Why do colleges place such emphasis on “leadership”??

[Anonymous]

University professor here. It's not what most professors want. The last thing we need is arrogant little pricks coming in thinking they are revolutionizing the world with an IQ of 120. This is just one example of very many, but I had set up a booth to recruit students for a study several years back. It was going just fine until a 20 year old came up to me and insisted he was a "direct marketing expert" who was "transforming businesses." He would not leave my booth and I lost a number of potential recruits in the thirty (!!) minutes he lectured me on what I was doing wrong with my advertisement and recruiting script. I came to learn he had taken TWO CLASSES in marketing to gain his "expertise." Like dude, you're a sophomore, not a business transformation expert. Leadership is a buzzword invented by administrators so that they can ignore SAT scores in favor of subjective and ever changing definitions of "personality" to broaden their admissions pool. The reality is that we get a lot of students who have been falsely indoctrinated by their parents, high schools, and others that they are leadership material, even though when they graduate they will probably be performing some menial task. It's not proven but I believe the inflation of young people's expectations that they will all be some kind of leader or world changer is contributing to depression in the late 20s/early 30s workforce

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's wrong with someone who is truly an intellectual, who would rather sit in a library reading than do anything else? These are the people that universities used to be for. Faculty at places like oxford and cambridge are laughing at America where faculty rarely win in on admissions and no one is looking for that intellectual spark.

American schools would rather produce rich donors than academics

They need a lot of the former to support a handful of the latter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ha! I agree with you, OP. But I think it's a good way to distinguish a kid who really cares about an activity, and has put in a lot of time and effort, from a kid who joins 12 clubs just to pad the resume.

Maybe 10 years ago, now kids game leadership roles for applications

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's wrong with someone who is truly an intellectual, who would rather sit in a library reading than do anything else? These are the people that universities used to be for. Faculty at places like oxford and cambridge are laughing at America where faculty rarely win in on admissions and no one is looking for that intellectual spark.

American schools would rather produce rich donors than academics

They need a lot of the former to support a handful of the latter.

Harvard could never take in another donation and be fine based on its endowment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another way to look at it is that colleges want students who are independent critical thinkers. If your child is heavily involved in an activity but you can’t find any way to spin that into an example of leadership, then they’re probably doing little more than simply showing up and doing what they’re told. It’s your child is truly engaged/invested in an activity, surely at some point they’ve thought to themselves that X might be a better way to do something, or Y could be a great addition to what they’re already doing. If your child isn’t even doing that, what are they going to contribute to the college community other than filling a seat?

This is more on track. Leadership is not necessarily leading a group of people. Leadership is also about creative or deeply insightful thinking that leads to breakthroughs in any type of scholarship. In essence, selective colleges want proactive, engaged learners who will challenge the status quo in constructive ways, not check-the-box types that just want a four-year degree and a job. Think about the people at your work who are relatively indispensable. Colleges want those people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's wrong with someone who is truly an intellectual, who would rather sit in a library reading than do anything else? These are the people that universities used to be for. Faculty at places like Oxford and Cambridge are laughing at America where faculty rarely win in on admissions and no one is looking for that intellectual spark.

Hello > Your claim is not actually true. There is some truth to this, as with US colleges and universities. But I know that Oxford likes is'Varsity Blues' sportsmen and sportswomen. After Columbia, I studied at Oxford and the Oxford 'blue' letterman was a prized member of each college. I also taught a number of undergraduates there during my graduate studies. A number of the athletes were not as academically driven as some of the other students. Analogous to the Us. Other students were legacies and had other hooks. Family did playa role , and athletes were clearly important to have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another way to look at it is that colleges want students who are independent critical thinkers. If your child is heavily involved in an activity but you can’t find any way to spin that into an example of leadership, then they’re probably doing little more than simply showing up and doing what they’re told. It’s your child is truly engaged/invested in an activity, surely at some point they’ve thought to themselves that X might be a better way to do something, or Y could be a great addition to what they’re already doing. If your child isn’t even doing that, what are they going to contribute to the college community other than filling a seat?

The problem with this argument is that it doesn't align with what we know about how
People make scientific and intellectual progress. There are
Reasons why someone could be a math prodigy at
Age 10 but not a great legal scholar. In some disciplines people
Do their best work in their 50s so there is no reason to expect
Everyone to speak at age 17 or 18 or 19. It would be like the
Army looking at 17 year old recruits and saying who is
Likely to become a general. You would get some of it right
But a lot of it wrong.

By that theory, we should do away with the admissions process completely and have every school do it by random lottery, because you never know who might be a genius in disguise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:University professor here. It's not what most professors want. The last thing we need is arrogant little pricks coming in thinking they are revolutionizing the world with an IQ of 120. This is just one example of very many, but I had set up a booth to recruit students for a study several years back. It was going just fine until a 20 year old came up to me and insisted he was a "direct marketing expert" who was "transforming businesses." He would not leave my booth and I lost a number of potential recruits in the thirty (!!) minutes he lectured me on what I was doing wrong with my advertisement and recruiting script. I came to learn he had taken TWO CLASSES in marketing to gain his "expertise." Like dude, you're a sophomore, not a business transformation expert. Leadership is a buzzword invented by administrators so that they can ignore SAT scores in favor of subjective and ever changing definitions of "personality" to broaden their admissions pool. The reality is that we get a lot of students who have been falsely indoctrinated by their parents, high schools, and others that they are leadership material, even though when they graduate they will probably be performing some menial task. It's not proven but I believe the inflation of young people's expectations that they will all be some kind of leader or world changer is contributing to depression in the late 20s/early 30s workforce

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:University professor here. It's not what most professors want. The last thing we need is arrogant little pricks coming in thinking they are revolutionizing the world with an IQ of 120. This is just one example of very many, but I had set up a booth to recruit students for a study several years back. It was going just fine until a 20 year old came up to me and insisted he was a "direct marketing expert" who was "transforming businesses." He would not leave my booth and I lost a number of potential recruits in the thirty (!!) minutes he lectured me on what I was doing wrong with my advertisement and recruiting script. I came to learn he had taken TWO CLASSES in marketing to gain his "expertise." Like dude, you're a sophomore, not a business transformation expert. Leadership is a buzzword invented by administrators so that they can ignore SAT scores in favor of subjective and ever changing definitions of "personality" to broaden their admissions pool. The reality is that we get a lot of students who have been falsely indoctrinated by their parents, high schools, and others that they are leadership material, even though when they graduate they will probably be performing some menial task. It's not proven but I believe the inflation of young people's expectations that they will all be some kind of leader or world changer is contributing to depression in the late 20s/early 30s workforce

This! Please post this in every thread, once a day so the DCUM crowd can hear it loud and clear! I'm sure this kid had 2000 hours of community service, "founded" 3 clubs and had a website that did something fantastic because he saw people in some random village suffer and wanted to fix it - all choreographed by his parents, of course..

[Anonymous]

Of course, Oxford and Cambridge cherish academic students and early bloomers in research. However, it also loves the athletes important for rowing and rugby. Teams in tennis, swimming, and football ( soccer) are also important to field and win university pride.

I saw this many times in admissions and tutored a number of students from all kinds of backgrounds and skills - rather analogous to what happens in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another way to look at it is that colleges want students who are independent critical thinkers. If your child is heavily involved in an activity but you can’t find any way to spin that into an example of leadership, then they’re probably doing little more than simply showing up and doing what they’re told. It’s your child is truly engaged/invested in an activity, surely at some point they’ve thought to themselves that X might be a better way to do something, or Y could be a great addition to what they’re already doing. If your child isn’t even doing that, what are they going to contribute to the college community other than filling a seat?

The problem with this argument is that it doesn't align with what we know about how
People make scientific and intellectual progress. There are
Reasons why someone could be a math prodigy at
Age 10 but not a great legal scholar. In some disciplines people
Do their best work in their 50s so there is no reason to expect
Everyone to speak at age 17 or 18 or 19. It would be like the
Army looking at 17 year old recruits and saying who is
Likely to become a general. You would get some of it right
But a lot of it wrong.

By that theory, we should do away with the admissions process completely and have every school do it by random lottery, because you never know who might be a genius in disguise.

Not at all. This is where intellectual aptitude shows future potential. People just don't become critical thinkers in their later years. They were always critical thinkers - but achievement in many disciplines takes a long time (most people who go on to win Nobels did their seminal work in their 40s). As we all know - but some of us want to forget - it's aptitude tests that are the most reliable markers of critical thinking.

The rest of the world knows this. Thousands of years ago, Chinese scholars sat for days-long exams to be selected for the top administration jobs of the state. Every country in the world apart from the US selects its leaders and talent through exam scores. You might believe that because the USA was a superpower for a few years, its educational selection is the best. Actually, for most of its very short existence, it used the same selection methods as the rest of the world. You will find that this recent "holistic" experiment will die off as global competition for power becomes more competitive and Americans realize they need better people at the top in their influence wrangling against China, Europe and India.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure it is quite a simplistic as you are making it out to be. Being president of 10 high school clubs is much less meaningful than investing in a few issues in a meaningful way. For example "president of the speech and debate club" checks a box, but president of S&D who developed a volunteer coaching program for the local Boys and Girls club shows much more dedication, KWIM?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:University professor here. It's not what most professors want. The last thing we need is arrogant little pricks coming in thinking they are revolutionizing the world with an IQ of 120. This is just one example of very many, but I had set up a booth to recruit students for a study several years back. It was going just fine until a 20 year old came up to me and insisted he was a "direct marketing expert" who was "transforming businesses." He would not leave my booth and I lost a number of potential recruits in the thirty (!!) minutes he lectured me on what I was doing wrong with my advertisement and recruiting script. I came to learn he had taken TWO CLASSES in marketing to gain his "expertise." Like dude, you're a sophomore, not a business transformation expert. Leadership is a buzzword invented by administrators so that they can ignore SAT scores in favor of subjective and ever changing definitions of "personality" to broaden their admissions pool. The reality is that we get a lot of students who have been falsely indoctrinated by their parents, high schools, and others that they are leadership material, even though when they graduate they will probably be performing some menial task. It's not proven but I believe the inflation of young people's expectations that they will all be some kind of leader or world changer is contributing to depression in the late 20s/early 30s workforce

Thank you. If we can't get people to understand what a reasonable career path looks like and what an actual contribution is, could we at least get people to understand that mathematically, not everyone can be a leader?

Then maybe we can move on to making people understand that enthusiasm for being in charge is one of the less-important traits of a real leader.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:University professor here. It's not what most professors want. The last thing we need is arrogant little pricks coming in thinking they are revolutionizing the world with an IQ of 120. This is just one example of very many, but I had set up a booth to recruit students for a study several years back. It was going just fine until a 20 year old came up to me and insisted he was a "direct marketing expert" who was "transforming businesses." He would not leave my booth and I lost a number of potential recruits in the thirty (!!) minutes he lectured me on what I was doing wrong with my advertisement and recruiting script. I came to learn he had taken TWO CLASSES in marketing to gain his "expertise." Like dude, you're a sophomore, not a business transformation expert. Leadership is a buzzword invented by administrators so that they can ignore SAT scores in favor of subjective and ever changing definitions of "personality" to broaden their admissions pool. The reality is that we get a lot of students who have been falsely indoctrinated by their parents, high schools, and others that they are leadership material, even though when they graduate they will probably be performing some menial task. It's not proven but I believe the inflation of young people's expectations that they will all be some kind of leader or world changer is contributing to depression in the late 20s/early 30s workforce

Exactly.

Yep. Early in my career I had to supervise an entry-level employee who'd graduated from an Ivy league school. She straight up told me she didn't think she should have to do certain menial tasks that all assistants did because she went to "X" school. I wonder what happened to her. She left to go to some sketchy start-up purely because the leadership was from her college. I guess she thought they wouldn't expect someone with <1 year experience to do menial tasks. Good luck with that. If she'd been willing to stick it out and do the assistant work at our company (which is now one of the top consulting firms in my field) she'd have learned a ton and had a good foundation for a career in our industry.

I hire for entry level positions now at a different company and always look extra closely at attitude/work ethic from Ivy+ grads to weed out that mindset. Especially love to see a basic retail/food service job on their resume.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:University professor here. It's not what most professors want. The last thing we need is arrogant little pricks coming in thinking they are revolutionizing the world with an IQ of 120. This is just one example of very many, but I had set up a booth to recruit students for a study several years back. It was going just fine until a 20 year old came up to me and insisted he was a "direct marketing expert" who was "transforming businesses." He would not leave my booth and I lost a number of potential recruits in the thirty (!!) minutes he lectured me on what I was doing wrong with my advertisement and recruiting script. I came to learn he had taken TWO CLASSES in marketing to gain his "expertise." Like dude, you're a sophomore, not a business transformation expert. Leadership is a buzzword invented by administrators so that they can ignore SAT scores in favor of subjective and ever changing definitions of "personality" to broaden their admissions pool. The reality is that we get a lot of students who have been falsely indoctrinated by their parents, high schools, and others that they are leadership material, even though when they graduate they will probably be performing some menial task. It's not proven but I believe the inflation of young people's expectations that they will all be some kind of leader or world changer is contributing to depression in the late 20s/early 30s workforce

Exactly.

Yep. Early in my career I had to supervise an entry-level employee who'd graduated from an Ivy league school. She straight up told me she didn't think she should have to do certain menial tasks that all assistants did because she went to "X" school. I wonder what happened to her. She left to go to some sketchy start-up purely because the leadership was from her college. I guess she thought they wouldn't expect someone with <1 year experience to do menial tasks. Good luck with that. If she'd been willing to stick it out and do the assistant work at our company (which is now one of the top consulting firms in my field) she'd have learned a ton and had a good foundation for a career in our industry.

I hire for entry level positions now at a different company and always look extra closely at attitude/work ethic from Ivy+ grads to weed out that mindset. Especially love to see a basic retail/food service job on their resume.

fast food work experience is one of the best screens for entry level employees. If someone can put up with shift work at McDonalds, they probably won't throw a hissy fit if they think work is beneath them