"quantity" of leadership

[thebillsfan]

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i know leadership is important in a med school application. the question of the day, though, is what constitutes sufficient leadership. i am sure it depends on the med school, but who many organizations/activities/etc would one be expected to have a leadership role in order for leadership not be considered lacking in an application?

 

[AdmiralChz]

There is no real answer to this. I'd say more so than most of the rest of the app, leadership is extremely subjective (your idea of leadership prob. isn't the same as many others) and there is no "cut off" for the amount of experience you should have. While it's up to you to go out and find this experience, it's also your responsibility to talk it up and make it interesting either in your description, PS, or interviews. Just listing something won't get you anywhere, considering the huge numbers of applications that come in. Work on selling yourself and your strong points, and you should be golden regardless of the amount of "leadership" you have.

 

[shindotp]

"How many"? Leadership can be quantified?

 

[envirodoc]

Pre-Meds are notorious for taking on too many leadership positions at one time and then not dedicating enough time to any of them - driving once thriving organizations into the ground.😡 Don't be like that.

Leadership is important insofar as what you get out of it in terms of experience and what you actually do with the organization you lead. If you can talk to AdComs in a meaningful manner about 1 leadership experience it is worth much more than 10 shallow roles for 1 semester each.

Having lead several campus organizations I can tell you that more than 1 at a time becomes very difficult to manage with a normal course load.

Pick something that truly interests you and that you can show tangible accomplishments while learning something about yourself and how to lead organizations at the same time. Sounds simple enough, right?

 

[pride4jc727]

I just listed my 3 years of service in my college's student government as my only source of leadership. Grant it, they were three different positions and job descriptions. However, I believed that my involvement were of high quality, especially the last year when I got a position as secretary of academic affairs on the executive board.

So essentially, it's not the number but the nature of involvement in one or more major EC's. That is more effective than having 2 or 3 with minimal involvement.

 

[chemnerd89]

I didn't have any