<p>NHS is one of most useless clubs in my school. They do absolutely nothing and get fawned over. They don’t even necessary uphold their own value. Most of the people in it cheat on tests and everything else in life.</p>
<p>NHS might be a plus depending on the college but many colleges look at other activities such as volunteering in school and your neighborhood. They also look at other involvement in school activities. In general they look for well rounded students!</p>
<p>Cheesepuff - I am too old to embarrass myself, but I do have a kid who graduated from a top 20 with what people considered to be a dream job, and a rising senior who is ranked first or second of her class with a long list of ECs and honors. But my younger kid doesn’t try to chance anyone of getting into Harvard(she knows better than to try give an opinion of something she doesn’t anything about) and she gives her classmates credit for being inducted into NHS.</p>
<p>Top colleges look at applicants hollistically. There is no one EC which will guarantee admittance to one of those schools, it is about the total package. As an example, I know a kid who had a long list of science awards, and his aspiration was to get into an Ivy or MIT. He was advised to do some volunteer work(tutor some kids) or join a club (even NHS) to show he could do team work. He was so certain his high stats and science awards would be enough to gain admittance to those schools. He was denied and WL at all of those schools, except for Berkeley (ISS) and JHU. They are great school and I am sure he is doing well at either of those schools, but it’s not the outcome he was hoping for.</p>
<p>Adcoms look at an applicant’s ECs to try to get a glimse of an applicant personality annd what an applicant will be able to contribute to the college if admitted. Every EC and honor is a data point. The applicant I mentioned above, he clearly was smart, but he was “all about me lopsided” kind of applicant. On the other hand, if his science awards were at a national or international level, adcoms may have over looked his deficiency.</p>
<p>Both of my kids have always done ECs that are interesting to them. D1 won many awards while in high school, but one of her major ECs senior year was to be the head of prom committee. When D1 was senior in college, she was selected to be the chair of senior week activity committee at her college, which had $2mil budget. D2 has been writing for her school since 7th grade, and she will be the editor-in-chief this year. She is also going to be head of a charity to raise money for kids with cancer. D2 has a long history of participating in those activities, which I am sure she will continue to do when she is in college. If you were to look at each of those ECs by itself, it’s not necessarily impressive, but when you put all of them together, you get a total picture of an applicant.</p>
<p>To post#67-
At my kids’ HS this club charges $10 a semester, and there are other hidden fees. That’s all right for something you want to do. But for selective universities and as a resume-stuffer my kids passed.</p>
<p>Way to go off on an unnecessary tangent that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, oldfort. </p>
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<p>Your logic is flawed, making it seem as if NHS is the only means to do such things. You can do volunteer work and join other clubs that involve teamwork outside of NHS-and for free and without a silly GPA requirement, too. Which brings me back to the point I was making-NHS isn’t special in this regard (as well as in terms of high school students in the nation as a whole). </p>
<p>Also trying to correlate that kid’s inability to be accepted to schools like MIT to his lack of NHS in this discussion is just as flawed. He didn’t get in because of what you stated to be a lack of volunteer and teamwork ECs, so it is irrelevant to bring him up in an attempt to bolster your views that seem to oh-so glorify NHS.</p>
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<p>Again, you can do all those stuff without being in NHS. </p>
<p>If you’re only doing such activities like volunteering because of the fact that you are in NHS and you wouldn’t do so otherwise if you weren’t in it, then that would also be a matter of questionable genuineness.</p>
<p>I can just as well go to my local soup kitchen or Meals on Wheels to help out. I don’t need something like NHS to validate myself. Same thing goes for the GPA recognition. Either way, a good GPA is a good GPA and NHS isn’t any different from a school honor roll in this regard.</p>
<p>My school doesn’t have NHS. But it doesn’t matter, because I still have a 4.0 and am ranked #1 and am distinguished for my academic efforts through the school honor roll already. I still volunteer and contribute to my community. My school used to have NHS in the past, though, but I see why they would terminate it. It simply isn’t worth the chapter fee, setup, and constant maintenance troubles to do something that could already be done without its existence. </p>
<p>Students can still help out in their local community, students can still vie for a certain GPA, and students can still run school events and fundraisers without it. And if you’re as truly special enough to procure regional/state/national-level awards that NHS offers, then you should be just as good enough to qualify for non-NHS, outside ones (e.g. Coca Cola, Toyota, etc.) That being said, college adcoms realize this about NHS that it is just a silly recognition and another label for <em>most</em> of its members to add to their college applications.</p>
<p>Everyone on here is saying that NHS is only significant if you are an officer, but at my school, officers are selected by the students in NHS by a vote…so the students that got elected are popular and had funny speeches. Does that mean that it’s not significant for me, since I’m not popular or funny enough to be elected?</p>
<p>That is also another issue. The fact that there is some degree of subjectivity in being accepted to certain NHS chapters at some high schools and in being elected for officers to the clubs + that there is not a similar standard of uniformity in terms of the eligibility requirements, empirically speaking (GPA, volunteer hours, etc), to be accepted to NHS across high schools raises a verity and consistency problem for adcoms.</p>
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<p>You are digressing from the main issue at hand. Unless I am mistaken, we are talking about NHS relative to college admissions (as indicated by this subforum) and not about personal satisfaction.</p>
<p>Anyways, I doubt you are looking for an answer as your question was phrased rhetorically.</p>
<p>If you have that distinction, there’s certainly not an ounce of harm in putting it on your college apps. It adds to any other distinctions you have, so that’s never going to be a bad thing.</p>
<p>Is it a decisive thing in a college app? Probably not. At very selective schools, it won’t set you apart from other applicants. It’s not as though a 4.0 student with top test scores and belonging to the NHS is going to have an advantage over another 4.0 student with top test scores who does not belong to NHS. If it’s a choice between two similar students, other things are going to make the difference; background, community service, area of interest, special talents (music, art, athletics, etc.), strength of essays and recommendations, work experience, etc.</p>
<p>At some high schools it is far more of a selective process than others, and I’m not saying it isn’t valuable, but it needs to be meaningful to the student for what it IS while they’re involved in it, not whether or not it’s currency for trade in college apps… because that would probably turn out to be a disappointment. The colleges that would likely give it more weight won’t be the ones that are the tough ones to get into for excellent students.</p>
<p>NHS procedures are idiosyncratic by school. At school X, even the kid with a 2.5 GPA can get in if he has enough service hours; at school Y, the valedictorian got rejected since only 2% of the graduating class actually makes it through the Ivy-like selection. Admissions officers don’t know these things for every school. </p>
<p>As for being NHS VP or whatnot, a leadership position alone is not impressive without actions to back it up. Simply having the ‘President’ title looks less impressive than being Treasurer and creating a county-wide tutoring intiative.</p>
<p>Putting down NHS won’t hurt you; not putting down NHS while having amazing grades won’t hurt you. If you really want the tassle at graduation, NHS is worth joining.</p>
<p>To say NHS membership “does not matter” is pure nonsense. You are
invited based upon GPA. It’s not like joining the Young Republicans/Democrats.
NHS invitation
is confirmation of success in the three R’s.</p>
<p>Election to a leadership position within the group is a fine add on for the
student.</p>
<p>A decent college would note NHS membership plus a leadership piece for the
officers.</p>
<p>Just my .02</p>
<p>David</p>
<p>This is what I wrote
This is your interpretation
</p>
<p>For the record, I didn’t do the correlation, ex-adcoms at his dream schools did. But they didn’t say it was because of “his lack of NHS,” they said it was due to his “all-about-me-lopsided” ECs and honors.</p>
<p>Cheesepuff - I will be very interested in following your journey in the next 2 years. Just out of curiousity, what are your ECs and honors? I hope it’s more than just some JV tennis.</p>
<p>At my school, NHS is open to all sophomores and juniors who have a gpa higher than 3.5 (provided that they choose to apply). I applied sophomore year with a 3.5 GPA and 350+ hours of community service and was not chosen because my community service was all in the same place. The students who were chosen for NHS had lower GPAs and less community service but were more outgoing and less “nerdy” than I am. Two other students with equal or higher amounts of community service and similar GPAs but who were considered “nerds” were also turned away. I reapplied and was eventually accepted the next year but was very disillusioned as we did two things the entire year and only one of them was actually productive (working at a blood drive). I was accepted to 7 middle to top LACs and am planning to attend Macalester and thumb my nose at NHS any chance I get. :)</p>
<p>^haha that sucks bro (your NHS situation) congrats on your college acceptances tho.</p>
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<p>And you know the thoughts and intentions of these adcoms how?</p>
<p>Still, that anecdote is irrelevant to your argument.</p>
<p>
Have you ever attended an info session at a college? Have you ever spoken personally with an admissions officer? Sorry to shock you but they are people and they do speak to the outside world. It’s not a phenomenon.</p>
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Some adcoms meet with their alumni to share their thoughts on the college process. They hold focus group to get feed back from their alumni. Some of those adcoms also go into private practice after their leave their jobs, and some of them are advising students.</p>
<p>Rich kids…</p>
<p>I was in NHS in h.s. and as many previously had said it was determined by one’s GPA (at least at my school). When you apply to college, they will know your GPA as part of submitting your transcripts. While at some schools it means more then others, colleges know that interpretations vary, so I doubt they really think that much of it, GPA means far more or scores on standardized tests like ACT/SAT. Much like student government, at some schools it is simply a popularity contest and you are a figurehead that really doesn’t have any real responsibilities while at other schools you actually do something in that role. If NHS is your only EC while in h.s. it would generally mean you weren’t very active in your school…that is what would stand out when applying to a selective college.</p>
<p>It would be important to be able to answer the question “what exactly did you do as part of NHS at your high school???”…if your answer is ‘nothing’…then obviously that wouldn’t mean as much to the college where you are applying as if you actually did something of substance.</p>
<p>No. It’s hardly anything. Unless the kids had the exact same stats to the letter and exactly equal essays and would have fit into the exact same niche at the school, it wouldn’t do anything. And even then they might overlook it. At least that’s what most people say. The official NHS rules say that you only need a 3.0 weighted GPA to be admitted. While most kids in our NHS have over 4.0, simply because the other kids, for whatever reason, didn’t join, a 3.0 weighted does not make it hard to get into at all.</p>
<p>It’s getting hot in here …lol, but I want to participate.</p>
<p>I know this’s quite off topic.</p>
<p>This is my school’s system. I got a letter both in my sop and junior high school year that I was nominated by some teacher to join NHS. Then I had to go to a teacher and show him that letter of nomination to get a 5-pg application. I had to fill in what I had accomplished in each category: leadership, academics, community services, sports, other awards. You could also write your thoughts about why you are a good candidate. It was annoying that you have to go to your teachers or supervisors and get the application signed by them in order to prove what you wrote. Like, I had to go back to my swimming coach to get her signature and then went back to her and serveral teachers again a year later. I was so excited but my first try wasn’t successful because I only had 1 honors class with one sport award. The second try (a year after) I thought I would get in because I have more honors classes, not a lot though, like 4 and over 80 hr community services, but I didn’t get in again. I think about 20 people in my high school got in each year. I know that they have some meetings and something like blood drive, natural disaster fundraising (Haiti fundraising), and so on. I didn’t know much about it but the members were basically helping to advocate and speak out, encouraging other people in school to donate goods and money to the unfortunate people.</p>
<p>ok, end of my story. I am still debating if I should be serious about NHS again next year. I am a high school senior now. I might fill out the applications without the signatures from teachers and see what will happen… haha. I know it won’t make me get accepted but I didn’t want to be in NHS anymore after reading the treads about how valuable NHS is.</p>
<p>Next, this is my own logic and opinion…</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Most highschoolers (including myself) just want their applications to look good or at least have something on it. That’s why they’d like to join NHS. I know it sounds selfish but no one (I shouldn’t say no one… but not a lot of them) has a strong passion on community services, unless they want to be social workers in the future. </p></li>
<li><p>From various comments I have read on NHS, high schools throughout the country treat NHS differently, depending on the advisors, teachers who are in charge, and board members. Some schools value this club greatly, some schools don’t. They also have different criteria on how to choose the members. So I think it’s not fair for college to pay a huge attention on the list of clubs. Many people can get in that club without any accomplishments. I personally was in Key Club in my freshmen year and absolutely had done nothing…nothing, seriously. I didn’t even go to a meeting, yet they sent me a member card, because I paid $20 at the beginning of the year in order to be a member. (I did this due to my own stupidity. The seniors said you are cool if you join Key Club, so I joined)</p></li>
<li><p>There’s almost no way for college to know or find out exactly what you have done for your club, unless you state it on your essay or personal statement, mentioning your strong passion. There are how many? …high schools in this country and in each high school has …how many? …leadership positions. So, I don’t think it makes a huge difference. Those colleges have seen many different applicants with a long list of clubs. </p></li>
<li><p>Like the previous comment, perhaps when the college is comparing two very similar applications, you have this club on the list and the other doesn’t have, you might get chosen. It’s better than nothing, right? I don’t know. It’s my interpretation.</p></li>
</ol>