The Complete Opposite by Shelby

The Complete Opposite by Shelby - March 2015 Scholarship Essay

I roll my eyes at each college application requiring essays or explanations regarding the leadership skills one experienced throughout their high school career. I have always been a very prepared, enthusiastic student with a very high GPA, but never utilized my personality to put me ahead of one group. In fact, my personality has always kept me from ordering peers around. I never understood why leadership skills were so important to colleges, because to me, someone’s ability to lead should not declare how successful he or she will become.

Skipping the leadership section in an application always made me feel like such a failure, but I continued to remind myself that I do not possess the personality of a leader. I am quiet, soft-spoken, and prefer to keep my thoughts to myself. So, why are colleges so set on the fact that someone must be a leader to succeed at their school? Someone’s ability to lead does not determine their future. Out of 300 students in my graduating class, I can confidently estimate that one of every twenty has the ability to lead a group. A college is more than ten times the size of my graduating class. If there were only approximately fifteen natural leaders in my graduating class, how is it possible that some colleges have way more than 3,000 students with high GPA’s? Millions of people around the world are currently contently succeeding, but were also known as the shy, dark individual in high school. An individual with a “bossy” attitude is not always the winner. In the end, the turtle wins the race.

As I continue to roll my eyes, I wonder why colleges do not judge prospective students based on achievements during a family calamity. Then I remind myself that some families are lucky enough to avoid such tragic family occurrences. How would it be fair to assess an individual based on their family’s fullness or ability to avoid grievous circumstances? This same idea fades into the injustice of college’s basing accomplishments off of one’s personality. By now, large teaching institutions should look deeper into a student’s abilities opposed to their lack of abilities.