I often look around and see that people all across the school are constantly vying for ‘leadership’ positions. It seems to be the most valued or one of the most valued aspects of the high school experience and with good reason. Having a leadership position, can definitely bolster your application while applying to college, not to mention garners a certain level of respect from your peers, but are leadership positions overhyped in today’s society? I think they might be.

Certain colleges and universities have made it very clear that having a leadership position in high school is very important on a college application but not all of them. Over the summer, I gained a different perspective while visiting various universities across the country, and what they have to say about leadership positions and leadership in general.

Tufts University, a medium sized university in Boston that can be reasonably equated to Rice, had a very interesting perspective. The speaker said something that I hadn’t ever really heard before from a selective institution before, saying that while leaders are important, there can’t be a university full of them. His point was that nothing would get done since students would constantly be vying for power, and the atmosphere would be extremely cutthroat, as it currently is at many other high caliber institutions.

Of course, this isn’t the case everywhere. Many other top tier universities do make this a top priority, but does that create a student body that can cohesively work together? Of course, we need people to lead and people to follow, but if a university is filled with exclusively either or, then I think that we will run into the same problem either way: nothing will be getting accomplished. I think that leadership is an important trait for certain individuals to possess, but I think that this pressure for everyone to become a leader is unrealistic.