Leadership is a skill that colleges and undergraduate business programs rank very highly as they search for prospective students who will contribute to campus life. Many of my clients worry they don’t have enough leadership experience to be competitive for their dream schools. But leadership takes many forms. You don’t have to be class president or founder of your own start-up in order to demonstrate leadership, integrity, teamwork, and other personal strengths. You can be a leader by inspiring others, leading by example, accepting responsibility, taking initiative, or showing empathy. What’s necessary is that you reflect deeply on your experiences and share specific examples that will make your application stand out to admissions readers.
While your college essay and supplemental application will be the primary places to highlight your leadership abilities and other personal strengths, there are several other parts of the application where you can corroborate the strengths you describe in your essays. In this article, I’ll give you expert tips gleaned from 20 years of teaching and mentoring students to help showcase your unique story and strengths. Along the way, I’ll share links to free resources from Accepted that will aid you with your application. Let’s get started!
1. College Essays
Many of the Common App essay prompts provide opportunities for you to address leadership skills and other traits that set you apart. They ask you to share a specific “interest or talent” (#1), what you learned from a “challenge, setback, or failure” (#2), and an “accomplishment, event, or realization” that sparked personal growth and a new understanding of yourself (#5). The University of California Personal Insight Question #1 asks you to describe a specific example of your leadership experience in which you “positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time.” (Our sample essay, “Summer Camp Entrepreneur,” is a brilliant response to this prompt.) Personal Insight Question #7 addresses another form of leadership, asking “What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?”
When tackling these questions, it’s important to realize that there are many definitions and facets of leadership. Often, leaders first set themselves apart by displaying integrity and initiative through their own consistent behaviors and actions, then slowly gain the trust of others. Think about how you’ve demonstrated leadership in a variety of settings: at school, on an athletic team, while volunteering, among your friends, or within your family. Our free guide, “Showcasing Leadership in Admissions,” describes the many ingredients of a good leader and how you can brainstorm specific examples to highlight in your essays.
Likewise, teamwork involves emotional intelligence and a keen awareness of social dynamics. You probably demonstrate teamwork skills like active listening, morale boosting, and conflict resolution in a variety of interpersonal settings: in a group project, with your siblings, at summer camp–anywhere where you are working with others to accomplish a common goal. Creativity, resilience, positivity, and professionalism are other traits you might consider highlighting in your college essays.
2. College Supplements
In supplements to the Common App, most schools will ask you why you’re choosing a specific area of study and why you want to study at their school. Several colleges like Cornell, Georgetown, and the University of Michigan require prospective business majors to submit an additional short-answer question or essay. To respond to these questions successfully, spend time researching the college’s mission and values, and carefully reading the language on the business program website. Then tailor the leadership examples in your responses to show that you share the school’s values. It’s also important to demonstrate that you’ve researched the specific opportunities offered at the school and that you can articulate how the college and its professors will help you achieve your long-term goals.
3. Extracurricular Activities
Within the Common App, you have very limited space to share the activities you’re involved in and any leadership positions, accomplishments, or recognitions you’ve received. So make sure that each character counts! First, choose the most accurate option from the “Activity Type” dropdown. Try not to repeat this information in the free response fields. Then, in the position/leadership description section, list your title as specifically as possible. It can be helpful to indicate here if you have more than one title within an organization, or if you’ve held a leadership position for multiple years. If the position is selective, give the admissions readers a sense of the size of the application pool you were chosen from. In the field for describing the activity, focus on tangible, quantifiable impacts. For example, you could say you increased student newspaper circulation from 500 to 1,000, or that you recruited 12 men for the cheerleading team, or that your student literary magazine ranked third in the state. Don’t use complete sentences; instead, provide the headlines. This is also a great space to briefly describe examples of leadership that you don’t mention in your essays or college supplements. This blog post provides some examples of extracurriculars and community service activities valued by MBA programs–you can adapt them for your college applications.
4. Letters of Recommendation
Your letters of recommendation are a chance for champions of your work to validate and amplify claims about your leadership skills, teamwork, integrity, and other personal qualities, while also sharing new evidence that supports your application. Make sure to approach recommenders who would be excited to support you, and with whom you have a strong relationship, ideally in more than one context (for example, a teacher you’ve also worked with on an extracurricular activity or independent project, a coach or counselor). Notify the recommender at least two months before the letter of recommendation is due to allow them enough time to draft and edit it. You may also want to provide the recommender with a current resume and a one-page list containing three or four accomplishments to consider mentioning. The blog post “Ingredients of a Great Letter of Recommendation” provides helpful advice you can tailor to undergraduate business programs.
Steven guides applicants through every stage of the admissions process—drawing on his background as a journalist, speechwriter, and MFA in creative writing to help candidates uncover and articulate their unique stories. With twenty years of experience coaching students for top graduate and professional programs, he offers personalized, detail‑driven strategies to craft essays and applications that resonate with admissions committees. Click here to request a consultation with Steven.
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