<p>You are way overthinking this. Colleges don’t put that much importance on one activity…nor do they classify applicants based on what clubs they are in. They look at the overall student - certainly you can tell a good student and qualified applicant even if they are not in NHS.</p>
<p>And I’m sure colleges don’t pool together which schools have most students as members of NHS.</p>
<p>Really. It’s not that important. And if a college does look unfavorably upon a person because they don’t belong to one organization…is that the kind of college you want to go to?</p>
<p>^^Ugh, I agree. S1 was inducted in NHS in Feb. of jr. year. He didn’t like it…largely run by a competitive group of girls who were always comparing grades and stats. S1 skipped most meetings and quit before Fall sem. of sr. yr. was over. It didn’t hurt him at all. He was also not bothered in the least that he didn’t have the gold stole to weare at grad.</p>
<p>The policy at our sch. used to be one had to be a member of NHS to be a junior marshall at graduation. I thought that stunk. A friend’s D who was ranked #13 in her class was turned down for NHS…lack of leadership positions. So she didn’t get to be a marshall while her friend who was ranked ten spots below her did because she was in NHS. I’m not sure if that is still the policy or not.</p>
<p>BTW, the girl who got turned down for NHS went to UNC-CH was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, graduated with honors and has accepted a spot in a competitive PhD program for the Fall. Not being in NHS didn’t hurt her one iota.</p>
<p>I’d love to show this thread to my Mother in Law… but I won’t. She was the school nurse at an inner-city high school for many years, and for some of that time she was the NHS advisor. She thinks NHS is the be-all and end-all. She was SO thrilled when my kids got in, kept telling me how important it was, how it was going to get them into college, etc. When our son made Eagle Scout she was very proud of him, but privately she told DH and I that Eagle was good but it was really NHS that was going to get him into college. We just smiled and nodded - we knew there were 40 kids in his grade in NHS (out of 360 in the class) but less than a half-dozen Eagle Scouts. Every college interview he had asked him about Eagle, I don’t think any even mentioned NHS. </p>
<p>That said, if the vast majority of top students at your HS have NHS and you don’t, I still think you’re possibly putting yourself at a disadvantage by not applying. There were a couple kids at our hs who weren’t in because of disciplinary issues, they weren’t serious enough to be on the transcript but they kept them out of NHS. I wouldn’t want an admissions counselor to assume that was the case if my top student wasn’t in NHS.</p>
<p>No…you’re still not putting yourself at a disadvantage. They are not going to assume that. That would be making an unfair judgment without evidence.</p>
<p>Really, NHS is just another thing to put on your application - it’s not a disadvantage if you don’t have it though.</p>
<p>My D’s HS got rid of NHS 10 or more years ago just because of all of the political stuff noted above. Nobody seems to have missed it. NHS could be something special, but the original purpose seems to have been lost over the years.</p>
Weren’t serious enough to be on the transcript, but wouldn’t they also have to be mentioned where apps ask if there are any disciplinary incidents? And don’t GCs have to disclose these things?</p>
<p>The only further thought I have after reading this is that if you don’t apply to NHS, you might not want to ask the teacher who is the NHS advisor to write your recommendations. Nobody else is likely to care.</p>
I believe most apps ask the GC about disciplinary issues that result in suspensions. Less serious issues, that perhaps result in detentions, aren’t required to be reported. But the school might consider them enough to disqualify someone from the “character” part of NHS.</p>
Someone put this all in perspective for me…Every high school has a valedictorian, class president, captain of the soccer team, etc. and 20-80 kids a year inducted into NHS. This 26,000 class presidents, 26,000 captains of the soccer teams, and over 520,000 NHS students applying to 2600 4 year universities. These titles are not that distinguishing anymore.