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[quote=Anonymous]I think people get a very narrow view of what "leadership" is.  My DS never had a leadership role in a club and in fact did very little with school clubs.  He goes to a big, very competitive HS and a ton of people show up for any activity because so many are focused on building that college resume. He told me it doesn't matter if he shows up, they don't need him there. Which is true. And everyone wants to "start a club", which takes very little effort and no college is going to know how much or little you did with that.

DS did one service activity at our church for a long time, not a ton of total time, once a month for a few hours.  I nagged him about "leadership" which he ignored and stuck with the one job he'd always done that seemed to not require much of him.  But when he had to write about service for a college essay he talked about how he liked that job because he actually got to talk with the people he was serving and build relationships with them.  By doing that quiet, non-leadership, job he was making a real contribution to the community and certainly making the guests feel welcome and connected in a way he wouldn't by dropping that job to sit on the leadership committee or taking some other higher-profile job. He got into VT when most of his friends with similar or better profiles got waitlisted and I would guess his service essay helped since service is very important to VT.[/quote]

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