney: All right, thanks for your presentation so far. I have definitely learned a lot already. Um, so we just want to get an idea of where you are in the application process. Have you started? Are you still researching schools? Have you begun working on your essays? Maybe even getting some application materials together?

Or are you almost done? Um, so go ahead and answer that. And while people are answering, I’m going to throw you a little bit of a curveball question, um, inspired by your last slide. So, If you had to rewrite your personal statement today, what do you think your, your topic would be about?

Mariko: That is a great question.

I think for context, my original personal statement was about licensing and producing a musical when I was maybe 13 or so. Um, shout out to my middle school for really letting me run with this particular extracurricular activity. And so I talked about that entire process. I talked about. The real life skills that I learned and I talked about the realization that you don’t have to Wait until you’re an adult to really go for it and make an impact and do things that you’re often told Oh, you know only adults can do things like license a musical and I think that was really profound for me at the time because it gave me the confidence and empowerment to Try new things and to push myself further in high school Now, I would say, apparently I’m an adult, so I don’t think I would write about the same thing, but I think I would probably talk a little bit, a little bit more about what it means to build and generate support and community.

from many, many different sources, um, beyond just biological family. How do you care for and show people you care for them? And what impacts might that make on our communities and the world at large?

Sydney: Great answer. I love both of those essay topics. So I’m going to go ahead and close the poll. It looks like we have students kind of all over the process.

Um, most people are researching their schools, but we have some folks who are working on their essays and getting the application materials together. And then a few who haven’t started yet, which that’s totally fine too. We appreciate you joining us here tonight. And yeah, you, you are starting the college application process by joining us.

So thank you again. Um, and then just a reminder, you can send your questions right now in the Q and a tab, um, throughout the rest of the presentation. So I’ll turn it back over to you.

Mariko: Thank you so much, Sydney. And yes, where I really want to reiterate that wherever you are in the college application process right now, it’s totally okay.

And feel free to ask questions in the Q& A tab based on where you’re at right now and how we might be able to help you with whatever questions you have based on where you are. wherever you’re at in the process. Okay, so let’s continue. So I’ve talked a little bit about why leadership is important, what sorts of things are evaluated when you talk about leadership, but what does it really mean to be a leader and how can you identify your unique strengths and skills?

So again, I will always, always come back to purpose because purpose and having authentic purpose are really what sets apart. Successful essays and successful applications from applications that have been generated just to get into X, Y, and Z college. I cannot emphasize enough how much authenticity, especially in your essays, rings true when you really care about what it is you do.

And don’t necessarily have to care about, again, right, like every single cause or every single person. You know, problem in the world. But if you really love or you’re really driven by maybe the process of building something or the organizational part of developing something, that’s great, too. You can talk about any point in that process, but there really needs to be purpose, right?

Um, and you really need to make it clear, especially if you’re going to write an essay about something, that you have some sort of personal stake in whatever it is you’re doing. And that can help you identify your unique strengths and skills because you come into it with uniqueness. You come into it with an original, thoughtful reason to care.

And that kind of motivation will be one of your most important strengths and it will be fundamentally unique, right? Because even if I have the exact same identity or the exact same background as someone else, my take and my drive on a particular topic is going to be uniquely mine, right? Even if other people care about the same thing for the same reasons, right?

They’re still not me. So again, I think purpose is really, really important here in identifying strengths and identifying leadership opportunities. The next thing I would ask yourself is sort of what is your role? And of course this is an ongoing conversation. And I think my role and what I’ve conceived of my place as in terms of being a leader has changed drastically over time, continues to change, fluctuates depending on what situation I’m in, all that kind of stuff.

So, but what’s helpful here in thinking about strength and skills are, you know, yeah, what is your role within, um, a team based project, right? A lot of characteristics that we assign or associate with leadership are those that are very much privileged by a very specific type of leadership hierarchy that we all live in.

When you think about a leader, the first thing that often comes to mind is someone who is Dominant is someone who talks a lot, who’s confident talking in public, who’s confident taking charge, who bosses other people around, right, um, and who, whose word is law, right? A lot of times we think about leaders as people who, Can get others to follow them, right?

And a lot of times that the implication there is it’s by force, right? Or by domination. Um, I would just like to really reinforce that your role doesn’t have to be any of those things. Some of the most brilliant leaders I know and have the privilege of working with are people whose leadership styles operate completely Differently from that.

And some of the best leaders I’ve seen have been the leaders who are really quiet and who sit back and just ask really good questions and know how to mobilize other people based on their strengths and based on their skills. So I really want to emphasize that. Yeah, there are a ton of different leadership tests you can take online.

If you’re that kind of person. Um, even things like Myers Briggs can even be like sort of relatively helpful. I mean, It everything with a grain of salt, right? But you can definitely take tests to find out, you know, like what kind of leader you are. But I would just remember that there are lots of different ways to be a leader.

And there are lots of different rules that you can take on based on what you feel motivated by and what you’re good at. So, for example, in my own life, I would say the majority of In a team situation, I am what I would refer to as a synthesizer. Um, I really like being able to bring lots of different people and flows of information and ideas together into one coherent plan that we can all follow.

Um, what I can tell you off the bat that I am not good at, and I deeply rely on other people for help. Is number 1 in logistics. I am not great at keeping track of every single budget line item on a spreadsheet. And I need someone whose leadership skills focus on. Being able to be really meticulous and make sure every email is sent out that everyone is.

Um, sort of in line with what needs to be in line, that all of our communications are there, that all of our funding is there, right? I need someone who can be really detail oriented. What I’m also sometimes not good at doing is being super, super patient when it comes to seeing vision into reality. And so I always need someone that is a little bit more of a long term visionary to say, Hey, here’s our big plan.

Mariko, you’re going to focus on You know, if it’s steps A through F, can you just focus on step A and I’ll be able to map out the rest of the steps, but you only need to focus on step A right now. And so I really love partnering with folks who are these sort of big picture planners because I will be like, okay, let’s figure out how to synthesize that, um, you know, idea that you have with the resources that we have access to into.

But I often don’t have the big idea or the right idea myself, even in the essay that I wrote about producing a musical and starting a theater company. I was not the one who had the idea to start the theater company. That was someone else. Um, they just gave that idea to me and I said, okay, let’s run with it.

Right. And so it’s, Okay. And in fact, it’s very valuable to be able to identify who you need around you and who you want to see on your team, um, in order to succeed. And also, again, it’s totally a learning process. There are some projects that I’m on where I have a very minimal leadership role. I don’t need to.

They’re running fine without me. Um, but what they do need from me is, you know, contacting donors. What they do need from me is qualitative research. And so I jump into that role. So it really just depends on the project that you’re in, but I would sort of map out, right, who are the different players right now and where can my leadership skills and strengths support them?

Also, what do I like to do if I get the choice, right? Um, if I’m being assigned something or I get to choose my own assignment, what do I do? Do I love doing and what makes me happy? So figuring out your role is again, an ongoing discursive, continual process, but very helpful in being able to identify your strengths and skills because the kinds of roles that you take will.

Illuminate or demonstrate the kinds of skills that are needed to fulfill those roles. Um, and then the last thing that helps identify strength and skills are really figuring out what do you want to accomplish? Right? What’s your goal with this project? What’s your goal with this leadership initiative?

What do you want to do? Right. Um, and that will allow you to find some strengths and some skills because you won’t need skills unless the skills are in service of something. Right. So really taking a second to say, you know, what do I want out of this particular opportunity, especially if it’s a really long standing organization, like a school club, for example, right?

Asking yourself like, okay, you know, this is the club’s mission. And this is what we’ve done in the past. But what do I want? Right. What does this generation of this club want? What do we want to do that maybe is different, or maybe expands upon what’s being done in the past, right? And do we have the capacity and infrastructure for that?

So I think really addressing these three things can help you identify your strengths and skills. And I’m sorry if that was a little too general. It’s really tough because. People have tons of different leadership experiences and opportunities on their applications. So I’m trying to make this as general as possible.

If you have questions about leadership in specific areas, feel free to also drop those in the Q& A and I can be a little bit more specific within the context of the kinds of organizations or extracurriculars you’re involved. Okay. Now, if you don’t have any leadership experience, how do you gain experience, particularly beyond the school club president part, right?

Um, so school clubs. Are one of many different types of existing organizations that will have former leadership roles, right? There are lots of extracurricular organizations that you can really break down by everything from topic to population to geographic area that give you opportunities for leadership.

outside of school. So whether it is a regional or national STEM organization, whether it’s a humanities initiative, whether it’s a local city council that has a youth program, whatever that might be, there are tons and tons of extracurricular organizations where you can find some sort of leadership role.

And in addition to those organizations that are normally structured for high schoolers, or at least for young folks to be able to gain leadership experience, you can also gain leadership experience more formally in the professional world through jobs and internships. So, um, if you are, In a job role, even if it’s in a role where you’re like, well, I don’t necessarily want to do this for the rest of my life.

Look out for leadership opportunities or for ways in which you can expand your leadership. I think that’s a great way to elevate a part time job into a more competitive extracurricular entry is to not just be like, you know, I work here, I’m a sales associate, but to look how you can apply leadership. To advance your role in that particular position and same things with internships.

Right? Um, going above and beyond what’s being asked of you being a sort of returner. Those kinds of things can really help. Um, the other thing that you can do is if, you know, you look around and you’re like, I don’t see anyone who’s doing the kinds of things that I want to do, or I don’t see anyone who’s talking about the things that I want to talk about.

You can create it yourself, right? So whether it’s an organization, um, that sort of has its own infrastructure and is designed to be longer lasting, an initiative that’s focused on a specific topic and getting specific goals accomplished, a larger long term passion project, or even your own business, right?

Those are many, many different ways that you can gain experience and also outline and shape the narrative around your own experience in ways that are not limited by like an existing infrastructure or set of bylaws. So I really recommend that you look into this as well. And we do have lots of resources at CollegeAdvisor that can help you design something like this for yourself.

And the last thing I would recommend is reach out to your own networks, um, your families, your friends, your teachers, everybody knows somebody, and honestly, the easiest way to get your foot through the door in any kind of professional or leadership situation. Is through a personal connection read that personal connection is on good terms with wherever you’re trying to get in the door.

I cannot emphasize how many things I’ve heard about or had the privilege of doing just by word of mouth and just by proactively being the one to ask someone in a field that is maybe you. Something I’m interested in, like, hey, do you know anyone who’s hiring or who would be willing to take a high school student who’s looking for this, this and that, right?

Um, those are going to be the kinds of things that will really make a difference, both in your professional life, because networking is a crucial and essential skill in wherever you want to go, whatever you want to be, whatever you want to do, and also in finding new opportunities that go beyond the high school club situation.

And of course, right, there are even more nontraditional leadership examples that you can think about that. I think sometimes people don’t realize are you’re able to include these on your college applications. And the 1st of these is family leadership actually on both. On the common app for sure, um, there is a category for extracurricular that includes like family caretaking.

And so if you are someone who manages four or five younger siblings or is a primary caretaker of an elderly relative, or even if these connections are non biological, right, um, you can demonstrate leadership in a family situation. Especially if that family situation is maybe preventing you from being able to look more seriously at other extracurricular opportunities.

So, I always push for family leadership. Um, family caretaking is a lot of labor, and it’s legitimate labor, and it’s really important to talk about. Also, if you like, Per se, or you think you’re pretty good at the kind of family caretaking you do, you can always look to expand that work by working with more young people or senior citizens or whatever age group and demographic that you are already have experience in caretaking for.

So I think that’s always a good question to ask folks. And the second thing is just remember that anything can be leadership material. If you turn it into leadership material, it’s all about how you structure what you’re doing. and phrase what you’re doing. So I’ll add in the structure because I should have put that on the slide.

So whether it’s things like video games and eSports, if your deepest passion in life is Minecraft, then think bigger than I just go and play Minecraft with my friends, right? Start a Minecraft league, start tournaments where proceeds go to funding local charities, teach younger kids Minecraft and give them the opportunities to start their own leagues, right?

So, Maybe pair that with homework help, whatever it is, right? There are things that you can do to expand, um, you know, these kinds of things that you might not consider to be college application material, especially if you’re already putting in a lot of hours. Um, I’ll second that for fandom organizing and internet communities.

If you are deep in the weeds on Twitter or Tumblr in the fan world, think about how you can translate that out. Okay. To enacting real change. Uh, really good example I’ll give of that is all the work that, um, the fans of the Korean musical group BTS have done to raise money and generate income for not-for-profit, and for disaster relief, right?

So if you’re someone who’s running one of those stands, accounts stand accounts, think about how you can use your account for good and how you can use your audience and your platform to educate and mobilize resources, right? Because it’s. Because that is something you can put on a college application and that will be something that kind of stands out, right?

Um, and the last thing is, right, there are lots of non organized sports and activities that you can organize yourself. So if you’re really into crafting or knitting or crocheting, right, again, start a club. Think about who in your community could access these things. Think about the potential benefits of more people in your community accessing the things that you love, right?

Whatever that might be. You can do it if you organize it and if you structure it. Um, and again, a good girl of this is like the hot girl walk club. It’s just people walking, but they have a brand. They have a pretty immense social media following and it gets people outside and moving around. Right? So whatever that might be, um, you can organize yourself.

So those would be my suggestions of non traditional leadership roles that you can take on. And I’ll just conclude this by saying that, you know, my overall tips in this whole process, if you haven’t gotten this already, definitely authenticity, right? Make sure that this is coming from you. Um, it’s not your parents writing this essay.

It’s not your resume that writes this essay. If you’re putting in leadership opportunity on your essay, it has to come from you and it has to resonate as an individual experience. I don’t think that you need to put In like, I wouldn’t put so much pressure on being unique or being individual, right? Um, there is a reason why in every application cycle, I’ve worked for CollegeAdvisor.

I have at least three essays about someone who loves their mom. And that’s because a lot of us are so fortunate to have really great moms, right? That’s okay. You don’t have to have something that’s so original or out of the box that your college admissions advisor has never heard it before. But it does need to be about you, right?

Like. My relationship with my mom is very different than yours. So I would want to hear about sort of what is true to you and true to yourself. Um, again, think if you’re looking for ways to organize. And you’re looking about and you’re thinking about different things that you can highlight in an essay or just different things that might drive you to choose or create leadership opportunities in the first place, three ways that you can look at that critically are goals.

So you can talk about all three, you can focus on one, whatever that might be, but looking at goals, methods, and impact will allow you to have a little bit more structure in explaining what it is you’ve done, in deciding what you want to do in the future, and in writing out your goals. very much. The kinds of college essays that talk about leadership in a substantial and in a structured way.

And the last thing, once again, I will just say is that you don’t have to have everything figured out, right? What’s much more important is being able to address where you’re at and where you hope to go. A lot of people spend a lot of time doing things in high school that they really care about in high school, that they never do again in college, or thereafter.

Sure. vice versa. Um, there are things that you will say, like, I’m pretty sure I, I cannot imagine myself doing this. And then you end up doing those things. in college or later on. So it’s okay. You’re not like bound by anything you say in this essay process. Um, they’re not going to track you down your first year and be like, you were really into speech and debate in high school and you said you were going to join the debate team, but you didn’t.

Right. Um, that may or may not be a true story, but you, you don’t have to follow through with it, but do please talk about it within the context of the time that you’re in as something you care about. Right. Um, You’re obviously not going to be like, and I plan to drop this in college, and I only did this for my application.

But just again, bear in mind that like, yeah, not everyone always has it all figured out. That’s okay. It’s It’s far, far more important to focus on how you’re talking about whatever it is you’re talking about and how you frame your leadership opportunities and how you frame your leadership experience when it comes to the essays, when it comes to the extracurricular descriptions, then it is to start, you know, a new and groundbreaking foundation that cures all illnesses for everyone.

So that’s the last thing that I’ll finish there. I think that’ll be the end of my slides. And so I’ll give it back to Sydney as we transition into the next part of our program.

Sydney: Yes, thank you so much. That brings us to the end of the presentation portion of the webinar. I hope that you found all that information helpful.

I know I did. And remember that you can go ahead and download the slides from the handouts tab. So if you need to refer back to them later on, they’re there for you. We’re now going to move into the live Q& A session where I’ll read your questions that are submitted to the Q& A tab, paste them into the public chat so that everyone can see them, and then read them aloud for our presenter.

Um, just as a heads up, if your Q& A tab is not working for some reason, just double check that you joined the webinar through the custom link that was sent to you in your email and not just from the CollegeAdvisor webinar landing page. All right. And so with that, we do have some great questions in the chat.

Um, one is a question that I get all the time as an advisor. I’m sure you’ve gotten it as well. But is there a certain amount of leadership positions that we need? Is there a magic number that colleges are looking for?

Mariko: Right. So I would say the rule in general about college applications is there.

Unfortunately, is no, is never, there are, there is never ever a magic number for anything. Um, all of your application components are getting taken into account holistically, which means that how many leadership positions you have and in what context you have those leadership positions is being balanced against how many AP classes did you take and how well did you do in those classes?

Or what are your test scores? Or what kinds of essays are you writing? Um, so there isn’t one sort of standard or golden rule in general, I would say the more you can turn participation and passive participation into leadership, the better, um, particularly if you are involved in an organization for a really long time or put a lot of hours into an organization.

it’s always nice to be able to show growth and development within the context of that organization. So there is a big difference between saying I am a four year club member of our, um, of our journalism club and starting out as a member and then advancing up through to Secretary, right? And again, these leadership positions don’t all have to be president, president, president, president, but you should have some indication of growth and development over the activities that you do the most and over the activities where it makes a difference to be a leader versus to not be a leader, right?

In terms of the kinds of things you’re being asked to do and the kinds of skills that you get to develop, right? There’s a big difference between running something and just showing up at lunch and sitting there, right? So that would be my biggest recommendation is always aim for leadership whenever you can Unless it’s just something that is like a very small activity or it’s something you do on the side that is truly just for fun.

Right. And if that’s the case, you may not mention that on your college application at all. I know. I certainly did not mention my role as the secretary of our college. Friends the sitcom watching club in high school, but I was there every Wednesday So that would be my answer and I’m sorry I can’t be more specific than that, but always aim for leadership and Always think about how your leadership will be read in the press of your entire application, because if you’re in really incredible leadership roles, you’ll have a little bit more flexibility on your ACT score.

But if you’re not, then that time was hopefully spent, you know, really grinding on your academics, but you need to have some sort of balance.

Sydney: That is great advice. All right. So our next question says, I’m aware that universities want to have a variety of students from different cultures. But does mentioning your cultural culture like cultural dances, events, et cetera, actually make your college application stronger?

Mariko: I love this question and this is something that I actually specialize in as a senior advisor here. Yes. Yes. Yes, please. Please mention your culture if And only if, if this feels relevant to who you are as a person and has shaped who you are today. Don’t just shove it in for the sake of mentioning it, like if you really hate all the things you just listed, like you don’t have to write about those things.

But, if your culture has in some way formatively shaped who you are, what you care about, and the things that you do, please, please mention it. Within the context of your application, I don’t just say this from like a corporate diversity perspective. I say this because number one, you are definitely going to be more memorable as a candidate.

If you’re talking about stuff that is really specific and important to you, and you can really paint a picture of who you are and how you have developed into who you are and where you come from. Um, there are so many. Sensory and, uh, like really specific and intricate and beautiful details that really come across when you showcase the fullness of who you are.

Um, and it’s much easier for admissions officers to remember you, and it’s much easier to convey, you know, what is important to you, right? What makes you, you, um, and the second thing about that is, I really encourage you to think about. Think about aspects of your culture and leadership positions within the context of your culture as being equally, if not, like, more importantly, valuable than, um, leadership positions in sort of like classical school club or, um, whatever, you know, uh, stem org type things, um, are out there.

Those are really important and cool too. But I would say that for me, what really made a difference on my application was the kind of community stuff that I was involved with, because it gave me opportunities and networks that went far beyond my public high school and gave me the kinds of opportunities and the kinds of exposure that I absolutely would not have gotten without being in the communities that I’m part of.

And I’m always super, super grateful for that. So I would really, really encourage you to, if it feels true and authentic to you, to make some time to talk about the culture that you come from or the cultures that you come from in your applications.

Sydney: I couldn’t agree more. And I’m just going to go ahead and quickly flag a question that I was able to answer.

Will the recording be available for us to look back on because the slides only mentioned so much and that is totally true. All of our webinars that are recorded are available at our website CollegeAdvisor.com/webinars and it’ll be uploaded shortly after today’s event. And that actually gives me the perfect segue into talking about CollegeAdvisor.

So CollegeAdvisors, the company that both of us work for, we have a team of over 300 former admissions officers and experts who are all ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions process in one on one advising sessions. We’ve already helped over 6,000 clients in their college journeys, and after analyzing our data since 2021, We found that CollegeAdvisor students are 3.6 times more likely to get into Stanford University, 4.1 times more likely to get into Vanderbilt University, and 2.7 times more likely to get into Harvard University. So you can increase your odds and take the next step in your college admissions journey by signing up for a free 45 minute to 60 minute strategy session with an admission specialist on our team.

By scanning the QR code on the screen. And during that strategy session, we’ll review your current extracurricular list and your leadership opportunities that you’re currently involved in. Maybe talk about some opportunities for you to grow, um, and develop an application strategy for you. We’ll discuss how that aligns with your college list and outline the tools that you need to stand out in a competitive admissions world.

So CollegeAdvisor has already helped so many families and you could be next. So that QR code will stay up on the screen throughout the rest of the Q& A session. So feel free to scan it while we continue. So let’s go back to the questions. Yes. Yes. So the one that you are answering right now, we can go ahead and discuss that a little bit more.

Uh, what are some other ways that, you know, students can show weakness in their college applications and what type of weakness should they really be showcasing?

Mariko: Yeah, this is a great question. I would really encourage you to reframe this question, this language, as instead of weakness, let’s talk about growth, right?

Um, because I think that college admissions, As you know, a lot of students, officers definitely want to see growth, right? How do you grow? Where have you grown? Because that will allow them again to think about okay, where could you grow in the future, right? And also just how self aware are you, right?

Because you are gonna make mistakes in college, you are gonna have times where you struggle. So how are you going to be able to rebound or bounce back from that struggle and learn from it? So I would say that That would be where I would consider this right in terms of like quote unquote weakness I would think about what are times that you’ve grown and it’s been kind of ugly or kind of messy Right, and how do you talk about that growth?

In a way that demonstrates Where you’ve gone from that point, right? I definitely wouldn’t be like I currently am in my flop era. Everything is terrible, right? Um, but I would think about, you know, where, where have I struggled in the past? And what did I learn from that? Even if the outcome wasn’t perfect, right?

Um, or even if you didn’t get everything that you hoped that you were going to get, um, in that period of struggle, right? What did you get out of it instead? And, um, I could definitely talk about. That in the context of my own college applications, that that would be useful. I guess, Sydney, if you want to chime in too, if you had a prompt or had a moment where you chatted about this kind of stuff.

Sydney: Yeah, that is a great question. Um, I think that that’s something that I actually talked about in my graduate school applications because I had been through undergrad and let me tell you the biology STEM classes, they can be hard. There were a couple of classes where I had to drop them or withdrawal halfway through the semester and.

That just taught me to kind of be able to pick myself back up and try again the next semester. Um, so I definitely had to write about that in my graduate school applications.

Mariko: Absolutely. I guess hopping on the STEM bandwagon. Yes, STEM is difficult. Um, one thing that I did talk about in my, this was for Dartmouth, um, in my Dartmouth supplementals was doing a program in high school that was a really intensive pre medical summer internship.

And I, Did not want to be a doctor. I still am not a doctor. I do public health, so I’m close, but not quite. And I had agreed to do the program because I knew it would be a good experience and because, again, personal networking is important. We knew folks that were In the program as well. And they had said that they had had a good experience and they recommended that I apply.

And I got there and just was completely steamrolled. Um, this was not stuff that I was good at, right? This was not stuff I was expected to be good at. This was not stuff I was trying to be good at because I was not trying to be a doctor, right? And so I was experiencing an immense amount of. Failure on an everyday basis and not just failure in terms of not knowing things, but not knowing how to even study for things or how to get better at what I could tell that I was lacking in and that felt very flummoxing.

And I didn’t really know how to deal with that. And, uh, thankfully I had. really fantastic mentors who were able to walk me through that and to discuss that a little bit more with me. And so because of that, I was able to take better stock of who I was as a person, um, how afraid I was of failure at the time.

I think I didn’t realize that before this program and how to be a little bit more honest and a little bit more vulnerable when I struggled. Future, right? And I think those lessons really paid off because, yeah, I got to college. I also had to take a bunch of STEM classes. A lot of them were difficult, but because I had had that experience in high school, I knew a little bit better how to navigate, um, sort of things where I was like, I know I don’t want to do this for a living, but I still have to pass this class, right?

Um, and so talking about that, right? Yeah. Yeah. Had a lot of potential impacts, um, and, and Dartmouth was, it did end up being one of the schools that was one of my top choice schools after I was admitted. So I would say that’s like a good example of something like that in terms of other places to talk about growth or ongoing development.

Um, I will say that number one, there is a section on The both the common app and a lot of the like Uh school specific apps where they say like if there’s any additional information that we need to know about you To fully comprehend and understand your application, please put it here. That’s a great place where if you have had a really difficult health issue or family situation or financial situation that has not made it anywhere else into your application, or you don’t want to make a focal point of your application, but you do think it’s really important to point out, you know, this is why I ended up with a grade that I wasn’t happy with, right?

Or, um, this is why this particular semester, things did not look the way they did for all the other semesters, then you can also add in something there. And I definitely recommend that, especially if it’s related to COVID 19, um, for a couple of years, there was, um, a separate question where you could talk about the impacts of COVID 19 on your family.

I think that may not be there this year as we get further away from 2020, but obviously is still potentially very relevant as well. So, um, that would be something I would flag as well as an opportunity to do, um, that kind of work within the context of your application.

Sydney: Yes, I totally agree. That additional information section, it’s a great place to provide additional context, um, in college or school.

Just put that into the picture. Um, this next question kind of relates to the conversation that we’re having about resilience. Um, are there other specific skills or character traits that colleges look for in applicants extracurricular experiences or their leadership roles?

Mariko: Um, I think that You know, when we talk about character traits, right?

And we talk about skills again, they’re looking for what complements each other within a full class of people, right? So they don’t want every single person to be this deeply intense type A, um, you know, I am going to be the first and the last person to speak at every single meeting, kind of applicant, but what they are looking for is drive, right?

What they are looking for is how and in what ways you take initiative and take something. beyond the confines of what you’re given. And this is really important as you get into the more selective schools, because for schools like the Ivy is, everyone has the grades, everyone has the numbers, everyone can perform when something is put in front of them.

What they want to see is who are you beyond those things, right? And how do you go and how do you go above and beyond those things? And that’s where these sorts of, and that being able to show that I would say is the most crucial characteristic. And it comes with a bunch of skills that allow you to be able to do that.

Um, that is going to be the most important. Um, and the thing that I will add to, right, is that if you get interviewed for any of these schools, these schools will also give your interviewer a prep packet that talks about what you’ve talked about in your application thus far. So they will likely ask you.

About something that you’ve written about, or they’ll ask you to talk about your most important or your most formative or life changing extracurricular experience. So you have to be ready to sell that in person, too. Um, so I think, again, having that sort of level of commitment and having that level of being able to really not only have something that you’re invested in growing, but also to be able to talk about whatever it is that you’re invested in.

Um, and so. I would suggest that. Oh, we have another viewer question.

Sydney: Yes. So that will probably, this will probably be our last question, unless anyone has any other last minute things they’d like to ask. But our last question will be, so it is not all about being the best at everything. I know that it can be the narrative push for Ivy league schools.

I could have a few things that I’m passionate about, but not too overwhelming. So yeah. How do you balance that? What do you showcase?

Mariko: Yes. So the way that my Yale admissions officer explained it, and I think is a really good thing to take away. I should have put this on the slides, um, is that when it comes to extracurriculars, what you’re looking at are breadth and depth.

So breadth is how many, and depth is how deep do you go within those extracurriculars. And you’ll get a combination of Students with different levels of breadth and depth, right? Everyone will have a certain level of breath, right? They are looking for well rounded applicants, right? It is expected if you’re applying to these selective schools that you’re involved in multiple things, right?

But how much you’re involved in and how many things you’re involved in? You can be involved in fewer things if you like them more, um, and that’s the best way that I put it. So if you have put in hundreds and hundreds of hours of service, of building, of leadership into a particular organization, right, um, that will be noted, right?

That you’ve put all of this time and all of this energy into, um, One thing or a cluster of things that are maybe related to each other versus right? If you’re someone who really has a lot of things they’re interested in a lot of things They love right and you can love all those things relatively equally And that breath will be taken into consideration as well Like hey, look at this kid who’s all over the place who’s really challenged themselves across multiple fronts.

So, um, That would be my sort of biggest answer to that, right, is that some students have more breadth, and some students have more depth, but make sure those things are balanced, and that they feel good for you. So if you want to be someone that is more depth oriented, start thinking about how to create that narrative, and explain why you want the depth that you want, right, or why you’re passionate about things.

Two or three things you’re passionate about, right? If you have a little bit more breadth, start thinking about the ways in which being well rounded, but maybe not the best at everything, right, is going to make you a great candidate for that school. Um, I will say like not everything. I was definitely not the greatest at everything I did.

I’m still not the greatest at everything I did, but I always tried to have a good reason for why I did what I did or what I learned from what I did. Um, and one of my Yale supplements was about. playing water polo when I had never ever even explored or looked up the sport prior to starting high school.

My mom signed me up and threw me in and I did not like it at first, right? So, um, And now it’s a thing that I still do, right? So it’s okay. You don’t have to be the best at everything, but do know how to talk about what it is you’re doing and do understand how fitting these different puzzle pieces in can give someone a fuller picture of who you are and what you have.

Sydney: Yes. And that is a great note to end on. I mean, if you’re starting a club or an organization or passion project, you can’t put in a lot of energy to so many other activities. So having that own balance of breadth versus depth is going to be something that’s up to you for sure. All right. Well, thank you so much.

Money code. That was an amazing presentation. Um, thank you again. And that actually brings us to the end of our webinar beyond academics, highlighting your leadership and community involvement. But we do have a lot of other webinars coming up this month. Here is the rest of our series for May. And again for joining us today.

We’ll see you next time.