<p>Does participating (or even just being there) in National Honor Society really have any appreciable impact on admissions to MIT? I figure that since I have the grades and the community service record necessary to join it, and since that isn't really an activity in the sense that I have an interest or passion in it, would they care at all?</p>
<p>I hope I doesn't sound too scathing, but last year I didn't apply because I didn't want to bother with all the paperwork or the 'mandatory' meetings, and to be even more blunt than that I only think of it as a r</p>
<p>Just being there won’t hurt you, but it won’t help you either. Doing something cool with it is good, just like doing something cool with any activity is good.</p>
<p>I didn’t join either, for very similar reasons to yours, and it didn’t hurt me, apparently.</p>
<p>I agree with Jessie. I did join NHS, and honestly, it wasn’t remotely worth it. Looking back, if I could do it again I just wouldn’t even bother.</p>
<p>Part of this is because NHS in my particular high school was basically a joke- we never did anything. There were a couple of fundraisers a year, so I had to show up and spoon spaghetti onto people’s plates for an hour at an Italian dinner fundraiser. Big freaking deal. (I can be more scathing than you =P)</p>
<p>If your school’s NHS is actually pretty active, or you have the opportunity to get involved in organizing any of it, then that could be pretty cool. But only if it interests you (which it seems like it doesn’t). NHS as a line on your resume is certainly a resume-padder unless you can say “and I came up with the idea for the Italian dinner fundraiser and was in charge or organizing it” or something. Otherwise, it’s mostly a rubber stamp on the grades and community service which are going to make their way into your college application anyway.</p>
<p>My general golden rule applies: if you’re going to do it JUST to help you get into college, don’t.</p>
<p>I’m trying to show a lot of restraint because I’m still in high school and applying to MIT. =/</p>
<p>I’m just utterly disgusted by the amount of unwarranted importance all the honors students place in the club. I had to attend an informational meeting for people applying to NHS but I also needed to go to the first meeting of another club in which I’m an officer so I only grabbed the paperwork and left. I then realized I needed to get an ID number (more formalities) and I went there on the Tuesday after Labor Day to get it from the advisor.</p>
<p>I told her that I wasn’t there because I had to go to another meeting, and she told me that if it matters a lot to me I should have been there. She completely overlooked the fact that told her that I couldn’t go to it because I had to go to another meeting that was probably just as important to me if not vastly more so. People have told me that the advisors think that their club takes precedence over everything other activity even though they honestly do nothing except community service here and there.</p>
<p>I could shoot my mouth off about every aspect of it and my experience with the foreign language honor society (same thing, except they usually tutor language students as well and they don’t do anything language related anyway), how hard it is to get home from it, and how people assume that because I’m a senior that I have a car when I’m pretty much the only one on my bus- but that would be counterproductive.</p>
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<p>From what I get it’s pretty boring and it’s not really my thing. The club that I’m in is student-run and mainly meets for debating political topics but occasionally does fundraisers and tries to grab more people here and there. It’s actually pretty good. I don’t mind doing things like community service but I detest the fact that the only reason that people do it is to pad the resume.</p>
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<p>I generally believe in that. There’s just this enormous pressure to conform to whatever all the honors students are doing- but now I’m applying just to see what it’ll be like and if it’s tolerable maybe I could possible establish a positive rapport and deal with it. I’m giving it a shot. If I have to go an extra mile to do something I won’t get much out of or if it ticks me off I’m dropping it immediately.</p>
<p>I would only add that if these societies and in particular the community service component do not mean that much to you then do not be the person to bring them up at interview. When I have a student who crows about this sort of stuff at interview, then I always push very very hard to see precisely what it means to them and in general.</p>
<p>Seriously. I think I quit everything that I viewed as resume padding in frosh or soph year at latest. It’s nice that one has really little excuse to make life miserable <em>solely</em> in order to look good for college, because chances are they won’t care. </p>
<p>I posted here mainly because I looked at the forms + considered the meetings for the foreign language honors thing, and felt like it wasn’t remotely worth it. </p>
<p>Then again, I should say that I felt almost anything I could do after school with other students wasn’t worth it to me personally, given my narrow interests, but I do think honors societies almost universally have the image brought up here. </p>
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<p>In some ways, this pressure is so disgusting to think about that it would keep someone like me away even more. There are honors societies everywhere, of many varieties, and I’ve had a chance to become part of many. Sometimes they can be good excuses to socialize, but typically it’s more exhausting than anything else to engage in such socializing.</p>
<p>Stay away, maybe ask these wonderful MIT folk about something fun to read that they enjoyed, and go read it with a smile :D</p>
<p>I won’t. And that’s good that you’re making sure they’re not just pushing it to see if that helps. </p>
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<p>The problem is that people think it’s going to help simply because you’re in it, but it’s just probably that everyone who probably has good grades and strong ECs is most likely a member, and they’re in it because they think it’ll look good on their resume as well. I honestly do not think it’s worth it but I will go anyway just to see for myself and be able to say so confidently.</p>
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<p>Yeah. I take the bus home. I don’t have a job or a car at the moment. I don’t really have any reason to stay after school for anything except a few things I actually enjoyed and those that the school offered were very few. From what I’m getting honor societies are generally useless but everyone I know insists that it helps even if they admit that they honestly don’t do anything.</p>
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<p>It definitely is. Most of my friends actually aren’t honors students anyway. Although I personally don’t mind them I just can’t stand the group as a whole for some reason. One of the huge things that drove me away from the foreign language honor society last year (exact same thing as NHS, different advisor) was the fact that it was essentially the same crowd of people. I had very few close friends in it so it was even more awkward.</p>
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<p>I’m not worrying about it at all. I may attend just to socialize since a lot of people I know do it, but chances are I’m just going to go to one or two meetings with some headphones on and quit.</p>
<p>There aren’t too many math/science things here either. Basically, there’s only Science Olympiad and Math Team. I was part of the former for a while and then I quit because it required too much commitment for little gained IMO, and the latter essentially involved being able to do arithmetic really fast. In terms of ECs I only liked maybe two or three clubs at best. </p>
<p>The best class I ever had was Web Design- the teacher even let me set up a local web server and I created a very simple content management system that was sort of like a wiki. Even then it was mainly fun because I could do scripting and play with Linux.</p>
<p>nthing everyone else as another MIT admit who didn’t do NHS because I thought it was just resume-padding. In fact, my high school was upset that everyone that wanted to do NHS couldn’t get in, so they stopped supporting it the year after me and created its <em>own</em> honor society, which was even more crap. I was too busy running around building robots and practicing debate to bother getting signatures from club sponsors to care :)</p>
<p>Well, I am pleased to announce I didn’t get in.</p>
<p>It turns out that my service record was ‘unsuitable’. I apparently recorded it in a ‘confusing and unclear’ manner even though they never really satisfactorily stated what they wanted. I just wrote down the activity, approximate hours, and person they could contact. Additionally, I had to get two recommendation forms from a leader of a service activity (i.e. volunteering) but I was only provided with one form and I assumed that it was a typo.</p>
<p>But they did commend me on my excellent academic record.</p>
<p>When I got the letter, it was right after the last bell so if I got in I would have had to stay for a meeting. I was joyed to find out I didn’t get in because that means I get to go home and do something I care more about: video games. It isn’t necessarily the first thing I would normally do but I think I’m going to celebrate by doing so.</p>
<p>On another note I printed out a copy of On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies and I’m going to try to read that for my own interest. I think I’m going to appreciate it more than coming up with service projects to pad my resume.</p>
<p>I am sorry but I think you are be ing a little ridiculous.
There are activities that you can participate in and learn to enjoy.
It is about helping the community and the school, and becoming the best person you can be. If you take that statement about just doing what you are interested in too literally you’ll end up doing nothing. You need to experiment with new activities to broaden your spectrum.</p>
<p>Also, there are people who care about NHS because they do take it seriously and do a lot of things in it. If you describe it the way you do, you are trashing it for all of us. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t just to make yourself feel better for not getting in. The fact that you even bothered to apply means that you did care about it and it is something to care about.</p>
<p>I’m sorry if it offended you, but I was talking about my school’s chapter in particular. Your local NHS chapter may be a lot different from mine. I’m pretty sure there are some out there who may actually be passionate about it, but I’m not one of those people. I participate in plenty of other things, of which some serve the school and community, but not something that almost everyone I have talked to about it considers a resume padder.</p>
<p>To reiterate what I said, you and your school may be different: my experience with activities like this has not been interesting or welcoming, but not because of what NHS stands for. That I can respect.</p>
<p>But in all honesty, yes, I admit it isn’t directed just towards NHS. It’s many other things: </p>
<ul>
<li>the pressure to join it and participate in similar activities because it supposedly looks good on your resume</li>
<li>the rejection for trivial reasons</li>
<li>the undue burden it places on me to get home when my parents work and I don’t have a car whereas most seniors do, and the fact that people couldn’t care less about that because they have busy lives of their own</li>
<li>the fact that others degrade community service to something that fills a few lines on your resume</li>
<li>the social clique that I can’t stand to be around with even if I don’t mind the individuals in them</li>
<li>compounded frustration in general</li>
</ul>
<p>And as far as broadening my spectrum goes, I try, but there’s only so much I can do. I know for certain now that I’m not into art or sports. The problem with most school clubs and activities is that you start to dislike them if there isn’t good chemistry between you and the other members. Which is what eventually drew me away from these kinds of clubs- long before I bothered to trash it. Also, I applied for a wholly different set of reasons than what you’d consider typical; actually now that I think about it those were really silly.</p>
<p>Would they care if you were the president and doubled the number of members and forced your members to read to children at the library?
I have one EC slot left and I’m not sure if I should put this down or something else…</p>
They will care regardless of what you put down. They are interested to find out who you are and what is important to you. If this is the most important thing to you then put it down, if marching band means more to you put that down. In any case put down the things that most make you who you are.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that this can always come up at interview, if you choose, where you are not limited to 5 things. Though again, at interview, motivation can be tested.</p>
<p>(remember, most of this is just writing practice for me- I’m NOT going to use anything remotely related to this as an essay)</p>
<p>Also, let me add this last thing about my criticism of the club. I’m not just ‘trashing’ it because I’m venting anger about not getting in. I really do feel strongly that there are a lot of things wrong with the fact that for most people it’s simply there because it looks good. </p>
<p>I resent the fact that in my school NHS takes precedence over all other activities- which is why I’m not after school at a club meeting that we would have normally had were there not a mandatory NHS meeting since most of the club officers are in it. I resent the hypocrisy inherent in joining a group whose only reason for existing is for the ‘honor’ that distinguishes you from everyone else.</p>
<p>Here, the meetings are mandatory. If most of the people there truly wanted to serve their community it wouldn’t be. There wouldn’t be a possible threat of being kicked out for not fulfilling service requirements. It would just be another club that mattered but didn’t have to force people to go by holding leverage over them by using the idea that it’s such a big thing for your resume.</p>
<p>And the thing is people accept it. Maybe it’s not so bad for them but my experience with it is usually frustrating because I can never seem to get a ride home on the days they meet. But I’m “supposed” to be there every time they do. Sure, I can ask someone for a ride, but they have busy lives. It’s very demeaning to ask everyone else because they have a car or can get their parents to pick them up, especially since I’m not really friends with most of them.</p>
<p>I just don’t get a good feeling when I think about it.</p>
<p>On a more positive note, I’m in the process of scheduling an interview. It’s a bit more exciting and better for keeping my mind off of things.</p>