Do You Have 3 Leadership Traits Harvard Looks for?

are on LinkedIn

• Share on Facebook

• hare on TwitterI recently interviewed Dr. Andre Tran, PhD, MBA who chaired the Harvard Admission Interviews Committee in San Diego, California on the subject, and his insights are fascinating.  Not only Harvard doesn’t seek valedictorians or “perfect” SAT/ACT seniors, its qualified pool of academically scholar candidates just needs to meet the minimum of 3.5+ GPA, 2000+ SAT or 31+ ACT, and 5+ AP classes.  Then Harvard selects most well-rounded freshmen from three important “soft skills” of intellectual vitality, community leadership potential, and confident conversation in face-to-face interviews.

I recently interviewed Dr. Andre Tran, PhD, MBA who chaired the Harvard Admission Interviews Committee in San Diego, California on the subject, and his insights are fascinating.  Not only Harvard doesn’t seek valedictorians or “perfect” SAT/ACT seniors, its qualified pool of academically scholar candidates just needs to meet the minimum of 3.5+ GPA, 2000+ SAT or 31+ ACT, and 5+ AP classes.  Then Harvard selects most well-rounded freshmen from three important “soft skills” of intellectual vitality, community leadership potential, and confident conversation in face-to-face interviews.

1. Intellectual vitality: Pursue activities and study beyond school textbooks and outside of your school. Show how actively you explore your interests and passions. For example, look for medical internship to show that you want to gain experiences in the medical field, as you want to pursue a medical major; or take a financial accounting or a social media marketing class in community college if you plan to pursue a business major.  If you want to study broadcasting or journalism, then your transcript needs to reflect many honor or Advanced Placement courses in English, American Literature, and Communication. Your summer workshop may include Speech and Public Speaking seminar, Debate course, or Appearance and Body Language training.  If you land an internship at a local television station, or host a “Teen Corner” TV show offers high school survival tips, then you will score high in this criteria.
2.  Leadership potential: Take leadership roles or run for an officer position of one of your high school clubs. Even better, create a new club and run as president or as an officer e.g. one of his students who got into Harvard, had started and run as President of the Model United Nation club at Francis Parker high school that didn't have such a club before; another student, now at MIT, launched the Science Club For Girls as she saw a need for her high school to expose more female students to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) subjects.  Colleges value entrepreneurial leadership since the new club leaders must set the mission, the values & the vision, recruit the teams, deal with budget etc.  Noteworthy to mention, you don’t need to do 100 community services and log 10,000 hours. Just one or two activities consistently that really matters to you. e.g. one of his students, now at UC Berkeley for pre-med, launch a chapter of San Diego Down Syndrome at her community of Ramona, since her brother has down syndrome. She wants her community to be aware of Down syndrome and the assistance Down syndrome children can get.
3. Conversation/Interview Skill: Most students applying for top colleges will have interviews during the month of January 2016, and you need to know what to expect in these interviews. This is where the gap widened because over 65% of Ivy League candidates thought they are good with conversational speaking, while school admission committee members ranked less than a third of them are adequately prepared for this life-long skill. Realistically, in the world of Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, emoticon, etc. with texting, internet lingo, and conversations of less than 140 characters, this trend will get worsen… unless you hone in this skill just as hard as you cramp for those SAT, ACT, AP tests, or as devoted as you spend time with extra-curriculum activities.

If you are interested in learning more or talking to Dr. Andre Tran, reserve your seat at his highly requested “3 Secrets to Gain Admission to Harvard” onDec 5 at 2:15pm in VNTV Studio in San Diego, CA.  For more details, call 858-769-9090 or email us at : support@leadershipfoundationacademy.com

Blogger Bio

Jimmy Thai, DTM founded the Leadership Foundation Academy to develop future leaders with passion and compassion.  He speaks and coaches Fortune500 companies to re-infuse the American Pride in corporate America and the American Dream to the world.  He went to prison twice before turning 17, and today lives in American Finest City – San Diego, California.  Jimmy earned 2 Master’s degrees MBA and MSEE from California State University, and BSEE degree from the 20^th best university in the world - University of California San Diego.  He welcomes your comments and loves to collaborate with you on Change Leadership, Motivational Management, Decision Analysis, the ABC Secrets of Appearance - Body language - Conversation, and Asian Business Development. 

In 2015, Leadership Foundation Academy has donated over $10K USD to its Build a School – Leave a Legacy program, which built 2 kindergarten schools in Ha Giang and Yen Bai provinces.  Our 3^rd project is to construct a 30-m bridge in Tran Van Thoi district, Ca Mau to save little students from drowning on their way to school.