leadership at home college essay

Leadership Essay

27 August, 2020

12 minutes read

Author:  Richard Pircher

As a college student, you must write essays on a regular basis since the latter is one of the most common types of home assignments. All this means is that in order to get good grades and be successful with writing the papers, you need to have a sound understanding of the structure. Additionally, what you should never neglect is the variety of essay types. Indeed, your essay will significantly differ from one type to another: description essay will most likely have a structure that is slightly different from an argumentative one.

What you may have already encountered in your academic life is the work on a leadership essay. Although it sounds pretty complicated and vague, it is mostly possible to master an essay on leadership. Below is a guide for you to get an insight into this particular essay type.

What is a good leadership essay?

A good leadership essay is the one in which the essay writer has fully covered the topic of leadership and understood its core ideas. More specifically, to end up with a flawless leadership essay, you will need to indicate what makes a person a good leader. For achieving the latter, you will most likely need to conduct research and trace how a particular person reaches his or her goals. In other words, the task is to discover which actions the person undertakes, what their followers say about him or her, and how the person organizes the work. So, a leadership essay implies providing real-life success examples and further revealing them.

Above all, a good leadership essay is the one that follows a precise, clear, comprehensive structure. Structuring your essay about leadership in the most coherent way leads to a win-win situation: you have fewer troubles and barriers to writing a brilliant essay, and your teacher is able to comprehend the essay easily. This guide is what you will need to refer to to get an insight into how the flawless structure for a leadership essay looks like and how it will let you take a benefit.

How to write a Leadership essay?

To write a leadership essay that stands out, you first need to brainstorm all the ideas that you have and come up with a topic for your essay. If you are struggling with this step, you may think of some of the most influential people, read about them, and find out what makes them unique. Or, you can pick any topic which is mentioned at the end of this article. After you have chosen an issue, it is time to structure your essay appropriately.

As you already know, an essay constitutes three essential sections: introduction, main body, and conclusion. Below is the more detailed description of each of the parts.

Introduction

Of course, your leadership essay introduction will always vary depending on the topic of the essay. However, you can always begin by stating your vision of leadership regardless of the topic. Additionally, to motivate the reader and instantly catch his or her attention, you may use a quote of a famous leader, or simply a quote which you find relevant to the topic. Be aware that you should avoid outlining the essence and the role of the leadership in your introduction; leave it for the body paragraphs.

What you may also do in your leadership essay is ask a question, which will most likely intrigue the leader. Or it will at least give your reader an overview of what you will dwell on  in your essay.

Body Paragraphs

You will need to divide the main body into 3-5 paragraphs to make the structure more comprehensive. What you have to do at this point  is  give your reader a sound understanding of your ideas. Therefore, try to fit each idea in a single body paragraph so that you do not confuse your reader. Do not hesitate to indicate your examples to strengthen your arguments. For instance, you may explain a fact that makes a particular person you are writing about a real leader.

Also, always stick to your thesis statement and don’t forget that the body paragraphs should reveal the parts of your thesis statement.

As you may already know, you need to restate your opinion and briefly summarize all the points from the main body in conclusion. For instance, if you wrote your essay on qualities of an effective leader, state the most fundamental qualities and indicate why they matter the most. Besides, try not to copy what you have already written in the body – it is better to restate your opinion using different words. And, of course, beware adding any new and extra information; indicate only those points that you have already outlined in the text. Finally, keep in mind that it is always favorable to keep your concluding remarks short.

Leadership Essay Examples

Writing a leadership essay requires some research and time. In case you feel the necessity to go through an essay example, below is a leadership essay sample you can refer to.

Is leadership an inborn or an acquired feature?

Is everyone capable of becoming a leader, or is this ability innate? A lot of researchers have been struggling to answer this question. One assumption about leadership implies that the leader is the person who possesses particular characteristics. Another assumption claims that leaders are capable of acquiring specific features over their life span. As the evidence shows, leaders own many features that distinguish them among others and make more and more people become their followers. These might be cognitive abilities, psychological traits, professional qualities, and a lot more, and all of them will be either acquired or innate. Based on the importance of leadership qualities, such as commitment, stress resistance, and the ability to make quality decisions, it is reasonable to claim that leaders are made, not born. 

One can deem commitment as one of the top fundamental qualities of the leader. In essence, such a feature indicates that a person is passionate about the common goal, strives to be a team player, and makes every effort to reach a shared goal. As the history shows, none of the successful companies was uncoordinated by an influential, committed leader: Apple, Amazon, Microsoft – all of these companies are examples of dominant teams led by a dedicated leader. A committed leader also inspires his or her team to achieve common goals and put more effort into the shared activity. Besides, commitment is unlikely to be an innate feature; it instead comes with experience. This is so, since commitment implies dedicating oneself to the shared task, and one can reach it only via learning and continuous self-improvement.

Stress resistance is another incredibly important feature that every good leader should possess. This is because only a stress-resistant leader has sufficient capabilities to overcome any complexity and not let the anxiety and stress prevent him or her from making proper decisions. Besides, such a leader will most likely have a positive influence on the team, as long as leading by example will motivate the team members to attain the same emotional stability. What is so far familiar about stress resistance as an effective leader’s feature is that it can be either innate or attained. However, although some researchers admit that emotional stability is something one is born with, it is not entirely true; many people still put a great effort into self-improvement, changing the attitude to unfortunate situations, and so on. Therefore, being resistant to stress can be mostly attributed to a personality.

An ability to make high-quality decisions most likely determines the chances for an enterprise’s success. In particular, such quality is incredibly fundamental for a company of any size and professional orientation. Additionally, it is one of the top tasks of a good leader to make final decisions. What he or she should do implies brainstorming, discussing various opinions in the group, making forecasts, analyzing all the pros and cons. However, the leader is the one to make a final decision. Thereby, he is in charge of researching the market, discovering all the hidden truths, and analyzing the organization’s potential and capabilities to result in the most effective decision. As it flows logically from the latter, an ability to make sound quality decisions is purely a professional quality. This leads to the conclusion that one has to work hard to become a genuine leader and master the skill of making effective decisions. 

Overall, the leader may possess a multitude of different skills and master them perfectly. However, what has so far become transparent is that any leader, regardless of which team he leads, must possess three essential qualities. These qualities are commitment to the common goal, ability to handle and resist stress, and, finally, an ability to make effective decisions. All of the three qualities are most likely to be acquired over a lifetime. The statement below leads to the conclusion that even though some qualities can be innate, most are not the ones that leaders are born with. Hence, this answers an essential question: leadership feature is acquired, and not necessarily inborn.  

20 leadership essay topics

When coming up with your next leadership essay topic, it is imperative to brainstorm ideas and think of what leadership might be related to. If you are struggling with a topic of the importance of leadership essay or any relevant type of essay, you may quickly take a look at some of the possible topics we prepared for you:

• What are the main qualities of the leader?
• Successful Time Management as a feature of an effective leader
• The role that rhetoric plays in leadership
• The most exceptional leader in the history of the 20-th century
• The role of female leadership
• What are the challenges of the leader of the 21-st century?
• How college helps students develop leadership skills?
• Qualities of the leader that motivate people to follow them 
• Top things to avoid doing to become a team leader
• Examples of effective and ineffective leadership in the history
• Top techniques for developing leadership skills
• The interconnection of creativity and leadership 
• Is a university’s role fundamental in developing leadership skills?
• Dictatorship as an anti-example of leadership
• Liberal vs Authoritative leadership: which one works better?
• The influence of the leader’s role model on the followers’ mindset
• Main difficulties that the new leader may face in a new team
• Leadership of today vs leadership of the past: what has changed?
• Reasons why I want to become a member if the leadership program
• The role of cognitive abilities for the leader 

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A Blue Print for the best Leadership Essay

Leadership encompasses a variety of tenets. It includes leadership approaches or styles, leadership development, types of leadership, leadership principles, leadership values, and leadership theories. These are but a few concepts that any college student must be acquainted with to be able to complete an essay on leadership.

As complex as writing a leadership essay sounds, it is simple when you know how to write an essay about leadership. You must begin by understanding who a leader is and the entire concept of leadership.

When writing an essay about a leader, it is akin to writing a profile essay about a certain leader or yourself. Leadership essays for college require a special type of keenness. While there are many scholarly sources you can use, it takes expertise to knit together a great leadership essay introduction.

This guide helps you write the ?what is leadership? essay effectively. It also enables you to write the best nature of leadership essay. If you are stuck with choosing leadership essay topics, our guide has over 89 essay topics on leadership and ideas that you can use to brainstorm. From today on, write the best leadership essay conclusion. And if it is a leadership essay for a scholarship, admission, or personal statement, we have experts that can help. We also have proofreading and editing professionals to help edit and proofread your leadership thesis and dissertation.

Read on and see what we have for you.

What is a Leadership Essay?

A leadership essay is somewhat a unique assignment assigned to college and university students. It can be part of the admission or scholarship essays or part of the coursework. Naturally, it is an assignment assigned to students pursuing different courses such as business, management, human resource, organizational behavior, economics, psychology, or political science, among others. A leadership essay encompasses exploration:

• The concept of leadership
• Nature of leadership
• Stories on prominent leaders
• Leadership traits and qualities
• The link between leadership and development, success, performance, and improvement
• Leadership abilities
• Facts and events of an individual?s leadership experience

To write a good leadership paper, a student must begin by reading the essay prompt and the rubric. A student should then think critically and logically on what to include in their paper. Like other exceptional essays, a good essay on leadership must have credible facts from scholarly sources. The instructor/professor is always testing for your evaluation, assessment, analytical, and presentation skills.

Tips when Writing Leadership Essays for College

Creating a perfect leadership essay is easy when you follow these predetermined success-assured steps.

1. Choose a leadership Topic that interests you

When assigning leadership essays, most professors and instructors alike give prompts with a list of topics to choose from. Go for topics that impress you and ones that you can find great information from books, journals, credible websites, and other scholarly sources.

2. Research Online and Get enough insights

After selecting a particular topic, ensure that you go a step higher to conduct research online. Gather as much information from the available literature as possible. The research process, when writing leadership essays, helps in generating ideas for the introduction, body, and conclusion of the essay. It also helps define the scope of your essay and come up with a thesis.

3. Create an excellent thesis statement

Your thesis statement in your essay on leadership should reflect the outlook of the entire essay. Format it to feature your major argument in an intelligent and reasoned way. An excellent thesis statement defines a good essay any day.

4. Draft the Leadership Essay Outline

Every great essay begins with an outline. Creating an outline for your leadership essay helps you draft a blueprint for the entire essay. Outline what will go to the introduction, the thesis statement, and the background information.

5. Write your First Draft

With the arguments reflected on the outline, you can choose to use any format for the body paragraphs. A common approach is to use the PEEL writing strategy for coherence in your paragraphs. You can also use the Schaffer strategy. The choice is yours. Above all, ensure that facts from scholarly sources are cited in-text in MLA, APA, Harvard, or Chicago formats.

6. Edit, Proofread and Revise your Essay

After writing your essay, it is always great to edit and proofread. If you have no confidence in your leadership essay, you can hire someone to edit your leadership essays . If you are an MBA student, we can help you correct mistakes on your paper. Always submit a paper you are confident will pass Turnitin and get you great grades.

How to Begin a Leadership Paper - The Introduction

You are probably reading this because the question of ?how do I start my leadership essay?? is bothering you. Well, even though the question seems ambiguous, we have an answer for you right here.

Every great leadership essay has an excellent introduction. Your introduction should be well-written to the extent that it grabs the attention of the reader and entices them to stay through the end. Ideally, the introduction sets the mood of the entire paper.

As with other types of essays, a leadership essay can commence with a great essay hook or a grabber . It could be an anecdote, a statistic, quote, phrase, or a catchy word.

The hook should be preceded by a few sentences that act as the background to your essay. The aim of the background sentences, in the introduction, is to set the context of the essay.

The background is then followed by an excellent thesis statement . The thesis statement gives a sneak peek into your essay in a snapshot. It can either be one or two last sentences in the introduction. The thesis differs depending on whether the essay is descriptive, classification, narrative, argumentative, or persuasive essay.

If you follow these steps, you will write an outstanding essay on leadership. Make it count right from the beginning.

How to Ace a Leadership Experience Essay

When writing application essays, scholarship essays, or school transfer essays, you can be asked to write an essay about your leadership experience. It is always imperative to make your essay as unique as the Costco application essay. Here are some tips to use when writing your leadership essay:

• Begin by reading the leadership experience essay prompt to understand exactly what you are being asked to write about.
• Come up with an excellent essay hook for your essay. It could be an anecdote, a quote from a great leader, a simple statistic, or an observation?.
• Write the thesis of your leadership experience essay, which should cover the gist of the entire essay.
• Write the introduction of the essay as though it is to be published among the best sellers.
• Make sure each of the paragraphs outlines your leadership experiences. Each of the paragraphs should have leadership experience, illustrations, and examples.
• Keep the flow within the paper by using appropriate transitions.
• Avoid using jargon in your leadership essays. In most cases, simplicity wins the day, and after all, a successful leader expresses themselves in just a few words.
• If there are references used, be sure to cite the essay in APA, MLA, Harvard, or Chicago.
• Make the conclusion count. Restate the thesis and write a summary of the entire paper.
• Most leadership essays can be anything between 150 words to 2000 words. Depending on the essay prompt, always be sure to meet the word count.

Remember, if the leadership experience essay is a scholarship essay, personal statement, statement of purpose, or an admission essay, it should be written in the first person. Otherwise, you must stick to the third person, which is a preference in academic writing.

Leadership Essay Topics and Ideas you can choose for your Paper

Are you wondering about the best leadership essay topics? We have your back on this. Here are some essay topics on leadership to kick start your topic choice process. We answer the question of ?what are some essay topics on leadership??

• The ability of women in leadership to successfully steer progress and success in organizations.
• Role of leaders in the community
• Charismatic, transformational, and transactional leadership
• Characteristics of a good leader
• Features of supportive leadership
• Leadership and Power
• Women in leadership
• Breaking the glass ceiling
• Role of ethics in leadership
• Gender differences in leadership
• Importance of team leadership in virtual teams
• Role of leaders in group formation
• How leadership brings diversity in an organization
• Corruption among public leaders
• Are leaders made or born?
• Can situations define a leader?
• Leadership succession and its importance in organizations
• Do you consider yourself to be a leader or a follower?
• An example of a 21 st -century exemplary leader
• Challenges leaders face
• Importance of listening for leaders
• Are transformational leaders better than transactional leaders?
• How to improve leadership skills
• Great leaders should be great communicators
• Who do you look up to as a leader?
• Importance of self-confidence among leaders
• Which leader do you admire? Please write a letter to of gratitude for their influence on your life
• The importance of leadership in schools
• Historical leaders
• Think of a leader you admire and list three of the qualities that make him or her a good leader. Which quality do you share with him or her? Which quality could you improve upon?
• How can you improve your own leadership skills?
• Role of military leadership
• Do entrepreneurs need to be leaders?
• An integrative theory of leadership
• The impacts of national culture on corporate and public leadership
• Leadership and organizational development
• How leadership affects the morale of employees
• Does leadership competence define the organization of choice for employees
• The link between leadership and organizational citizenship behavior
• Leadership and organizational loyalty
• Variation of leadership behavior depending on the culture
• Leadership processes and self-identity of followers
• Leadership style and organizational commitment
• The prospective of future leadership
• Role of strategic leadership
• The Influence of democratic leadership on Employee performance: A case in Saudi Public Sector
• Business leadership and culture
• The normative approach to business leadership
• Comparative analysis of the world?s greatest military leaders
• Understanding combat leadership
• Role of military leaders in strategy and policy implementation
• Meyers Briggs Type Indicator best for military leadership
• Understanding the art of command in military leadership
• How school leadership works
• Does the leadership styles of a school principle define the success of a school?
• Are collaborative school leaders successful?
• The role of power, culture, and people in educational leadership
• Leadership and policy implementation
• Leadership style of educators
• School leadership in the 21 st century
• Teacher leadership for professional resilience
• Qualities of exceptional school leaders
• How professional school leaders deal with dilemmas
• Leadership and the glass ceiling
• The performance of indigenous communities in political leadership
• Sustainable environmental leadership
• Corporate leadership
• The psychology of leadership
• African-American women executives and organizational leadership
• Ethics as the heart of leadership
• Servant leadership
• Leadership challenges in virtual teams
• Leadership development and growth
• Evolving human resource practices in succession planning
• Contemporary issues of leadership
• Leadership investment
• Importance of leadership for nurses
• Are leadership traits inherent, or can people be molded into good leaders?
• Are meetings the only effective way for sound leaders to disseminate information?
• Compare and contrast the effectiveness of dictatorial and servant leadership
• Explore the church leadership approach
• The foundation of biblical leadership
• Compare business and political leadership
• The bureaucratic structure of government and their impact on leadership in the public domain
• Best leadership styles for diverse teams
• Impacts of technology and social media on the leadership style of millennial leaders
• Compare and contrast formal and informal leaders
• The leadership philosophy of great leaders
• Critical analysis of leadership styles and organizational culture that enables the implementation of a proposed local project of advancing the Nursing practice

Contact us for the best topics and help with your MBA leadership essays or essays for school on leadership. Our professional essay writers can always help.

Top 30 Leadership Qualities to Include in a Leadership Essay

As a student undertaking a leadership course, completing an essay, term paper, or a research paper on leadership is mandatory. When asked to write an essay on leadership, it would be best if you used some of the leadership traits.

The common traits include

• Transparency
• Conscientious
• Excellent communication
• Decision-Making Skills
• Problem-solving capacity
• Accountability and responsibility
• Delegation and empowerment
• Emotional intelligence
• Creativity and innovation
• Decisiveness
• Unselfishness
• Dependability

These are some of the powerful traits of successful leaders . Of course, there are many other traits that you can research and include in your leadership essays. Effective leaders need to be very tactical when influencing their followers. They need to foster teamwork where necessary and use their wisdom to solve conflicts among the followers. It is great to have empathy or fit in the shoes of a leader when writing your leadership essay. Sometimes, even as simple as a biography essay, a leadership essay needs to be well-organized such that there is flow and a good explanation of the traits is inevitable.

Help with Writing Leadership Essay for College

You might have read the entire article but still cannot comprehend how to write a leadership essay. It is always time to get a great leadership essay sample to understand how one is written. If, even with the leadership essay example, you cannot write the essay, you need help.

Related Reading: Descriptive essay writing process and topics .

Luckily, we have writers for hire who write various types of essays on leadership. The leadership essays we can help with include: narrative, how-to, compare and contrast, classification, exemplification, descriptive, persuasive, argumentative, and reflection essays on leadership.

You can pay our paper writers to write the best leadership essays for school. If you are doing an MBA leadership essay, you can always consult with our writers for the best insights and advice.

Even with this ultimate guide for writing a leadership, things can get thick. Getting help with writing college essays is not illegal. Get a great homework helper or an assignment helper from our website to help you write a custom leadership essay, today!

Gradecrest is a professional writing service that provides original model papers. We offer personalized services along with research materials for assistance purposes only. All the materials from our website should be used with proper references. See our Terms of Use Page for proper details.

A Full Guide On How To Create Good Leadership Essay

Attempting a leadership essay isn’t such a daunting task, provided you have a grasp of the necessary information needed for a leadership paper. To write this special essay, you’ll need to redefine what exactly an essay on leadership is, how to choose the perfect topic, what should be in the content, and how to organize and structure the paper. Let’s delve deeper!

What Is A Leadership Essay?

A leadership essay is a well-formatted, organized and specialized type of formal writing which elaborates on a generic leadership topic or a superior human figure exercising a great influence on people and transmitting desire and optimism to achieve goals.

What Makes A Good Leader Essay?

There are some peculiarities needed to infuse in your write-up if, for example, you’re trying to learn how to write a leadership essay about yourself.

Also, if you’re just trying to produce leadership essays for college, then you’d first and foremost, learn  how to structure an essay , among other skills needed for this type of essay. Here are some qualities which can be found in a good essay about leadership.

• Choose a creative topic
• Avoid the passive voice (the active voice sounds stronger)
• Search for and study leadership essay examples
• Follow the appropriate essay style
• Focus on the essay structure
• Review the essay

How To Choose A Topic And Make A Great Title?

To choose a topic for a paper on leadership, you need to do some research on the concept of a leader (whether in the corporate industry, political society or even in the criminal world). You have to know the current leadership tendencies in organizational groups or society. You can choose to make a leader the point of your reference by explaining the consequences of their leadership abilities or inabilities.

In the body of your essay, don’t forget to mention several types of leadership styles and point out which one the subject portrays. Finally, you should not rule out making comparisons of famous leaders in the modern world or in history. An example of a great prompt for a leadership essay that deploys the comparison technique would be the leadership styles of President Trump and The Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte as both leadership styles have been subjected to political reviews in recent times since their emergence as president of their respective countries.

Outline For A Leadership Essay

When writing a college or professional essay such as -long and short essays on leadership, planning is the key to perfection. The general outline for any essay, including leadership papers, include an introduction, the body paragraphs (which must be properly linked with transition words and/or phrases) and a recapitulating or finding-based conclusions. Here’s what your outline should look like:

Introduction

Knowing how to start a leadership essay depends on your introduction writing ability. The introduction is the gateway to the essay. Aided by punchy opening words, which are the hook, the purpose of the introduction is to draw the reader’s attention. The introduction presents the thesis statement and leaves the body paragraphs to sustain the reader’s interest.

Body Paragraphs

Having informed the readers of the topic of the essay in the introductory paragraph(s), the body paragraphs follow immediately.

Here, you can elaborate on the concept of leadership and do a meaningful interpretation of the subject – the topic or the thesis statement. Don’t forget to talk about your leadership philosophies and leadership experience in whatever capacity you might have found yourself in. Remember, people are more interested in personal experiences. They are great in helping to sustain readers’ attention.

Remember to state a thesis or hypothesis in the opening paragraphs – which is the intro. In each of the body paragraphs of the essay, try to relate your points to the thesis and use each point to prove its validity.

The conclusion is the end part of any well-structured essay. Its purpose is a no-brainer. You don’t want to leave your reader hanging by ending the essay cold turkey. Any standard essay without a conclusion is just as useless as an essay with no purpose. However, be careful not to present new ideas not mentioned in the body.

As mentioned, the conclusion serves to summarize the developed points, restate the thesis and/or present the findings. It is your last opportunity to create an impression on the reader, and this is where they take the message away. If your conclusion is weak, then we might say the essay’s objectives are not achieved.

What To Include In A Leadership Essay?

Here are some tips on what your leadership essay should include.

Your Definition Of A Good Leader And Why He Or She Is Important

Since your essay revolves around leadership and the traits of a good leader, you’ll need to define what it takes to be one. You may also take this opportunity to trash some common myths on what a leader is (i.e., a manager being confused for a leader).

For reference purposes, the concepts of leadership and being a good leader are explained:

Leadership is the quality of a leader and is that person capable of exercising a great influence on people and transmitting desire and optimism to achieve goals. A leader is a guide; someone with ideas and goals that can spread to a large group of people who still believe he or she can lead them in the right direction.

There are many types of leaders and therefore, of leadership since people generally always look for a person or group that shows them a direction to follow. You can find religious, political, social, or philosophical leadership. Leadership can be exercised in a traditional way. In many countries, there is a monarchy. The king or queen is a leader with limited political power, at least in western democracies, but still have the respect and consideration of the people. Their words continue to be heard and taken into account, especially in problematic times. There are other types of leadership that are not given by birth, such as legitimate leadership exercised by, for example, political leaders freely chosen by their people, or charismatic leaders.

In a way, charismatic leaders are what many understand as leaders since they are people who, by their way of behavior and characteristics, get many people to follow and adhere to their ideas. Some charismatic leaders can become legitimate leaders if they choose the path of politics. A traditional leader can also be charismatic. There have always been kings loved by his people more than others. But it can also be a person who prefers independent movements outside of power.

Charisma is the personal magnetism a person has. It is something very difficult to define but makes one capable of convincing others without too much effort, making people follow and trust the leading figure. Charisma can be used positively or negatively. The leaders of the most destructive sects are very charismatic people that are capable of convincing their followers of the eeriest ideas, including donating all their belongings or committing collective suicide.

Examples Of Your Leadership Style

In the content of your essay, you may consider giving an interpretation to your (or your chosen leader’s) leadership traits. Below are some examples of leadership qualities that separate a good leader from a bad leader.

What qualities are necessary for leadership

• Communication
• Emotional intelligence
• Strategic thinking
• Commitment and passion
• Knowledge and experience
• Leading by example
• Active listening
• Ability to enhance talent
• Setting goals and expectations
• People investment
• Discernment
• Concentration
• Positive attitude
• Problem-solving
• Self-discipline

Leadership Essay Example

To know how to do essay fast, you’ll need some ready-made essay examples for the sake of guidance and inspiration. You may find below a leadership essay written by Oliver Smith useful in your leadership paper.

Writing a leadership essay should be easy. A good essay on leadership starts from the hook, and the thesis statement in the introduction. The points developed in the body paragraphs help affirm the hypothesis. Finally, the conclusion offers the reader a summary through the restatement of the essay’s main idea.

As required for every essay type, your essay on leadership has to follow a definite style and format. Examples are MLA, APA, Chicago and AP styles. Take your time in choosing a creative but new topic and also in writing the content. By following this guide, everything should be as perfect as possible.

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• How to Structure a Leadership Essay (Samples to Consider)

Leadership is a complex concept, but it’s essential for boosting your career. That’s why a leadership essay focuses on applying the theoretical models and concepts of successful management to real-life situations. 

If you don’t know where to start writing such a paper, please read on for professional tips!

What Is Leadership Essay?

A leadership essay is a paper that analyzes leadership concepts and their application to real-life situations that may involve everyday business management, crisis situations, and other scenarios. 

Every essay on leadership is about defining a concept. Then, it’s either comparing it to similar management tools or proving that it’s useful (or not).

While some students enjoy writing such papers, other learners hate them. The below samples will come in handy, no matter which group is yours.

What Does Leadership Mean to You? (Essay Sample)

It is one of the most popular topics for a leadership essay. If you need to write a paper like that, ask yourself:

• Who is a good leader?  
• What style do they use?  
• What are the situations when they might switch styles?

You may take a more personal approach to such an essay if your professor allows you to. In the example below, you will see the academic approach to this topic. It analyzes three leadership styles to discover which one corresponds to the meaning of leadership if one thinks of it as guidance and support.

Why I Want to Participate in a Leadership Program (Essay Sample)

It’s another example of a popular topic. Such papers often have a meaning beyond the classroom since they may decide whether you plan to participate in a specific program. It’s critical to make them as effective and compelling as possible.

A personalized approach is the best when it comes to essays like this. In the example below, you will see the paper that relies on individual beliefs and a personal life story to explain why it’s so important for the specific student to participate in the chosen program.

How to Write a Leadership Essay

Like every other essay, this paper has an introduction, several body paragraphs, and a conclusion summarizing your thoughts. (1) The most important part of the introduction is the final sentence,  aka  a thesis statement. That’s where you state your claim to prove or develop in your leadership essay.

Each body paragraph should correspond to the purpose of your essay. To ensure you don’t stray from the aim you’ve established in the thesis statement, write the topic sentences for all your paragraphs in the outline . In simple words, write the first sentence of every paragraph to define its development in advance and see if you cover everything you need.

And now, to the conclusion:

Its most essential element is thesis restatement or the first sentence of that paragraph. It’s not just paraphrasing your thesis; it’s also considering the new information you’ve discovered while writing the essay.

Structure :

• Introduction (End it with a thesis statement.)
• Body paragraphs (Each one starts with a topic sentence.)
• Conclusion (Start it with a thesis restatement.)

Understand the purpose of a leadership essay

When starting to write, think about why you’re creating this paper. Before you sit down and type the words, think about the ideas you want to convey and their meaning in your life:

Can this essay teach you to take responsibility? Or maybe will it help you understand how to be a leader in crisis situations? When you’ve answered the “why” question, begin outlining.

Build a strong thesis

Always start with your thesis statement. It will help incorporate your answer to that notorious “why” question into your essay. Once done, you can plan out the rest of the paper and start working on the body paragraphs as soon as you finish the introduction.

There’s another important tip —don’t rush into writing the conclusion before you finish everything else!

It might seem like a good idea to create a thesis statement and thesis restatement right off the bat. However, you’ll find yourself with more refreshing ideas after completing all the research and thinking necessary for the introduction and each body paragraph.

Decide on a structure; format accordingly

Even if your essay about leadership seems not so formal, and you can use personal pronouns, you still need a clear structure.

The best way to write any academic paper is to keep your introduction and conclusion as short as possible. (But no shorter than three sentences and four lines of text). 

Another important tip is to try making all your body paragraphs equal in length. That way, you’ll give the same attention to all the vital points of your essay.

Ready to Write Your Essay on Leadership Now?

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the most critical elements of a leadership essay. 

Remember the structure, grammar, and appropriate academic style to create a top-level paper. Please don’t forget to answer the “why” question and remember  why  you’re writing. Then you’ll impress everyone with your results!

References:

• https://lsa.umich.edu/onsf/news-events/all-news/directors-blog/writing-leadership-essays.html
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Your Complete Guide to Writing a Compelling Leadership Essay

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True leadership lies at the heart of human well-being and success. Every positive step humanity ever took required great and responsible leadership. Therefore, people have studied leadership for many edges to unravel its different underlying factors. 

But how do you write a great essay that demonstrates your grasp of this sacred call? This post shares practical insights on how to write a leadership essay . Keep reading it to sharpen your skills in this assignment niche. 

What Is a Leadership Essay ?

Before proceeding to see how best to draft a perfect leadership essay, let’s answer the big question, “ What is leadership essay ?” A leadership essay is an assignment that falls under student application essays. This paper provides student admission officers with insight into your previous leadership experience. 

While this assignment appears to be specific, it acknowledges that the nature and perception of leadership can greatly vary depending on context and individuals. 

Leadership Essay Ideas and Topics

Selecting the best topics for your essays on leadership is vital. When composing this paper, you will focus on two main areas revolving around your leadership style and the memorable moment when you demonstrated leadership. Please note that these two areas usually overlap because while recounting that moment you demonstrated leadership, you will also show your leadership style. 

Whichever area you choose to focus on, use anecdotal evidence that proves the idea. Here, you can freely go with what feels best for you. Just ensure that the instance you use to demonstrate leadership is a real-life experience. This way, you will be best placed to choose a topic that makes your readers enjoy your paper.

How to Write a Leadership Essay

While this paper might sound like an introduction on leadership essay , it doesn’t mean you aren’t a leader or can’t lead people. So, how do you compose a killer leadership essay that impresses student admission officials? Here are ideas on how to write leadership essay that fetches good grades and makes a positive impression of your leadership potential. 

• As earlier hinted, you must research to choose a good topic that will impress your readers and portray you as an upcoming great leader.
• When writing about a leadership concept, take notes of some credible sources of information. Find out what others have written about that topic.  
• Outline your essay to organize all the details you want to include. This way, you won’t forget to include anything your readers need. 

Alternatively, you can check out past papers written on your chosen leadership topics. This way, you will have a strong basis for further expansion of your arguments and incorporating relevant ideas into your paper. However, remember to follow intellectual property laws to avoid plagiarism.

Formatting Your Leadership Essay

Your essay about leadership requires correct formatting to ensure everything flows well. Like other types of papers, leadership essays follow a five-paragraph pattern. It has an introduction, a body section, and a conclusion, depending on its word count or page limits.  

• Introduction: This section captures the reader’s interest, defines good leadership in relation to you, and directly addresses the given prompt.
• Body paragraphs: The body section gives some background information using anecdotes to describe your leadership style or moment.
• Conclusion: This finishing section is a compelling statement about your leadership attributes and capabilities. It also shows how you hope to apply them to your life and solve other people’s problems.

Tips for Writing a Leadership Essay

Do you want tips to help you write the best leadership essays that will garner good grades? Here are tips and insights to help you compose excellent leadership essays .

Define Good Leadership First

It would be best to define good leadership before proceeding. Take time to think about the best attributes that make one a great leader. Of these qualities you have figured out, which ones do you have? Outline the qualities you demonstrated in your memorable leadership moment. These attributes could be, but aren’t limited to:

• The ability to motivate and inspire others.
• Valuing others.

Lastly, review your list and select the traits you would wish to focus on. 

Moderate Your Humility 

Humility is an invaluable virtue that needs to flow through your papers. However, don’t overdo it when highlighting your leadership moment. So, draw the line between humility and self-humiliation. Just let your readers know what you did to benefit other people’s lives—period.

Don’t Use Another Person’s Voice and Style

When highlighting your leadership abilities and experience, remember to use your personal style and voice. Admission officers want to hear your voice and “see you” in the essay. Thus, allow them to see your personality in the paper the best way you know how to put it. You can use your reasonable sense of humor without overstepping boundaries. 

Tell a Story About Your Journey 

When addressing college admission officers, use your storytelling skills to describe your leadership journey. Give them an engaging story that shows them your true leadership potential. Your story should exhibit the traits you believe are instrumental in helping you lead others. The narrative should tell the readers about the following:

• That you faced a real-life challenge.
• How you solved the problem. 
• How your leadership style and potential have grown over the years.
• Any specific challenge or moment that has helped you grow in your leadership. 

Choose a Case in Which You Played a Key Role

Your leadership doesn’t necessarily mean you are always at the help of things or people. Instead, it means that you helped solve a problem that affected others. Thus, don’t fear highlighting a moment just because you were not calling the shots. Why? Because the officials are looking for the results you helped bring to the table and not necessarily the position you occupied in the story. 

Thus, you should focus more on the improved position others found themselves in after your intervention instead of the position you occupied. Also, don’t mind more about the story’s title, especially when brainstorming. If you tell an impactful story, the title will automatically fall in place. 

Acknowledge Other People’s Contributions

We said in previous sections that you should tell the reader more about your leadership skills and journey. Up to this point, so good. However, you shouldn’t become so egoistic that you assume you aren’t an island. Your personal statement should indeed be personal, but it’s better to remember that other people still have a stake in your journey. 

So, give other people their deserved credit wherever they contributed to your success. Credit others for their loyalty, hard work, and any insights they offer. This way, you will portray your leadership as inclusive and not a one-man army that gives all the credit to one man. 

Solve Problems

Lastly, your essay should focus on solving problems. There is no point in telling a long story if it doesn’t bring out this element. Why? Because leadership essentially solves other people’s problems. If this element is missing, then you were not leading. Most likely, you were merely occupying a position or exercising authority but not leading. 

Do you remember how you solved that issue on your team amicably? Did you negotiate peace between team members whose rift was threatening to tear the team apart? Then, tell it out because that is all the admission officers are looking for in the narrative. 

Leadership Essay Example

Nothing will power your leadership writing skills like a perfect example of leadership essay . This section has three excellent excerpts from the introductions, bodies, and conclusions of leadership papers. 

• Introduction 

The floor was full of press cameras and microphones ready to capture a critical event. The venue was filled with different types of furniture, leather seats, and the who-is-who in the media industry that could change the entire media industry. Until then, I never saw myself as a leader, although I knew that this event was bigger than me, a moment that I could positively influence for the benefit of everyone present.

Gaining experience is one of the pillars of growing up in one’s leadership journey. The reason is that leadership isn’t a theory or concept captured in the heads, arguments, or counterarguments of so-called leadership gurus. Instead, it’s about practical life engagements that solve people’s problems in the real world. Thus, experience is the best tool to provide leaders with the opportunities to face and solve problems, make sound decisions, and learn from their failures and successes. All great leaders cherish such experiences and use them to grow and develop their leadership. 

• Conclusion 

In my view, leadership is about solving problems and meeting people’s needs, period. That’s the big picture, and the rest are minor details. My ability to empathize with others and give them a helping hand instead of pointing fingers at them summarizes my leadership philosophy. I hope to use this drive to be on the solution side of life, to prescribe solutions instead of just describing and decrying problems. 

Final Word 

Do you want to boost your writing skills on the topic of leadership? We’ve created this post to give you valuable and practical insights to accelerate your leadership research and writing journey. We hope you will use them to compose a perfect essay on effective leadership .

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Strategies for Writing a Great Problem Solution Essay

Composing an assignment on a problem and solution essay topic allows you to demonstrate your ability to resolve human challenges. It helps you understand human problems and how to be a part of the solution instead of allocating blame and pointing fingers. So, how do you compose a great problem solutions essay? This post has […]

Author: Marina Kean

True leadership lies at the heart of human well-being and success. Every positive step humanity ever took required great and responsible leadership. Therefore, people have studied leadership for many edges to unravel its different underlying factors.  But how do you write a great essay that demonstrates your grasp of this sacred call? This post shares […]

How to write an essay about leadership

Leadership essays, or essays where you are asked about your work as a leader in your school or community, are not as common as you might imagine. Given all of the emphasis schools and clubs put on leadership roles and titles, essays asking students to dive deeply into this work are actually pretty rare in college applications. That said, it is important to consider leadership very broadly! You do not need to be the President or Founder of a club to write an effective essay for one of these prompts. In fact, sometimes the less common considerations and definitions of “leadership” can make for more compelling essays.

Example Leadership Essay Questions:

• U of California: Describe an example of your leadership and a way that you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time.
• U of Texas: How do you show leadership in your life? How do you see yourself being a leader at UT Austin?

LET'S BREAK DOWN THE ESSENTIAL POINTS YOU NEED TO HIT WHEN RESPONDING TO THIS SUPPLEMENT:

Leadership is more than titles – it is important, when you consider questions like these, that you reflect on activities where you have contributed to an accomplishment and learned something (about yourself, about your community). In fact, it would be a more powerful essay to reflect on a leadership contribution that was not connected to a title of leadership, but where you learned something important, than to reflect upon your activity where your leadership title is big “in name only.”

Sometimes leadership happens within your family – you do not need to limit your focus to leadership that happens during your school day.

You can consider this essay happening in two distinct ways: narrative structure – where you present a challenge you faced in a leadership role, actions you did that had an impact, and lessons you learned (skills you gained); OR montage structure – where you take on two different activities that both taught you a common lesson about leadership. Don’t muddle these together! Decide whether you want to write linearly (and chronologically in time) about one activity or if you want to write non-linearly about one leadership lesson.

THINGS TO AVOID:

Try to stay away from topics where your leadership takes the reader on a familiar journey. If you want to write about your leadership on an athletic team, that is wonderful, but try to avoid an essay about how your leadership of your team during The Big Game contributed to (winning/losing) The Big Game and the team becoming closer and being “one-strong-team.” Does that feel familiar to you? That’s because college admissions folks will have read thousands of essays that tell this type of story. If you select a common team to lead, take your essay in an uncommon direction.

Avoid lengthy introductions that take away from your word count and don’t actually support your essay response.

Avoid overemphasis on one aspect that detracts from your ability to talk about the other aspects of your story. In other words, if you spend half of your words outlining the challenge you faced, you only have ¼ of the remaining words to discuss your actions and ¼ to discuss the lessons you learned. This is not a good balance!

ADDITIONAL TIPS AND TRICKS:

• What did you do?
• What problems did you solve?
• What lessons did you learn?
• What impact did you have?
• How have you applied these lessons?

Answering these questions (and in this order) actually builds you an outline for this essay!

Do you have an extracurricular activity where the character count really limits you in terms of describing your work and impact? Consider using this essay to further highlight your contributions!

Do you have an extracurricular activity that speaks directly toward your intended major or field of study? This might be a great time to make your application stand out by sharing your leadership and contributions to this field! What problems have you solved? How can you use this prompt to share these solutions?

Elise holds a BA in Political Philosophy from Williams College and an MEd in Administration & Social Policy from Harvard. She has spent the past twenty years working in top-tier independent schools.

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Writing College Essays That Showcase Your Leadership Skills

Whats Inside?

Why leadership skills matter in college essays, identifying your leadership qualities, showcasing leadership in your personal statement, crafting a compelling leadership narrative, overcoming challenges, tips for a strong leadership college essay.

​ A lot of students find it hard to write college essays. It's your chance to say hello, talk about your experiences, and make yourself stand out from the other thousands of candidates. The task gets even harder when you need to write a college essay that shows off your leading skills. This piece will talk about how important leadership skills are in college essays and show you how to write an essay that really shows off your leadership skills.

College admissions officers are interested in more than just your grades. They also want to know what makes you a good student all around. Leadership skills are very important because they show that you can make a difference on campus and do well in many areas of college life.

Your leadership skills are like a shining beacon in your college essay, guiding admissions officers toward a deeper understanding of your potential. In the middle of this paragraph, consider seeking guidance and support from an online essay writing service at https://papersowl.com/last-minute-essay where help for students, provided by professionals, can elevate your essay to its full potential. These skills demonstrate your ability to not only excel academically but also to make a positive impact on campus life. College admissions teams seek students who can contribute meaningfully to their academic community, and showcasing your leadership qualities can significantly boost your chances of acceptance.

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It's important to know what kind of boss you are before you start writing your essay. Just think about the times in your life when you stepped up, moved others, or did something good. The main idea of your essay will be these events.

Leadership in Extracurricular Activities

Bring attention to the clubs, sports, or groups you belong to. Talk about any leadership jobs you've had, like being the captain of a sports team, the president of a club, or a mentor to younger students.

Academic Leadership

Talk about what you've brought to the academic world . This could mean running study groups, planning educational events, or helping other students.

Leadership in Community Involvement

If you've done volunteer or community service, stress how your guidance made other people's lives better. Tell stories that show how dedicated and important you are.

Pay attention to the following things to write an interesting essay:

Be Authentic

Honesty is valued by admissions officers. Write about real-life events that show how you lead and how you've grown as a person.

Highlight Specific Experiences

Give specific examples of good guidance instead of making general claims. Describe events and problems, as well as your part in solving them.

Explain Your Impact

Show how your leadership made the people around you better. Whether it was your friends, the community, or a group, explain what your deeds meant.

Dealing with Humility

It's important to show that you're a leader, but it's also important to talk about times when you failed and learned from it or asked for help. Admissions officers like people who are humble.

Handling Setbacks

Talk about any setbacks you encountered on your way to becoming a leader and how you kept going. Committees that decide who gets in want to see that you are strong and flexible.

Start Early

Start writing your essay early so you have time to come up with ideas, make drafts, and make changes. Having articles written quickly might not show your best work.

Seek Feedback

Let your teachers, peers, or mentors read your writing. Giving you helpful feedback can help you improve your essay and get rid of any mistakes.

Revise and Edit

Make sure your essay is free of grammar mistakes and runs well by proofreading it several times. A well-edited essay shows that you are a professional.

Your essay is a great way to show how much you care about being a star on your college application. You can write an essay that stands out by focusing on your unique traits, sharing real experiences, and showing how you have made a difference. Always begin early, ask for help, and improve your work. Your chances of getting into the college of your dreams will go up if you write a college essay that shows off your leadership skills.

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A number of national scholarships and fellowships ask applicants to write about their leadership experiences.  Here are a few prominent examples:

• Truman Scholarship - “Describe a particular example of your leadership.” 
• Marshall Scholarship - “Describe a situation in which you recognized and responded to a need for leadership.
• Udall Scholarship - “Describe a leadership experience in which you made a difference on your campus or in your community.” 

The most extensive prompt comes from the Schwarzman Scholars Program and could be used as a guide to reflection for leadership essays for many other scholarships:

• The intellectual/analytical abilities to identify and understand challenges and opportunities, and envision solutions
• The initiative to act and communicate why 
• Interpersonal skills to inspire a team effort 
• An ability to push through resistance and/or challenges to reach positive results/change for the better. 
• What was the problem or issue you identified, and why did you choose to act? 
• What was your plan of action? 
• What obstacles or challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?
• What were the outcomes and impact on the community or purpose? 
• What did you learn and/or what lessons would you pass on to others? 
• How has this experience shaped you as a leader and how does it connect with your vision for future leadership aspirations?

The following suggestions are intended to help you reflect upon and express your own leadership experiences.

Answering the Prompt

Pay careful attention to what the prompt asks you to describe.  A common pitfall to avoid is explaining your “theory” of leadership.  It may be very helpful to articulate this in your preparatory work, but the final essay should directly address the information requested in the prompt.  To get started, ask yourself: what are the subtle differences in the above prompts?

Definitions of Leadership

What is leadership?  While there are lots of definitions out there, they tend to emphasize two main aspects: (a) the creation of shared vision and (b) collective motivation toward the achievement of this vision.  Here are two illustrative examples:

The process of “influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal-setting and goal-achievement” (Stogdill, 1950)

“A process of social influence in which a person can enlist the the aid and support of others to achieve a common goal” (Chemers, 1997)

The common thread here is that leadership is about accomplishing through a group what we could not have accomplished as individiduals.  For each of the various examples that you might choose to write about, ask yourself: What was your vision? How did this vision come about? In what context (e.g. needs, opportunities)?  How did you communicate this vision to others?  How did you invite them to identify their own interests/values with this vision? How did you inspire them to action?  How did you marshall the common resources necessary to make this vision a reality? How did you enlist the support of others inside or outside your organization?

Leadership vs. Authority

One of the most common mistakes is to conflate “leadership experiences” with “leadership positions” - i.e. positions of authority within an organization.  Merton (1969) defines authority as “the legitimate rights of a position that require others to obey.” It is an attribute of a social position.  Leadership, on the other hand, “is an interpersonal relation in which others comply because they want to, not because they have to” (Merton, 1969).  Leadership, as defined above, can be found at every level of an organization.  So expand your list of possible experiences beyond the list of executive positions you’ve held in organizations.

Some Common Functions of Leadership

How have your leadership experiences demonstrated one or more of these common functions (selected from Merton, 1969)?

Leaders facilitate the adaptive capacity of social systems to internal and external pressures and opportunities.  

Leaders are future-oriented as well as present-oriented.  In the context of student leadership, it is particularly important to institutionalize processes in ways that will outlive a particular student generation.

Leaders enunciate the values and ideals of the group. Whether assigned the task or not, leaders represent the group to the larger community.

Leaders evaluate available resources and cope with the problem of their allocation.

Leaders express aspirations that evoke resonance among members of the group (i.e. shared vision).

Leaders mobilize, guide, coordinate, and control the efforts of group members. When effective, they deepen the motivation and enlarge the output of members beyond what would be achieved without them.

Leaders arbitrate and mediate the inevitable conflicts that emerge in social interaction in such a fashion that most group members most of the time feel that justice has been done.

Maintaining Focus

The word limit for these essays is typically very short.  As with any personal statement, the particular experience you discuss should be an illustration of your abiding character traits.  Provide the essential information about the context, but keep the focus on examples of how your traits interacted with the context to produce a leadership experience.  It might be helpful to organize your notes for the essay under three headings:

• Problem (or Opportunity) - What is the essential problem or opportunity that your group's action sought to address?
• Action - What did you (as an individual and as a group) do to address this problem or capitalize on this opportunity?
• Results - What were the tangible results of your action? How did it solve the problem or benefit others?  Can you provide numbers to demonstrate the impact of the action?  Is the solution ongoing and sustainable?

Remember you don’t have include every detail.  In many cases, the example that you discuss should be coordinated with the writer of your “leadership” letter of recommendation who can provide additional information.  Suggested Reading

Robert K. Merton,  "The Social Nature of Leadership"  (1969)

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12 Great University of California Essay Examples

What’s covered, essay #1: leadership, essay #2: creativity, essay #3: creativity, essay #4: creativity, essay #5: talent, essay #6: talent, essay #7: academic interest, essay #8: academic interest, essay #9: community, essay #10: community, essay #11: community, essay #12: community.

The University of California system is comprised of nine undergraduate universities, and is one of the most prestigious public school systems in the country. The UC schools have their own application system, and students must respond to four of eight personal insight questions in 350 words each. Every UC school you apply to receives the same application and essays, so it’s important that your responses accurately represent your personality and writing abilities. 

In this post, we’ll share some UC essay examples and go over what they did well and where they could improve. We will also point you to free resources you can use to improve your college essays. 

Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized. 

Read our guide to the UC personal insight questions for more tips on writing strong essays for each of the prompts.

Prompt: Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time. (350 words)

1400 lines of code. 6 weeks. 1 Pizza.

I believe pizza makers are the backbone of society. Without pizza, life as we know it would cease to exist. From a toddler’s birthday party to President Obama’s sporadic campaigning cravings, these 8 slices of pure goodness cleverly seep into every one of our lives; yet, we never talk about it. In a very cheesy way, I find representation in a pizza maker. 

The most perplexing section of physiology is deciphering electrocardiograms. According to our teacher, this was when most students hit their annual trough. We had textbooks and worksheets, but viewing printed rhythms and attempting to recognize them in real-time is about as straining as watching someone eat pizza crust-first. Furthermore, online simulators were vastly over-engineered, featuring complex interfaces foreign to high-school students.

Eventually, I realized the only way to pull myself out of the sauce was by creating my own tools. This was also the first year I took a programming course, so I decided to initiate a little hobbyist experiment by extrapolating knowledge from Computer Science and Physiology to code and share my own Electrocardiogram Simulator. To enhance my program, I went beyond the textbook and classroom by learning directly from Java API – the programmer’s Bible.

The algorithms I wrote not only simulated rhythms in real-time but also actively engaged with the user, allowing my classmates and I to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the curriculum. Little did I know that a small project born out of desperation would eventually become a tool adopted by my teacher to serve hundreds of students in the future.

Like pizza, people will reap the benefits of my app over and over again, and hardly anyone will know its maker. Being a leader doesn’t always mean standing at the front of rallies, giving speeches, and leading organizations. Yes, I have done all three, but this app taught me leaders are also found behind-the-scenes, solving problems in unimaginable ways and fulfilling the hidden, yet crucial niches of the world. 

1400 lines of code, and 6 weeks later, it’s time to order a pizza. 

What the Essay Did Well

This is a great essay because it is both engaging and informative. What exactly does it inform us about? The answer: the personality, work ethic, and achievements of this student (exactly what admissions officers want to hear about).

With regards to personality, the pizza through-line—which notably starts the essay, ends the essay, and carries us through the essay—speaks volumes about this student. They are admittedly “cheesy,” but they appear unabashedly themself. They own their goofiness. That being said, the student’s pizza connections are also fitting and smoothly advance their points—watching someone eat pizza crust-first is straining and pizza is an invention that hardly anyone can identify the maker of. 

While we learn about this student’s fun personality in this essay, we also learn about their work ethic. A student who takes the initiative to solve a problem that no one asked them to solve is the kind of student an admissions officer wants to admit. The phrase “I decided to initiate a little hobbyist experiment” alone tells us that this student is a curious go-getter.

Lastly, this student tells us about their achievements in the last two paragraphs. Not only did they take the initiative to create this program, but it was also successful. On top of that, it’s notable how this student’s accomplishments as a leader defy the traditional expectations people have for leaders. The student’s ability to demonstrate their untraditional leadership path is an achievement in itself that sets the student apart form other applicants.

What Could Be Improved

This is a strong essay as is, but the one way this student could take it above and beyond would be to tell less and show more. To really highlight the student’s writing ability, the essay should  show the reader all the details it’s currently telling us. For example, these sentences primarily tell the reader what happened: “The most perplexing section of physiology is deciphering electrocardiograms. According to our teacher, this was when most students hit their annual trough.” 

Rewriting this sentence to show the reader the student’s impetus for creating their app could look like this: “When my teacher flashed the electrocardiogram on the screen, my once attentive physiology class became a sea of blank stares and furrowed brows.” This sentence still conveys the key details—student’s in the physiology class found electrocardiograms to be the hardest unit of the year—but it does so in a far more descriptive way. Implementing this exercise of rewriting sentences to show what happened throughout the piece would elevate the entire essay.

Prompt: Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side. (350 words)

For the past few years, participating in debate has been one of the foremost expressions of my creativity. Nothing is as electrifying as an Asian parliamentary-style debate. Each team is given only thirty minutes to prepare seven-minute speeches to either support or oppose the assigned motion. Given the immense time pressure, this is where my creativity shines most brightly.

To craft the most impactful and convincing argument, I have to consider the context of the motion, different stakeholders, the goals we want to achieve, the mechanisms to reach those goals, and so much more. I have to frame these arguments effectively and paint a compelling and cohesive world to sway my listeners to my side on both an emotional and logical level. For example, In a debate about the implementation of rice importation in the Philippines, I had to frequently switch between the macro perspective by discussing the broad economic implications of the policy and the micro perspective by painting a picture of the struggles that local rice farmers would experience when forcefully thrust into an increasingly competitive global economy. It’s a tough balancing act.

To add to the challenge, there is an opposing team on the other side of the room hell-bent on disproving everything I say. They generate equally plausible sounding arguments, and my mission is to react on the spot to dispel their viewpoints and build up our team’s case.

When two debate teams, both well-prepared and hungry for victory, face off and try to out-think one another, they clash to form a sixty-minute thunderstorm raining down fierce arguments and rebuttals. They fill up a room with unbelievable energy. After several years of debate, I have developed the capacity to still a room of fury and chaos with nothing but my words and wit.

Debate has been instrumental in shaping me into the person I am today. Because of debate, I have become a quicker and stronger thinker. Lightning quick on my feet, I am ready to thoroughly and passionately defend my beliefs at a moment’s notice.

This prompt is about creativity, though its wording emphasizes how students aren’t required to talk about typically-creative subjects. That said, it might take a bit more work and explanation (even creativity, one could say) to position a logical process as creative. This student’s main strength is the way they convince the reader that debate is creative.

First, they identify how “Asian parliamentary-style debate” differs from other forms of debate, emphasizing how time constraints necessitate the use of creativity. Then, they explain how both the argument’s content (the goals and solutions they outline) and the argument’s composition (the way they frame the argument) must be creatively orchestrated to be convincing. 

To drive home the point that debate is a creative process, this student provides an example of how they structured their argument about rice importation in the Philippines. This essay is successful because, after reading it, an admissions officer has no doubt that this student can combine logic and creativity to think intellectually.

One aspect of this essay that could be improved is the language use. Although there are some creative metaphors like the “sixty-minute thunderstorm raining down fierce arguments”, the essay is lacking the extra oomph and wow-factor that carefully chosen diction provides. In the second paragraph, the student repeats the phrase “I have to” three different times when stronger, more active verbs could have been used.

Essays should always reflect the student’s natural voice and shouldn’t sound like every word came straight out of a thesaurus, but that doesn’t mean they can’t incorporate a bit of colorful language. If this student took the time to go through their essay and ask themself if an overused word could be replaced with a more exciting one, it would make the essay much more interesting to read.

As I open the door to the Makerspace, I am greeted by a sea of cubicle-like machines and I watch eagerly, as one of them completes the final layer of my print.

Much like any scientific experiment, my countless failures in the Makerspace – hours spent designing a print, only to have it disintegrate – were my greatest teachers. I learned, the hard way, what types of shapes and patterns a 3D printer would play nice to. Then, drawing inspiration from the engineering method, I developed a system for myself – start with a solid foundation and add complexity with each iteration – a flourish here, a flying buttress there. 

But it wasn’t until the following summer, vacationing on a beach inundated with plastic, that the “aha” moment struck. In an era where capturing people’s attention in a split-second is everything, what better way to draw awareness to the plastic problem than with quirky 3D-printed products? By the time I had returned home, I had a business case on my hands and a desire to make my impact.

Equipped with vital skills from the advanced math-and-science courses I had taken in sophomore year, I began applying these to my growing business. Using my AP Chemistry analytical laboratory skills, I devised a simple water bath experiment to test the biodegradability claims of 3D-printer filaments from different manufacturers, guaranteeing that my products could serve as both a statement and play their part for our planet. The optimization techniques I had learned in AP Calculus were put to good use, as I determined the most space-efficient packaging for my products, reducing my dependence on unsustainable filler material. Even my designs were tweaked and riffed on to reflect my newfound maturity and keen eye for aesthetics.

My business is still going strong today, raising $1000 to date. I attribute this success to a fateful spark of creative inspiration, which has, and will, continue to inspire me to weave together multiple disciplines to address issues as endemic as the plastic problem. 

This essay begins with a simple, yet highly effective hook. It catches readers’ attention by only giving a hint about the essay’s main topic, and being a standalone paragraph makes it all the more intriguing. 

The next paragraph then begins with a seamless transition that ties back to the Makerspace. The essay goes on to show the writer’s creative side and how it has developed over time. Rather than directly stating “I am most creative when I am working on my business,” the writer tells the story of their creativity while working with 3-D printers and vacationing on the beach. 

It is the “aha” moment that perhaps responds to the prompt best. Here we get to see the writer create a new idea on the spot. The next two paragraphs then show the writer executing on their idea in great detail. Small and specific details, such as applying analytical laboratory skills from AP Chemistry, make the writer’s creativity come to life. 

From start to finish, this essay shows that the key to writing a stellar response to this prompt is to fill your writing with details and vivid imagery. 

The second to last paragraph of this essay focuses a bit too much on how the writer built their business. Though many of these details show the writer’s creativity in action, a few of them could be restated to make the connection to creativity clearer. The last sentences could be rewritten like so: 

Working on my business was where my creativity blossomed. In my workshop, optimization techniques that I learned in AP Calculus became something new — the basis for space-efficient packaging for my products that reduced my dependence on unsustainable filler material…

Profusely sweating after trying on what felt like a thousand different outfits, I collapsed on the floor in exasperation. The heaping pile of clothes on my bed stared me down in disdain; with ten minutes left to spare before the first day of seventh grade, I let go of my screaming thoughts and settled on the very first outfit I tried on: my favorite.

Donning a neon pink dress, that moment marked the first time I chose expression over fear. Being one of the few Asians in my grade, clothing was my source of disguise. I looked to the bold Stacy London of What Not to Wear for daily inspiration, but, in actuality, I dressed to conceal my uniqueness so I wouldn’t be noticed for my race. Wearing jeans and a t-shirt, I envied the popular girls who hiked their shorts up just a few inches higher than dress code allowed and flaunted Uggs decorated with plastic jewels, a statement that Stacy London would have viewed as heinous and my mother impractical. 

However, entering school that day and the days after, each compliment I received walking down the hallways slowly but surely broke down the armored shield. Morphing into an outlet to amplify my voice and creativity, dressing up soon became what I looked forward to each morning. I was awarded best dressed the year after that during my middle school graduation, a recognition most would scoff at. But, to me, that flimsy paper certificate was a warm embrace telling me that I was valued for my originality and expression. I was valued for my differences. 

Confidence was what I found and is now an essential accessory to every outfit I wear. Taking inspiration from vintage, simplistic silhouettes and Asian styles, I adorn my body’s canvas with a variety of fabrics and vibrant colors, no longer depriving it of the freedom to self expression and cultural exploration. I hope that my future will open new doors for me, closet doors included, at the University of California with opportunities to intertwine creativity with my identity even further.

Colorful language and emotion are conveyed powerfully in this essay, which is one of its key strengths. We can see this in the first paragraph, where the writer communicates that they were feeling searing judgment by using a metaphor: “the heaping pile of clothes on my bed stared me down.” The writer weaves other rich phrases into the essay — for example, “my screaming thoughts” — to show readers their emotions. All of these writing choices are much more moving than plainly stating “I was nervous.”

The essay moves on to tell a story that responds to the prompt in a unique way. While typical responses will be about a very direct example of expressing creativity, e.g. oil painting, this essay has a fittingly creative take on the prompt. The story also allows the writer to avoid a common pitfall — talking more about the means of being creative rather than how those means allow you to express yourself. In other words, make sure to avoid talking about the act of oil painting so much that your essay loses focus on what painting means to you.

The last sentence of the essay is one more part to emulate. “I hope that my future will open new doors for me, closet doors included…” is a well-crafted, flawlessly succinct metaphor that looks to the future while connecting the end of the essay to its beginning. The metaphors are then juxtaposed with a summary of the essay’s main topic: “intertwine creativity with my identity.” 

This essay’s main areas for improvement are grammatical. What Not to Wear should be italicized, “self-expression” should be hyphenated, and the last sentence could use the following tweaks to make it less of a run-on: “I hope that my future will open new doors for me, closet doors included, at the University of California. There, I will have opportunities to intertwine creativity with my identity even further.”

Since identity is the main topic of this essay, it would also be fitting for the writer to go into more depth about it. The immediate takeaways from the essay are that the writer is Asian and interested in fashion — however, more descriptions could be added to these parts. For example, the writer could replace Asian with Laotian-American and change a sentence in the second to last paragraph to “dressing up in everything from bell bottom jeans to oversized flannel shirts soon became what I looked forward to each morning.”

Prompt: What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time? (350 words)

Let’s fast-forward time. Strides were made toward racial equality. Healthcare is accessible to all; however, one issue remains. Our aquatic ecosystems are parched with dead coral from ocean acidification. Climate change has prevailed.

Rewind to the present day.

My activism skills are how I express my concerns for the environment. Whether I play on sandy beaches or rest under forest treetops, nature offers me an escape from the haste of the world. When my body is met by trash in the ocean or my nose is met by harmful pollutants, Earth’s pain becomes my own. 

Substituting coffee grinds as fertilizer, using bamboo straws, starting my sustainable garden, my individual actions needed to reach a larger scale. I often found performative activism to be ineffective when communicating climate concerns. My days of reposting awareness graphics on social media never filled the ambition I had left to put my activism skills to greater use. I decided to share my ecocentric worldview with a coalition of environmentalists and host a climate change rally outside my high school.

Meetings were scheduled where I informed students about the unseen impact they have on the oceans and local habitual communities. My fingers were cramped from all the constant typing and investigating of micro causes of the Pacific Waste Patch, creating reusable flyers, displaying steps people could take from home in reducing their carbon footprint. I aided my fellow environmentalists in translating these flyers into other languages, repeating this process hourly, for five days, up until rally day. 

It was 7:00 AM. The faces of 100 students were shouting, “The climate is changing, why can’t we?” I proudly walked on the dewy grass, grabbing the microphone, repeating those same words. The rally not only taught me efficient methods of communication but it echoed my environmental activism to the masses. The City of Corona would be the first of many cities to see my activism, as more rallies were planned for various parts of SoCal. My once unfulfilled ambition was fueled by my tangible activism, understanding that it takes more than one person to make an environmental impact.

One of the largest strengths of this response is its speed. From the very beginning, we are invited to “fast-forward” and “rewind” with the writer. Then, after we focus ourselves in the present, this writer keeps their quick pace with sentences like “Substituting coffee grounds as fertilizer, using bamboo straws, starting my sustainable garden, my individual actions needed to reach a larger scale.” A common essay-writing blunder is using a predictable structure that loses the attention of the reader, but this unique pacing keeps things interesting.

Another positive of this essay is how their passion for environmental activism shines through. The essay begins by describing the student’s connection to nature (“nature offers me an escape from the haste of the world”), moves into discussing the personal actions they have taken (“substituting coffee grounds as fertilizer”), and then explains the rally the student hosted. While the talent the student is writing about is their ability to inspire others to fight against climate change, establishing the personal affinity towards nature and individual steps they took demonstrate the development of their passion. This makes their talent appear much more significant and unique. 

This essay could be improved by being more specific about what this student’s talent is. There is no sentence that directly states what this student considers to be their talent. Although the essay is still successful at displaying the student’s personality, interests, and ambition, by not explicitly mentioning their talent, they leave it up to the reader’s interpretation.

Depending on how quickly they read the essay or how focused they are, there’s a possibility the reader will miss the key talent the student wanted to convey. Making sure to avoid spoon-feeding the answer to their audience, the student should include a short sentence that lays out what they view as their main talent.

At six, Mama reads me a story for the first time. I listen right up until Peter Pan talks about the stars in the night sky. “What’s the point of stars if they can’t be part of something?” Mama looks at me strangely before closing the book. “Sometimes, looking on is more helpful than actively taking part. Besides, stars listen- like you. You’re a good listener, aren’t you?” I nod. At eleven, my sister confides in me for the first time. She’s always been different, in a way even those ‘mind doctors’ could never understand. I don’t understand either, but I do know that I like my sister. She’s mean to me, but not like people are to her. She tells me how she sees the world, and chokes over her words in a struggle to speak. She trusts me, and that makes me happy. So, I listen. I don’t speak; this isn’t a story where I speak. At sixteen, I find myself involved with an organization that provides education to rural children. Dakshata is the first person I’ve tutored in Hindi. She’s also my favorite. So, when she interrupts me mid-lesson one evening, lips trembling and eyes filling with tears, I decide to put my pen down and listen. I don’t speak; I don’t take part in this story. Later, as I hug the girl, I tell her about the stars and how her mother is among their kind- unable to speak yet forever willing to listen. Dakshata now loves the stars as much as I do. At seventeen, I realize that the first thing that comes to my mind when someone asks me about a skill I possess is my ability to listen. Many don’t see it as a skill, and I wouldn’t ask them to either, but it’s important. When you listen, you see, you need not necessarily understand, but you do comprehend. You empathize on a near-cosmic level with the people around you and learn so much more than you ever thought possible. Everything is a part of something- even the stars with their ears.

The essay as a whole is an excellent example of narrative-based writing. The narrative begins with a captivating hook. The first sentence catches the reader by surprise, since it does not directly respond to the prompt by naming the writer’s greatest talent or skill. Instead, it tells a childhood story which does not seem to be related to a skill at first. This creates intrigue, and the second sentence adds to it by introducing a conflict. It causes readers to wonder why Peter Pan’s stargazing would make a six year old stop listening — hooked into the story, they continue reading.

The writer continues to create a moving narrative by using dialogue. Dialogue allows the writer to show rather than tell , which is a highly effective way to make an essay convey emotion and keep readers’ attention. The writer also shows their story by using language such as “mind doctors” instead of “psychologists” — this immerses readers in the author’s perspective as an 11 year old at the time. 

Two motifs, or recurring themes, tie the essay together: listening and looking at the stars. The last paragraph powerfully concludes the essay by explaining these themes and circling back to the introduction.

Crafting transitions is one area where this essay could be improved. The paragraph after “I nod” begins abruptly, and without any sentence to connect the writer’s dialogue at age six with her experiences at age 11. One way to make the transition smoother would be to begin the paragraph after “I nod” with “I try to be a good listener again at eleven, when my sister confides in me for the first time.”

This essay would also be more impactful if the writer explained what they aspire to do with their ability to listen in the future. While it is most important for your essay to explain how your past experiences have made you who you are in the present, looking towards the future allows admissions readers to imagine the impact you might make after graduation. The writer could do this in the last paragraph of their essay by writing the following: “Many don’t see it as a skill, and I wouldn’t ask them to either, but I find it important — especially as an aspiring social worker.”

Prompt: Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom. (350 words)

I distinctly remember the smile on Perela’s face when she found out her mother would be nursed back to health. I first met Perela and her mother at the Lestonnac Free Clinic in San Bernardino where I volunteered as a Spanish translator. I was in awe of the deep understanding of biology that the medical team employed to discover solutions. Despite having no medical qualifications of my own, I realized that by exercising my abilities to communicate and empathize, I could serve as a source of comfort and encouragement for Perela and her mother. The opportunity to combine my scientific curiosity and passion for caring for people cultivated my interest in a career as a physician.

To further explore this interest, I attended a summer medical program at Georgetown University. I participated in lectures on circulation through the heart, practiced stitches on a chicken leg, and assisted in giving CPR to a dummy in the patient simulation laboratory. Every fact about the human body I learned brought with it ten new questions for me to research. I consistently stayed after each lecture to gain insight about how cells, tissues, and organs all work together to carry out immensely complicated functions. The next year, in my AP Biology class, I was further amazed with the interconnected biological systems as I learned about the relationships between the human body and ecosystems. I discussed with my teacher how environmental changes will impact human health and how we must broaden our perspectives to use medicine to tackle these issues.

By integrating environmental and medical science, we can develop effective solutions to reduce the adverse effects of environmental degradation that Perela’s mother may have faced unintentionally. I want to go into the medical field so I can employ a long-term approach to combat biology’s hidden anomalies with a holistic viewpoint. I look forward to utilizing my undergraduate classes and extracurriculars to prepare for medical school so I can fight for both health care and environmental protection.

This student primarily answers the prompt in their middle paragraph as they describe their experience at a summer medical program as well as their science coursework in high school. This content shows their academic curiosity and rigor, yet the best part of the essay isn’t the student’s response to the prompt. The best part of this essay is the way the student positions their interest in medicine as authentic and unique.

The student appears authentic when they admit that they haven’t always been interested in medical school. Many applicants have wanted to be doctors their whole life, but this student is different. They were just in a medical office to translate and help, then got hooked on the profession and took that interest to the next level by signing up for a summer program.

Additionally, this student positions themself as unique as they describe the specifics of their interest in medicine, emphasizing their concern with the ways medicine and the environment interact. This is also refreshing!

Of course, you should always answer the prompt, but it’s important to remember that you can make room within most prompts to say what you want and show off unique aspects of yourself—just as this student did.

One thing this student should be careful of is namedropping Georgetown for the sake of it. There is no problem in discussing a summer program they attended that furthered their interest in medicine, but there is a problem when the experience is used to build prestige. Admissions officers already know that this student attended a summer program at Georgetown because it’s on their application. The purpose of the essay is to show  why attending the program was a formative moment in their interest.

The essay gets at the  why a bit when it discusses staying after class to learn more about specific topics, but the student could have gone further in depth. Rather than explaining the things the student did during the program, like stitching chicken legs and practicing CPR, they should have continued the emotional reflection from the first paragraph by describing what they thought and felt when they got hands-on medical experience during the program. 

Save describing prestigious accomplishments for your extracurriculars and resume; your essay is meant to demonstrate what made you you.

I love spreadsheets.

It’s weird, I know. But there’s something endlessly fascinating about taking a bunch of raw numbers, whipping and whacking them into different shapes and forms with formulas and equations to reveal hidden truths about the universe. The way I like to think about it is that the universe has an innate burning desire to tell us its stories. The only issue is its inability to talk with us directly. Most human stories are written in simple words and letters, but the tales of the universe are encrypted in numbers and relationships, which require greater effort to decode to even achieve basic comprehension. After all, it took Newton countless experimentation to discover the love story between mass and gravitation.

In middle school, whenever I opened a spreadsheet, I felt like I was part of this big journey towards understanding the universe. It took me a couple of years, but I eventually found out that my interest had a name: Data Science. With this knowledge, I began to read extensively about the field and took online courses in my spare time. I found out that the spreadsheets I had been using was just the tip of the iceberg. As I gained more experience, I started using more powerful tools like R (a statistical programming language) which allowed me to use sophisticated methods like linear regressions and decision trees. It opened my eyes to new ways to understand reality and changed the way I approached the world.

The thing I love most about data science is its versatility. It doesn’t matter if the data at hand is about the airflow on an owl’s wing or the living conditions of communities most crippled by poverty. I am able to utilize data science to dissect and analyze issues in any field. Each new method of analysis yields different stories, with distinct actors, settings, and plots. I’m an avid reader of the stories of the universe, and one day I will help the world by letting the universe write its own narrative.

This is an essay that draws the reader in. The student’s candid nature and openness truly allows us to understand why they are fascinated with spreadsheets themself, which in turn makes the reader appreciate the meaning of this interest in the student’s life. 

First, the student engages readers with their conversational tone, beginning “I love spreadsheets. It’s weird, I know,” followed shortly after by the phrase “whipping and whacking.” Then, they introduce their idea to us, explaining how the universe is trying to tell us something through numbers and saying that Newton discovered “the love story between mass and gravitation,” and we find ourselves clearly following along. They put us right there with them, on their team, also trying to discover the secrets of the universe. It is this bond between the student and the reader that makes the essay so engaging and worth reading.

Because the essay is focused on the big picture, the reader gets a sense of the wide-eyed wonderment this student experiences when they handle and analyze data. The student takes us on the “big journey towards understanding the universe” through the lens of Data Science. Explaining both the tools the student has used, like R and statistical regression, and the ideas the student has explored, like owl’s wings and poverty, demonstrates how this student fits into the micro and macro levels of Data Science. The reader gets a complete picture of how this student could change the world through this essay—something admissions officers always want to see.

The biggest thing that would improve this essay is an anecdote. As it’s written, the essay looks at Data Science from a more theoretical or aspirational perspective. The student explains all that Data Science can enable, but besides for explaining that they started coding with spreadsheets and R, they provide very little personal experience working with Data Science. This is where an anecdote would elevate the essay.

Adding a story about the first data set they examined or an independent project they undertook as a hobby would have elicited more emotion and allowed for the student to showcase their accomplishments and way of thinking. For example, they could delve into the feeling of enlightenment that came from first discovering a pattern in the universe. Or maybe they could describe how analyzing data was the catalyst that led them to reach out to local businesses to help them improve their revenue. 

If you have an impactful and enduring interest, such as this student does, you will have at least one anecdote you could include in your essay. You’ll find that essays with anecdotes are able to work in more emotional reflection that make the essay more memorable and the student more likable.

Prompt: What have you done to make your community a better place? (350 words)

Blinking sweat from my eyes, I raised my chin up to the pullup bar one last time before dropping down, my muscles trembling. But despite my physical exhaustion at the end of the workout, mentally, I felt reinvigorated and stronger than ever.

Minutes later, I sat at my computer, chatting with my friends about our first week in quarantine. After listening to numerous stories concerning boredom and loneliness, it struck me that I could use my passion for fitness to help my friends—I jumped at the chance to do so. 

After scouring the internet for the most effective exercises and fitness techniques, I began hosting Zoom workouts, leading friends, family, and anyone else who wanted to join in several fun exercises each week. I hoped these meetings would uplift anyone struggling during quarantine, whether from loneliness, uncertainty, or loss of routine. I created weekly workout plans, integrating cardio, strength, and flexibility exercises into each. Using what I learned from skating, I incorporated off-ice training exercises into the plans and added stretching routines to each session. 

Although many members were worried that they wouldn’t be able to complete exercises as well as others and hesitated to turn their cameras on, I encouraged them to show themselves on screen, knowing we’d only support one another. After all, the “face-to-face” interactions we had while exercising were what distinguished our workouts from others online; and I hoped that they would lead us to grow closer as a community. 

As we progressed, I saw a new-found eagerness in members to show themselves on camera, enjoying the support of others. Seeing how far we had all come was immensely inspiring: I watched people who couldn’t make it through one circuit finish a whole workout and ask for more; instead of staying silent during meetings, they continually asked for tips and corrections.

Despite the limitations placed on our interactions by computer screens, we found comfort in our collective efforts, the camaraderie between us growing with every workout. For me, it confirmed the strength we find in community and the importance of helping one another through tough times.

This essay accomplishes three main goals: it tells a story of how this student took initiative, it explores the student’s values, and it demonstrates their emotional maturity. We really get a sense of how this student improved their community while also gaining a large amount of insight into what type of person this student is.

With regards to initiative, this student writes about a need they saw in their community and the steps they took to satisfy that need. They describe the extensive thought that went into their decisions as they outline the planning of their classes and their unique decision to incorporate skating techniques in at-home workouts.

Additionally, they explore their values, including human connection. The importance of connection to this student is obvious throughout the essay as they write about their desire “to grow closer as a community.” It is particularly apparent with their final summarizing sentence: “For me, it confirmed the strength we find in community and the importance of helping one another through tough times.”

Lastly, this student positions themself as thoughtful when they recognize the way that embarrassment can get in the way of forming community. They do this through the specific example of feeling embarrassment when turning on one’s camera during a video call—a commonly-felt feeling. This ability to recognize fear of embarrassment as an obstacle to camaraderie shows maturity on the part of this applicant. 

This essay already has really descriptive content, a strong story, and a complete answer to the prompt, however there is room for every essay to improve. In this case, the student could have worked more descriptive word choice and figurative language into their essay to make it more engaging and impressive. You want your college essay to showcase your writing abilities as best as possible, while still sounding like you.

One literary device that would have been useful in this essay is a conceit or an extended metaphor . Essays that utilize conceits tend to begin with a metaphor, allude to the metaphor during the body of the paragraph, and end by circling back to the original metaphor. All together, it makes for a cohesive essay that is easy to follow and gives the reader a satisfying opening and conclusion to the essay.

The idea at the heart of this essay—working out to strengthen a community—would make for a great conceit. By changing the anecdote at the beginning to maybe reflect the lack of strength the student felt when working out alone and sprinkling in words and phrases that allude to strength and exercise during the essay, the last sentence (“For me, it confirmed the strength we find in community and the importance of helping one another through tough times”) would feel like a fulfilling end to the conceit rather than just a clever metaphor thrown in. 

Prompt: What have you done to make your school or your community a better place? (350 words)

The scent of eucalyptus caressed my nose in a gentle breeze. Spring had arrived. Senior class activities were here. As a sophomore, I noticed a difference between athletic and academic seniors at my high school; one received recognition while the other received silence. I wanted to create an event celebrating students academically-committed to four-years, community colleges, trades schools, and military programs. This event was Academic Signing Day.

The leadership label, “Events Coordinator,” felt heavy on my introverted mind. I usually was setting up for rallies and spirit weeks, being overlooked around the exuberant nature of my peers. 

I knew a change of mind was needed; I designed flyers, painted posters, presented powerpoints, created student-led committees, and practiced countless hours for my introductory speech. Each committee would play a vital role on event day: one dedicated to refreshments, another to technology, and one for decorations. The fourth-month planning was a laborious joy, but I was still fearful of being in the spotlight. Being acknowledged by hundreds of people was new to me. 

The day was here. Parents filled the stands of the multi-purpose room. The atmosphere was tense; I could feel the angst building in my throat, worried about the impression I would leave. Applause followed each of the 400 students as they walked to their college table, indicating my time to speak. 

I walked up to the stand, hands clammy, expression tranquil, my words echoing to the audience. I thought my speech would be met by the sounds of crickets; instead, smiles lit up the stands, realizing my voice shone through my actions. I was finally coming out of my shell. The floor was met by confetti as I was met by the sincerity of staff, students, and parents, solidifying the event for years to come. 

Academic students were no longer overshadowed. Their accomplishments were equally recognized to their athletic counterparts. The school culture of athletics over academics was no longer imbalanced. Now, everytime I smell eucalyptus, it is a friendly reminder that on Academic Signing Day, not only were academic students in the spotlight but so was my voice.

This is a good essay because it describes the contribution the student made to their community and the impact that experience had on shaping their personality. Admissions officers get to see what this student is capable of and how they have grown, which is important to demonstrate in your essays. Throughout the essay there is a nice balance between focusing on planning the event and the emotions it elicited from this student, which is summed up in the last sentence: “not only were academic students in the spotlight but so was my voice.”

With prompts like this one (which is essentially a Community Service Essay ) students sometimes take very small contributions to their community and stretch them—oftentimes in a very obvious way. Here, the reader can see the importance of Academic Signing Day to the community and the student, making it feel like a genuine and enjoyable experience for all involved. Including details like the four months of planning the student oversaw, the specific committees they delegated tasks to, and the hundreds of students and parents that attended highlights the skills this student possesses to plan and execute such a large event.

Another positive aspect of this essay is how the student’s emotions are intertwined throughout the essay. We see this student go from being a shy figure in the background to the confident architect of a celebrated community event, all due to their motivation to create Academic Signing Day. The student consistently shows throughout the essay, instead of telling us what happened. One example is when they convey their trepidation to public speaking in this sentence: “I walked up to the stand, hands clammy, expression tranquil, my words echoing to the audience. I thought my speech would be met by the sounds of crickets.”

Employing detailed descriptions of feelings, emotions, fears, and body language all contribute to an essay that reveals so much in subtle ways. Without having to be explicitly told, the reader learns the student is ambitious, organized, a leader, and someone who deeply values academic recognition when they read this essay.

While this essay has many positives, there are a couple of things the student could work on. The first is to pay more attention to grammar. There was one obvious typo where the student wrote “the fourth-month planning was a laborious joy”, but there were also many sentences that felt clunky and disjointed. Each and every essay you submit should put your best foot forward and impress admissions officers with your writing ability, but typos immediately diminish your credibility as a writer and sincerity as an applicant.

It’s important to read through your essay multiple times and consider your specific word choice—does each word serve a purpose, could a sentence be rewritten to be less wordy, etc? However, it’s also important you have at least one other person edit your essay. Had this student given their essay to a fresh set of eyes they might have caught the typo and other areas in need of improvement.

Additionally, this student began and ended the essay with the smell of eucalyptus. Although this makes for an intriguing hook, it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual point of the essay. It’s great to start your essay with an evocative anecdote or figurative language, but it needs to relate to your topic. Rather than wasting words on eucalyptus, a much stronger hook could have been the student nervously walking up to the stage with clammy hands and a lump in their throat. Beginning the essay with a descriptive sentence that puts us directly into the story with the student would draw the reader in and get them excited about the topic at hand.

Prompt: What have you done to make your school or community a better place? (350 words) 

“I wish my parents understood.” Sitting at the lunch table, I listened as my friends aired out every detail of their life that they were too afraid to share with their parents. Sexuality, relationships, dreams; the options were limitless. While I enjoyed playing therapist every 7th period, a nagging sensation that perhaps their parents should understand manifested in me. Yet, my proposal was always met with rolling eyes; “I wish they understood” began every conversation, but nothing was being done beyond wishing on both sides. 

I wanted to help not just my friends but the countless other stories I was told of severed relationships and hidden secrets. Ultimately, my quest for change led me to BFB, a local nonprofit. Participating in their Youth Leadership program, I devised and implemented a plan for opening up the conversation between students and parents with the team I led. We successfully hosted relationship seminars with guest speakers specializing on a range of topics, from inclusive education to parental pressure, and were invited to speak for BFB at various external events with local government by the end of my junior year. Collaborating with mental health organizations and receiving over $1,000 in funding from international companies facilitated our message to spread throughout the community and eventually awarded us with an opportunity to tackle a research project studying mental health among teens during the pandemic with professors from the University at Buffalo and UC Los Angeles. 

While these endeavors collectively facilitated my team to win the competition, the most rewarding part of it all was receiving positive feedback from my community and close friends. “I wish my parents understood” morphed into “I’m glad they tried to understand”. I now lead a separate program under BFB inspired by my previous endeavors, advancing its message even further and leaving a legacy of change and initiative for future high schoolers in the program. As I leave for college, I hope to continue this work at the University of California and foster a diverse community that embraces understanding and growth across cultures and generations.

The essay begins with a strong, human-centered story that paints a picture of what the writer’s community looks like. The first sentence acts as a hook by leaving readers with questions — whose parents are being discussed, and what don’t they understand? With their curiosity now piqued, readers become intrigued enough to move on to the next sentences. The last sentence of the first paragraph and beginning of the second relate to the same topic of stories from friends, making for a highly effective transition.

The writer then does a great job of describing their community impact in specific detail, which is crucial for this prompt. Rather than using vague and overly generalized language, the writer highlights their role in BFB with strong action verbs like “devised” and “implemented.” They also communicate the full scope of their impact with quantifiable metrics like “$1,000 in funding,” all while maintaining a flowing narrative style.

The essay ends by circling back to the reason why the writer got involved in improving their community through BFB, which makes the essay more cohesive and moving. The last sentences connect their current experiences improving community with their future aspirations to do so, both in the wider world and at a UC school. This forward-looking part allows admissions officers to get a sense of what the writer might accomplish as a UC alum/alumna, and is certainly something to emulate.

This essay’s biggest weakness is its organization. Since the second paragraph contains lots of dense information about the writer’s role in BFB, it would benefit from a few sentences that tie it back to the narrative in the first paragraph. For instance, the third sentence of the paragraph could be changed like so: “Participating in their Youth Leadership program, I led my team through devising and implementing a plan to foster student-parent conversations — the ones that my 7th period friends were in need of.”

The last paragraph also has the potential to be reorganized. The sentence with the “I wish my parents understood” quote would be more powerful at the end of the paragraph rather than in the middle. With a short transition added to the beginning, the new conclusion would look like so: “ Through it all, I hope to help ‘I wish my parents understood’ morph into ‘I’m glad they tried to understand’ for my 7th period friends and many more.” 

I drop my toothbrush in the sink as I hear a scream. Rushing outside, I find my mom’s hand painfully wedged in the gap between our outward-opening veranda doors. I quickly open it, freeing her hand as she gasps in relief. 

As she ices her hand, I regard the door like I would a trivia question or math problem – getting to know the facts before I start working on a solution. I find that, surprisingly, there is not a single protrusion to open the door from the outside! 

Perhaps it was the fact that my mom couldn’t drive or that my dad worked long hours, but the crafts store was off-limits; I’ve always ended up having to get resourceful and creative with whatever materials happened to be on hand in order to complete my impromptu STEM projects or garage builds. Used plastic bottles of various shapes and sizes became buildings for a model of a futuristic city. Cylindrical capacitors from an old computer, a few inches in height, became scale-size storage tanks. 

Inspired by these inventive work-arounds and spurred on by my mom’s plight, I procure a Command Strip, a roll of tennis racket grip, and, of course, duct tape. I fashion a rudimentary but effective solution: a pull handle, ensuring she would never find herself stuck again.

A desire to instill others in my community with this same sense of resourcefulness led me to co-found “Repair Workshops” at my school – sessions where we teach students to fix broken objects rather than disposing of them. My hope is that participants will walk away with a renewed sense of purpose to identify problems faced by members of their community (whether that’s their neighbor next door or the planet as a whole) and apply their newfound engineering skills towards solutions.

As I look towards a degree and career in engineering and business, these connections will serve as my grounding point: my reminder that in disciplines growing increasingly quantitative, sometimes the best startup ideas or engineering solutions originate from a desire to to better the lives of people around me.

This essay is a good example of telling a story with an authentic voice. With its down-to-earth tone and short, punchy paragraphs, it stands out as a piece of writing that only the author could have written. That is an effective way for you to write any of your college essays as well.

After readers are hooked by the mention of screaming in the first sentence, the writer immerses the readers in their thinking. This makes the essay flow very naturally — rather than a first paragraph of narrative followed by an unrelated description of STEM projects, the whole essay is a cohesive story that shows how the writer came to improve their community. 

Their take on community also makes the essay stand out. While many responses to this prompt will focus on an amorphous, big-picture concept of community, such as school or humanity, this essay is about a community that the writer has a close connection to — their family. Family is also not the large group of people that most applicants would first attach to the word “community,” but writing about it here is a creative take on the prompt. Though explaining community impact is most important, choosing the most unique community you are a part of is a great way to make your essay stand out.

This essay’s main weakness is that the paragraph about Repair Workshops does not go into enough detail about community impact. The writer should highlight more specific examples of leadership here, since it would allow them to demonstrate how they hope to impact many more communities besides their family. 

After the sentence ending with “fix broken objects rather than disposing of them,” a new part could be added that shows how the writer taught students. For example, the writer could tell the story of how “tin cans became compost bins” as they explained the importance of making the world a better place. 

Then, at the end of the paragraph, the writer could more concretely explain the visions they have to expand the impact of Repair Workshops. A good concluding sentence could start with “I too hope to use engineering skills and resourcefulness to…” Adding this extra context would also make the paragraph transition better to the final paragraph of the essay, which somewhat abruptly begins by mentioning the writer’s previously unmentioned career interests in engineering and business.

Where to Get Feedback on Your UC Essays

Want feedback like this on your University of California essays before you submit? We offer expert essay review by advisors who have helped students get into their dream schools. You can book a review with an expert to receive notes on your topic, grammar, and essay structure to make your essay stand out to admissions officers. In fact, Alexander Oddo , an essay expert on CollegeVine, provided commentary on several of the essays in this post.

Haven’t started writing your essay yet? Advisors on CollegeVine also offer expert college counseling packages . You can purchase a package to get one-on-one guidance on any aspect of the college application process, including brainstorming and writing essays.

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• The Best Leadership Essay Examples and Writing...

The Best Leadership Essay Examples and Writing Guide

Whether for college admissions or scholarship applications, a successful leadership essay is intriguing and flawless. There are tricks and tips you can use to ensure your essays stand out and show you are a leader that inspires. Besides, leadership is a skill that is revered in academics. However, not all bosses are good leaders. 

Good leadership comes from the impact you have on those around you and the people you are doing a project or working with. The admissions or scholarship board understand this. That is why they ask applicants to write and submit a leadership paper. 

The board wants to understand whether the applicant understands the concept of leadership. They also want to gauge writing and critical thinking skills. This guide will tell you what makes a good leader essay, how to write it, and even give examples to help make your writing process easier. 

What is Good Leadership Essay?

A well-written leadership essay emphasizes leadership concepts and their impact on real-life situations. It should indicate what makes a good leader, follow a precise structure to create a logical flow of information, and be free of errors. Some crucial traits of a leader that are more likely to be described in this type of essay are:

• Communication skills
• Exceptional at delegating
• Emotional intelligence
• Accountability
• Self-confidence

This is not the only list of the qualities of a good leader. You only need to read personal leadership essay examples to get more characteristics. This can include charisma, impartiality, dedication, and influence. Much of the information you should include in your essay may come from your experience in a leadership role. 

How Do You Write a College Leadership Essay?

The first step is to come up with a good topic. The choice of topic can be based on a leadership style. For example, the servant leadership style, where the leader has a people-first mindset, emphasizes collaboration, teamwork, and employee satisfaction. 

You will know you are a servant leader if you often motivate your team, have excellent communication skills and commit to knowing the people around you personally and professionally. 

Another example of leadership style is hands-off leadership. In this case, the leader believes in freedom of choice; they effectively delegate and offer constructive criticism. This leadership style encourages creativity, accountability, and often leads to higher employee retention because of the relaxed work atmosphere. An example of an essay would be:

Is leadership an innate skill or a result of experience? Many people, including researchers, have been struggling to answer this question. One assumption is that leaders acquire specific skills over time. Another assumption is that some people are built for leadership, or leadership is built around inborn personality traits.

You can then use this introduction to create an essay that makes a stand on whether a leader is born or made. Here are more useful tips on how to write a leadership essay.

Have a Good Structure for the Essay

Look at any sample essay on leadership, and you will see that it is organized to have three main crucial parts:

• Introduction
• Body section made of three or more paragraphs

So how do you start a leadership essay? Use the first sentence to grab attention. To further enhance interest and connect with the reader, personalize the text and integrate a story that will further unravel in the body section. 

Ensure your leadership essay introduction has a hook or an attention grabber, which can be a thought-provoking question, intriguing fact, a famous quote, or shocking statistics. A thesis statement should follow and set the tone for the essay. 

The Body Should Back Up the Story

Use the body paragraphs to support the claims to the main idea/thesis statement. Focus on leadership qualities and how they are important to you or how they relate to your core values. Use examples to strengthen your arguments. 

End With a Compelling Conclusion

The final paragraph should provide an overview of each main point discussed in the essay. Restate the leadership values and make them personal by talking about what you have learned. Wrap up the essay with an inspiring sentence about leadership. 

Think Outside the Box

What is a leadership short essay? This is a short essay, preferably one page long, that is personal and showcases the writer’s leadership abilities. Whether you are writing a short or long essay to ace a leadership essay, you should think out of the box to avoid handing in predictable or, worse, boring essays. 

If you play it safe, you might end up with an average grade. So come up with new and innovative topics that get the reader's attention.

Stick to the Point

You will quickly confuse the reader if you digress from your topic. That is why you should always give yourself a break after completing the essay then come back and edit it. With a relaxed mind and a fresh pair of eyes, you will notice points that are off-topic. 

In case you have included different opinions, use transitions to create cohesion. Don’t forget to remove unnecessary facts and remain within the specified word count limit. 

Follow All the Instructions

Adhere to all the requirements for a leadership essay; otherwise, your paper will end up in the rejection pile or get a low grade. So before submitting it, read the instructions again and check that your essay adheres to all of them, including the formatting, tone, and style. 

Final Thoughts

A good leadership essay gives practical experiences in a relatable manner and connects to the audience on a deeper level. It shows the qualities you denote with leadership and allows your writing skills to shine. 

Even after reading this post and several examples writing a leadership essay could prove to be difficult. Luckily, we have writers experienced in writing leadership essays. We never miss a deadline. All essays are original and free of errors. So contact us today and let our writer give you a stellar leadership essay.

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Accepted Admissions Blog

Everything you need to know to get Accepted

January 31, 2018

Are You A Leader?

Of course you are – but do you know how to present those impressive leadership skills and experiences in your application essay?

For many applicants, writing the “leadership essay” is one of the most challenging aspects of the application process, mainly because the concept of leadership is so tough to define. It’s easy to say that you have “strong leadership skills,” but what does that really mean? Does that mean that you led a team of 400 to reach unobtainable, lofty goals? And if you haven’t done that, then does that mean your chances of showing leadership are nil? Certainly not.

Leadership comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s not always easy to seek out or decipher one’s leadership experiences, but it’s essential that you do so if you want to nail this essay and convey to the admissions team that you are a motivated, goal-oriented, leadership-driven individual.

The tips found in Leadership in Admissions will help you grasp the concept of leadership and its many facets, identify those traits in yourself, and then – finally – write about it effectively.

And it’s free! Download your copy of Leadership in Admissions today!

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Talking about Leadership in Your College Application Essay

• college application essays
• essay topic

It’s easy to talk about being a leader, but how do you demonstrate that in your college application essay? Here are 5 successful examples from students at UPenn , Stanford , Brown , and Columbia :

To divide all mankind into such a distinctive and witty set of classes can only be the  brainchild of someone as clever as Benjamin Franklin. Still, this classification is one of profound implications. Defining oneself amongst the movers, the movable, or the immovable can reveal one’s true character. It is with this mindset that I consider myself one that ‘moves.’ Of course, as an inherently imperfect human being I cannot deny that I have been lazy or inflexible at times; nor have I not been one to follow and let others take action for me. But I the grander scope, I am definitely one who prefers to lead and be the individual to take action or make decisions. Keep reading.  

Columbia’ 17

I watch my grinning friends troop into the auditorium. Some can sense my nervousness, and call out to me reassuringly. I wonder if our relationship will change, once I become head boy. I will no longer be able to take part in all the pranks that they wanted to pull off in senior year. I just hope they will not do something so reckless that I need to march them to the principal’s office. I realise then that I would if I had to. Read more.

I stand on the peak of a mountain, 4,867 feet above the ground, accompanied by a handful of summer camp friends. From the top of the mountain, I take in the beautiful panoramic view of the Adirondacks, unfettered by pesky clouds. The sun shines directly into my eyes, forcing me to squint. Beads of sweat drip down my forehead. Although I am tired, I feel exhilarated. This particular summit is perhaps the most significant of those I have climbed as a hiker. Continue reading.

Stanford ‘17

I felt a bead of sweat tracing its way down my forehead. My legs began to twitch, as if they knew how badly I wanted to run. I stared, in desperation, back at the nine pairs of eyes that watched my every move. For a second, I imagined my escape- sprinting down the stairs, past the faded murals on the walls, out the gate and into the street. But just for a second. Read more.  

Brownandproud

Stanford ‘15.

I walk off the stage and see my nephew running to me. He says “congratulations,” and as I look around I see my 2 parents, 2 sisters, 15 cousins, 9 aunts and 9 uncles smiling at me and clapping so loud I forget where I am. Twenty five years ago, my parents decided to leave not just Mexico City but their home, family, and culture, in pursuit of a better and brighter future for their families. My father and mother worked endlessly to bring their families over to California. I envy my father’s determination, as he gave up his teaching job in Mexico and worked 60-hour weeks for a decade to provide homes for my relatives. He was the leader, the commander of the ship guiding though the rapid current. It did not matter that we had 18 people living in our home; the most important priority was that we were together. View full profile.

Liked these essay intros? Unlock them all in one go in this leadership package . Brainstorm and think carefully about what you want to write in your personal statement and how you want to share your own, unique story. For more inspiration, AdmitSee has a database of 60,000+ successful  college applications files  waiting for you! 

About The Author

Frances was born in Hong Kong and received her bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University. She loves super sad drama television, cooking, and reading. Her favorite person on Earth isn’t actually a member of the AdmitSee team - it’s her dog Cooper.

Browse Successful Application Files

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• 1. How to Write College Essays to Boost your Chances Part 2: Focusing the Priority
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6 Common Leadership Styles — and How to Decide Which to Use When

• Rebecca Knight

Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances call for different approaches.

Research suggests that the most effective leaders adapt their style to different circumstances — be it a change in setting, a shift in organizational dynamics, or a turn in the business cycle. But what if you feel like you’re not equipped to take on a new and different leadership style — let alone more than one? In this article, the author outlines the six leadership styles Daniel Goleman first introduced in his 2000 HBR article, “Leadership That Gets Results,” and explains when to use each one. The good news is that personality is not destiny. Even if you’re naturally introverted or you tend to be driven by data and analysis rather than emotion, you can still learn how to adapt different leadership styles to organize, motivate, and direct your team.

Much has been written about common leadership styles and how to identify the right style for you, whether it’s transactional or transformational, bureaucratic or laissez-faire. But according to Daniel Goleman, a psychologist best known for his work on emotional intelligence, “Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances may call for different approaches.”

• RK Rebecca Knight is a journalist who writes about all things related to the changing nature of careers and the workplace. Her essays and reported stories have been featured in The Boston Globe, Business Insider, The New York Times, BBC, and The Christian Science Monitor. She was shortlisted as a Reuters Institute Fellow at Oxford University in 2023. Earlier in her career, she spent a decade as an editor and reporter at the Financial Times in New York, London, and Boston.

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Mae Hampton Watt Presidential Scholarship in Psychology - Leadership and Service

About the scholarship.

The Mae Hampton Watt Presidential Scholarship in Psychology - Leadership and Service is open to undergraduate students enrolled in the Department of Psychology at Florida State University. Students who can submit an essay about their relevant leadership and service are encouraged to apply.

• Essay Required : Yes
• Need-Based : No
• Merit-Based : No
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• Seeking a bachelor's degree
• Studying psychology
• Participation in leadership
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2024 RBC Heritage leaderboard: Scottie Scheffler nears fourth win in five starts with event to finish Monday

Weather prevented the final round from completing, but scheffler is well on his way to continuing his hot streak.

Scottie Scheffler's fourth victory in his last five tournaments will have to wait one more day. With the 2024 RBC Heritage experiencing more than a 2.5-hour weather delay Sunday, tournament action was unable to be completed before nightfall; it will instead leak into the work week. The final round at Harbour Town Golf Links will resume Monday at 8 a.m. ET with Scheffler holding a five-stroke lead at 20 under.

The world No. 1 is well clear of his nearest pursuer, Wyndham Clark, with three holes left in his tournament. Clark, meanwhile, is in the clubhouse at 15 under hoping for another runner-up check behind Scheffler. Others on the golf course like J.T. Poston, Patrick Cantlay and Sahith Theegala stand at that same number with holes to play.

Monday morning may only be a formality as Scheffler looks to be in control of just about everything -- like he has been the last two months.

Scheffler began Sunday in Hilton Head Island with one arm already slipped in the tartan jacket. Possessing a one-stroke lead, the Texan was crowned by many late Saturday evening despite the bevy of stars who had plans to upend him.

After knocking in a 6-foot par save on the 1st, Scheffler more or less turned those predictions into a reality. Chipping in for eagle on the par-5 2nd from long of the green (his 11th hole-out from off the green this season), Scheffler opened a three-stroke lead on the field and never looked back.

Charges were made by many, including a familiar foe in Clark, but none were that threatening. The reigning U.S. Open champion turned in 7-under 29 and tacked on another birdie on the 11th to get within one of Scheffler, but the pressure of perfection proved too much.

Hitting a tree with his second shot on No. 12, Clark's ball ricocheted out of bounds and led to a double bogey. Another dropped shot came on the following hole and all but secured another near miss from the U.S. Open champion.

Collin Morikawa, Ludvig Åberg, Cantlay and Theegala all hovered on the first page of the leaderboard but never truly threatened. Instead, it was Patrick Rodgers who emerged as Scheffler's greatest threat thanks to an eagle-2 at the turn. A bogey a few holes later put an end to his Cinderella story.

Remaining in the wake of mistakes was a spotless Scheffler at 19 under, four ahead of the field. Turning in 3 under, the steadiest man in the game marched forward with a heavy diet of fairways and greens before a spell of thunderstorms halted his momentum on the par-4 12th.

Inclement weather was all that could stop Scheffler as the 27-year-old returned to the golf course more than two hours later and resumed his round without a hitch. While temperatures cooled and winds freshened, Scheffler was unaffected.

He picked off a birdie on the 13th to push his lead to five before a mud ball on the 15th led to his second finding the water on the par 5. It didn't matter as Scheffler launched a pitching wedge onto the surface, spinning it left and utilizing the slope to access the tucked pin. He avoided what would have been his first dropped shot since the 3rd hole on Thursday with an emphatic par save, and he will sleep easy Sunday night knowing five strokes separate him from the field and three holes separate him from victory.

Rick Gehman, Kyle Porter, Patrick McDonald and Greg DuCharme discuss Scottie Scheffler's hold on the RBC Heritage, Nelly Korda's fifth straight victory and Miles Russell finishing top 25 as a 15 year old. Follow & listen to The First Cut on  Apple Podcasts  and  Spotify .

Play called for evening

The final group is on the green on the par-5 15th meaning they will have three holes to play on Monday. Scottie Scheffler faces a par putt from 10 feet to maintain his five-stroke lead as he stands at 20 under.

Five clear with five to go!

The only thing that can stop him is the sunlight at this rate. Scottie Scheffler adds a birdie on 13 to get to 20 under and five clear of the crew at 15 under. Without the world No. 1 this tournament would be very, very good, but alas they are all fighting for first flight honors it appears.

Conditions are considerably harder for these guys. The wind has switched, it's about 10 degrees cooler and they are racing against the clock. Scottie Scheffler and Sepp Straka make par on No. 12 and head to the par-4 13th. Wyndham Clark posts the clubhouse lead at 15 under, four behind Scheffler.

Let's play ball!

Players are on the golf course and play is set to resume. Scottie Scheffler in the final pairing has about 7.5 holes remaining and one hour until sunset meaning this thing is probably going to leak into Monday unfortunately. 

Play to resume at 7 p.m.

Coverage information, play to resume at 6 p.m. et.

The expectation is this thing will be finished today as the range is open and play is set to resume in 40 minutes at 6 p.m. ET. This will leave Scottie Scheffler a couple hours to complete just about seven holes as he left off in the middle of the 12th fairway with a four-stroke lead at 19 under.

Play suspended due to weather

The horn has sounded at 4:28 p.m. ET as a large weather system (with lightning) has engulfed Harbour Town. This comes as Scottie Scheffler stands in the 12th fairway with a four-stroke lead at 19 under over a number of pursuers up ahead of him on the golf course. Players are being brought back into the clubhouse as rules officials make an assessment on when play will return.

Rain comin' down hard

Scheffler turns in 33 with three-stroke lead.

Scheffler lets a chance slide by on the short ninth and will instead settle for a 3-under 33 on his front nine. It was highlighted by his eagle-3 on the par-5 2nd and Scheffler will head to the back side with a three-stroke edge.

Theegala thriving

Theegala cards four 3s in a row to end his front nine and get within four of Scottie Scheffler. Sahith spoke yesterday about how cool it is what Scheffler is currently doing and how it is a motivating factor for someone like him to get better. It's a great perspective and Theegala continues to get better and better, but it may not be enough this week as he is four behind with nine to go.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, how can i demonstrate leadership on my college application.

I know that colleges value leadership, but I'm not sure how to showcase my leadership skills on my college application. What are some ways I can demonstrate leadership in my activities and essays? Thanks for the advice!

Hi there! Demonstrating leadership on your college application is a great way to stand out. There are several ways you can showcase your leadership skills in both your activities and essays. First, when listing extracurricular activities, make a point to highlight any positions you've held that required leadership, such as being a team captain or club president. Additionally, you can mention any projects or events you've organized, which can be a testament to your leadership abilities.

In your essays, you can share stories that highlight your leadership qualities. For example, you could write about a time when you took charge of a group project, led a fundraiser, or mentored a younger student. By sharing specific examples and reflecting on how these experiences have shaped your leadership style, you'll provide a window into your abilities as a leader.

Finally, letters of recommendation can also emphasize your leadership skills. Asking a teacher, coach, or supervisor who's seen you in a leadership role to write a letter on your behalf can further bolster your application. Good luck!

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AI use cases in health care will likely apply to pets first—then humans

There was one undisputed winner of the pandemic era: pets. People adopted more pets , spent more time with them , and lavished them with more spending . But that boom has not necessarily benefited the workforce that cares for our furry friends.

Veterinarians earn a median annual salary of $119,100 , less than half of what physicians make despite spending as much time in school, graduating with two-thirds as much student debt, and experiencing higher turnover. The result: 0.8 vets per 1,000 cats and dogs. The shortage of veterinary technicians is even worse. My niece studied to be a vet tech but switched out of the program when she realized three years of training would net her a job with a limited career path and low wages. 

One leader who thinks about this a lot is Kristin Peck, CEO of Zoetis , an $8.5 billion-a-year global leader in developing vaccines, medicines, diagnostics and other technologies for pets and livestock. Her clients are vets, so she’s been on the frontlines, trying to address issues through regulation and innovation. “We believe you need to create more licensure in vet tech, so they can do more things such as giving injections,” Peck says. With more robust certification and on-the-job training, she argues, technicians can help relieve pressure on vets—and build more rewarding careers. 

AI also promises to unlock productivity in pet care. In fact, some of the most creative use cases for AI and health tech are likely to emerge first in the animal realm, where patients are unencumbered by privacy laws and other well-intentioned regulations. Zoetis, for one, has an AI-powered device that can quickly diagnose disease from blood, urine and other samples. Meanwhile, Nestlé Purina Petcare North America CEO Nina Leigh Krueger recently told me about her company’s innovations in tech-enabled pet health monitoring. “They want to know, ‘Is my pet getting enough exercise? Is it eating the right amount?’” she says. My personal favorite: a smart litter box that alerts cat owners to changes in habits that may indicate health issues. “We know from years of research how important pets are to our mental health,” she adds. 

And if you doubt that, consider that Chewy CEO Sumit Singh lets everyone bring their pets to work, potbellied pigs and all. As he told Michal Lev-Ram and Alan Murray in a recent Leadership Next podcast , the pet business “used to be a sleepy category” that’s become the next frontier for innovation as technology allows for greater personalization and joy—for animals, their owners, and the professionals who care for them.

Meanwhile, as Alan prepares to move on to his next venture, we’ve received a lot of comments from CEOs on why Fortune is important to them. Here’s one that really resonated with me. 

Fortune ’s thought-provoking content and insightful articles have been an incredible resource for me and my fellow leaders as we all navigate an increasingly complex landscape. In an era where we are being bombarded with so much information, Fortune helps me stay current on market trends, business strategies and leadership advice.

–Thasunda Brown Duckett, CEO, TIAA

More news below.

Diane Brady @dianebrady [email protected]

The FTC targets another merger

The Federal Trade Commission is suing to block Tapestry’s $8.5 billion acquisition of Capri Holdings, alleging the deal could affect employee wages and benefits. The merger would put brands like Coach, Michael Kors, and Versace under one roof. The FTC is more aggressively trying to block mega-mergers, including a $25 billion deal between grocery stores Kroger and Albertsons. The Wall Street Journal

Europe's TikTok probe

The European Commission could order TikTok to shutter its rewards program in the EU due to concerns over child addiction. TikTok Lite allows users to earn points through activities like watching videos or following creators. It’s the second European investigation into TikTok following a February probe into whether the app breached rules on transparent advertising. Reuters

Bubble tea bust

Shares in Chinese bubble tea brand Chabaidao sunk by as much as 37% in Hong Kong on Tuesday, the first trading day for the shares after the city’s biggest IPO for 2024 thus far. IPO proceeds in Hong Kong fell to their lowest level in two decades last year, as companies worry about geopolitical tensions and Chinese regulatory scrutiny. On Friday, China’s markets regulator said it would facilitate Chinese companies hoping to list in Hong Kong. Bloomberg

AROUND THE WATERCOOLER

Commentary: How to fix Boeing, according to a former Airbus technology chief by Paul Eremenko

Baby boomer packed housing markets are unfazed by higher mortgage rates—the rest don’t have enough homes or sellers by Alena Botros

Musk turned Democrats off Teslas at a critical time. Here’s what they bought instead by Alicia Adamczyk

Google CEO’s new memo on employee activism echoes progressive villain Coinbase by Jeff John Roberts

Gen Z women flock to Uniqlo as return-to-office mandates force them to merge work and evening wear by Ryan Hogg

T his edition of CEO Daily was curated by Nicholas Gordon. 

This is the web version of CEO Daily, a newsletter of must-read insights from Fortune CEO Alan Murray. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox.

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