--- title: How to Demonstrate Leadership in High School | InGenius Prep description: Melissa, a Duke University Former Admissions Officer who ran the university's merit scholarship programs, on what reads as leadership in an application file. Thursday, November 12, 7:00 PM ET. --- [Skip to content](https://go.ingeniusprep.com/igp-webinar-11.12.26-registration#main-content) ![InGenius Prep ](https://go.ingeniusprep.com/hs-fs/hubfs/inGeniusPrep-logo(Final)-white.png?width=1219&height=218&name=inGeniusPrep-logo(Final)-white.png) Open main navigation Close main navigation - [Contact us](https://go.ingeniusprep.com/igp-webinar-11.12.26-registration#contact) [Contact us](https://go.ingeniusprep.com/igp-webinar-11.12.26-registration#contact) ![inGeniusPrep-logo(Final)-white](https://go.ingeniusprep.com/hs-fs/hubfs/inGeniusPrep-logo(Final)-white.webp?width=202&height=36&name=inGeniusPrep-logo(Final)-white.webp "inGeniusPrep-logo(Final)-white") ![Shield Logo Image (4)](https://go.ingeniusprep.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Shield%20Logo%20Image%20(4).png?width=2000&height=2000&name=Shield%20Logo%20Image%20(4).png "Shield Logo Image (4)") #### Melissa, Duke University Former Admissions Officer Thursday, November 12  |  7:00 PM ET  |  Live on Zoom ## **How to Demonstrate Leadership in High School**  November 12th  7 PM ET  Live on Zoom [Save My Seat](https://go.ingeniusprep.com/igp-webinar-11.12.26-registration#hs_cos_wrapper_widget_1770720095377) Every family knows colleges want leadership. Almost none can say what that word means on an application, so students collect titles and readers discount them. Melissa ran merit scholarship programs at Duke, where leadership was not a soft factor but the thing the money was awarded for, and she is direct about what registers and what does not. ### What You’ll Learn - **What Reads as Leadership:** What the word means inside an application file, versus what families think it means. - **Why Titles Fail:** Why being elected president of a club is the least persuasive form of it. - **The Pattern That Works:** Initiative, measurable impact, and staying with something long enough for it to matter. - **What Students Have Built:** Real projects from our Leadership & Innovation Lab, and how each one started from nothing. ##### MEET YOUR HOST ![Shield Logo Image (4)](https://go.ingeniusprep.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Shield%20Logo%20Image%20(4).png?width=2000&height=2000&name=Shield%20Logo%20Image%20(4).png "Shield Logo Image (4)") ## **Melissa** ## **Duke University Former Admissions Officer** Melissa served as Director of Merit Scholarship Programs at Duke University, where she spent her time finding, evaluating, and working with the university’s top scholars. She founded and designed nationally recognized problem-based role play camps for gifted youth through the Duke University Talent Identification Program, and built rigorous offerings for North Carolina’s Teaching Fellows. She holds a Master of Education in Higher Education Administration from North Carolina State University and a Duke University Certificate of Excellence in Leadership. She has evaluated students in the setting where leadership was the deciding factor, and she can tell you exactly what separated the ones who won from the ones who did not. **Where Melissa’s Students Have Been Admitted** Yale · Stanford · University of Pennsylvania · Columbia · Duke · UChicago · Johns Hopkins · Cornell · Northwestern · Vanderbilt Note the earlier start: this one begins at 7:00 PM ET. Cannot make it live? Register anyway and we will send you the recording. ## Our Results | 2025–2026 Admissions Results Ivy League + Top 10 Offers ###### 201 Top 20 Offers ###### 384 Higher Ivy+ Acceptance Rate *vs.* National Average ###### 12.5x Top 30 Acceptance Rate ###### 87% Elite Offers Per Student ###### 4.37 © 2026 InGenius Prep. All rights reserved. facebook-f icon linkedin-in icon Twitter icon instagram icon --- [![InGenius Prep ](https://go.ingeniusprep.com/hs-fs/hubfs/inGeniusPrep-logo(Final)-white.png?width=1219&height=218&name=inGeniusPrep-logo(Final)-white.png "InGenius Prep ")](http://www.ingeniusprep.com) 123 Main Street, City, State 11111 Copyright © 2026, InGenius Prep