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What is it that you do not comprehend? Every honor or award is treated differently at each school. As an example, Model UN is no big deal at most schools, but at my daughter’s school, it is a class (course), you need to be recommended in order to be selected. You can’t use your school’s standard to judge how prestigious a club is at someone else’s school. It is the why your school’s profile and GC recomendation are so important as part of your application.</p>
<p>NHS is the perfect example of idiots buying into commercialism.</p>
<p>^^^Again, you know because…you are a high schooler?</p>
<p>Don’t feed the ■■■■■, people. :)</p>
<p>Hey I’m glad you started this thread Firesoulism, because I was wondering the same thing. Reading all the entries, my school is kinda in between everyone. We have a ceremony and stuff for new inductees, but we kinda make it a whole week of silliness. Just so that the smart kids get officially appreciated I guess. </p>
<p>I’m president this year as well, and I feel like we do help the community, but not in a huge way. To be honest, holding meetings and not accomplishing much is pretty frustrating. </p>
<p>But the fact remains that it is a nationally recognized organization, not just a club made up by a teacher one year. To me, it’s like class ranking or high standardized test scores: every competitive person has it listed on the application, with the idea that it’s a prerequisite for admissions officers to even look at your essays.</p>
<p>^^ It’s not a pre-requisite. As you can tell from this thread, some NHS are vibrant, some aren’t. I was the only HYP admittee in my school and I wasn’t in NHS. Why? Was too busy the day they were having the organizing meetings. Didn’t hurt me any. Do it if you want to. But it’s akin to being on the “honor roll”.</p>
<p>Mostly it’s “meh” in the eyes of admissions officers. Sometimes it can be valuable. Certainly not essential.</p>
<p>To the OP: you asked if it’s a “serious advantage”. Well logically, look around you. How many NHS are in your school? You’re equally as advantaged with 20-30 people – at your HS alone. Is this how you’d qualify “serious advantage”?</p>
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<p>COMMON SENSE PREVAILS YET AGAIN z</p>
<p>Oh yeah I’m not saying it IS a prerequisite, I’m saying it’s treated as one in the eyes of many. Of course an admissions officer isn’t going to be impressed. It’s like someone saying he/she got straight A’s and perfect attendance his/her whole life. Obviously every application is different, and different situations will get you different places. But for the average student with nothing/little else going for them, they might as well do everything they can to look like a dedicated, well-rounded student. </p>
<p>So I don’t think it’s necessary for people to be in NHS, but hey if it’s easy to get in and takes practically no effort, it can’t hurt.</p>
<p>The OP asked for a “serious advantage.” :D</p>
<p>NHS is not a big deal on college apps. The Adcomm start with your transcript. If you have good grades and took challenging courses, they don’t need to see whether you made the NHS.</p>
<p>That’sgood to know because our NHS is a joke. I don’t know how it works for everyone but 2 teachers and a group of students in NHS decide who is accepted.
My daughters friend took every AP course available, volunmteer work, 98 average yet was accepted because she’s quiet and not in the popular crowd.</p>
<p>OK, here is the “ask the Dean” response to your question. Believe Cheesy or not, what he is saying is what is commonly thought. My favorite advice " Colleges judge students on what they HAVE achieved, not on what they haven’t."
[Admissions</a> Impact of National Honor Society Rejection - Ask The Dean](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/000290.htm]Admissions”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/000290.htm)</p>
<p>I think it depends on what your NHS does. I mean, I’ve heard of high schools nearby that have NHS purely so as to denote who the ‘smart’ kids are. Our NHS kicks serious butt when it comes to community service, blood drives, dances, fundraising… I feel like it’s going to give me a serious edge when I apply with 150+ volunteer hours per year because of NHS. </p>
<p>Volunteering and school involvement=good. Elitism=bad. Will NHS make you a better, happier person? If yes, go for it. If no, find something else to do.</p>
<p>In my school, NHS is a pretty big thing, mainly because there’s so few competitive kids.
At top colleges it won’t help in the slightest. But it could help you get a scholarship offer at your State University. One of the honors colleges for a college in my state asks if you were a part of NHS.</p>
<p>The things you did to get into NHS will be the things to give you a serious advantage. NHS will mean very little if you don’t do anything through it.</p>
<p>Honestly it depends on where yours applying…if its an ivy they could care less…most of their applicants are prob in NHS…if its a schools with no credibility then it would be a serious advantage.</p>
<p>Sent from my SPH-M920 using CC App</p>
<p>I know somebody who used to interview people for Harvard admissions, and she says that top schools could care less. I can see why for a number of reasons. One, some (at least) high schools have very easy criteria for admittance into their NHS club. Many times it’s purely based on academic performance, something adcoms will judge for themselves. Second a student’s admittance into the club could depend on subjective factors. In a perfect world teachers wouldn’t play favorites or be biased against students, but alas, ours is not and so rejection from the NHS could be due to a teacher’s personal dislike towards a student. Inversely, a teacher’s pet could get in sub-par credentials. Thirdly, as many people have pointed out, the quality of NHS chapters varies by schools. The NHS in my school, unfortunately, does absolutely nothing to help out our community. The only difference between NHS and non-NHS students, besides grades, is that NHS students get to wear the NHS shirt on Tuesdays instead of the uniform shirt (big whoop).</p>
<p>If you’re worried about rejection from the NHS hurting your chances for college, then stop worrying. It’s not going to be a deal breaker, especially if the chapter in your school is not known for its productivity.</p>
<p>The requirements for our school’s NHS is a 3.7 weighted GPA (out of 4.5?!), 100 hours of community service and at least one vague leadership position in anything.</p>
<p>That’s it. When I saw who was accepted, I was near-disgusted with the “honor”, and did not look forward to induction.</p>
<p>On the common app it says to list activities in order of importance. NHS is dead last on mine; you’re inducted end of junior year and have nothing to say until senior year…which sucks for college applications.</p>
<p>I think it depends on your school. I choose not to do NHS because I wanted to pursue my own ECs deeply, rather than volunteer etc. to meet silly requirements. At the end of the day I valued the depth in knowledge and experiences than having tutored person X in class Y for so many days a week…</p>
<p>At the end of the day, NOT doing NHS was not a disadvantage for me… I was accepted to where I wanted to go.</p>
<p>What PMCM said, but it is a honor that you should be proud of :)! </p>
<p>Significant work/achievement done as part of NHS is just as meaningful as significant work done through any other activity or organization, IMO. What you accomplished through NHS matters more than the title itself, at least for highly selective schools that do scrutinize the the activity portion of your application. An analogy would be being the president of your class: the title in itself matters somewhat, but what you do as the president matters more.</p>