So I didn’t make it into NHS or Spanish Honors Society and I barely missed the GPA requirement by one piont (my school does our GPAs on a 100 piont scale). Should I be worried if I am applying to places like TCNJ, Villanova, American University, NYU, and Fordham?
It is my impression that colleges mostly care about the community service performed within NHS. I chose not to apply for NHS any of the years I was invited to because I was aware that the NHS at my school did next to nothing. I did some volunteering on my own instead. I found there was zero correlation between being in NHS and getting into a good college.
NHS is as important as you make it. If you become an officer and start some far-reaching project that changes thousands of lives, well that’s great! If you meet with your club once a month to count how many hours you’re getting for being in the club and breathing, well that’s not impressive at all. For the most part, NHS at many schools is just application fluff, and admissions officers know this.
That said, not being in NHS won’t be detrimental to your application at all. I can promise you, they won’t be thinking "why isn’t this student in NHS?"Admissions officers don’t focus on what’s “missing” from your extracurriculars, but what’s actually THERE.
That’s reassuring. Planning on quitting NHS.