<p>Lehigh, lying matters to colleges- and lying under pressure (here, the pressure to get into NHS,) can be seen as a hint how the kid will manage college challenges. And, I am pretty sure the GC already knows about this. The concern is if the GC intends to report it- many won’t.</p>
<p>At the same time, OP, adcoms are very savvy about hs kids, what they can accomplish and where they sink. You have got to frame this as best you can. If you have truly been honest through hs, even a teacher LoR can mention the trust in you, your responsible attitude.</p>
<p>Btw, the better you fit the colleges you are applying to, some of all this can be diminished. Make sure you have some where it’s clear you’ll be one of their top students, as well as active in campus life, in ways those schools like.</p>
<p>ps. I edited out my comment about your quote because I think I misread it. Just be cautious in how you word this.</p>
<p>I feel like saying sorry for what I did will help me out. Even if guidance counselor does have to mention the incident on the letter of recommendation, at least she will know that I regret what I did… it’s a lot better than saying nothing at all to GC imo.</p>
<p>if the GC doesn’t mention the incident, then don’t say anything about it on your app. (unless you want to make it one of your essays, not to make it an excuse, but to show how you’ve grown)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t draw attention to a recent negative incident, at all, in an essay. </p>
<p>I don’t mean you don’t need to speak with the GC because he/she knows. You do. Because you need to learn if it goes on his/her report. And, you need to show remorse, of course. You can also have a nice mature, productive chat about it.</p>
<p>Many hs will tag a kid for cheating even when it’s unclear; sometmes it’s almost absurd- how you regroup from this makes all the difference. See what happens in the GC chat.</p>
<p>I am bitter about NHS. At my kids’ school, you ALSO needed leadership with adult signature for verification to get into NHS. D1 was invited to apply, but didn’t bother filling out the app because she had no leadership history. She said that many of her peers lied on their apps about the leadership to get in. </p>
<p>Now it’s true that NHS means virtually nothing on your college application, but NHS literally ruined D1’s graduation. Her school had a very large IB magnate of which she was a part of. At graduation, not only did she not get to wear the NHS cords with her robes, but the NHS students were all grouped together. D1 was literally one of a VERY few non-NHS IB kids at the school and was segregated away from all of her friends and classmates during the ceremony. She was very bitter about this, particularly knowing that many of her peers had lied where she had not to get NHS AND knowing that most schools do not even require leadership at all for NHS. Her graduation ceremony is an unhappy memory. I couldn’t even find her after the ceremony for pictures because she immediately went straight home. (Mind you that D1 was one of the top students in her class.)</p>
<p>I’ll be honest- in many cases, it is easy to inflate things like leadership. Especially when you’re working with a small comunity group where everyone pitches in and you can word your responsibilities in a certain way.</p>
<p>^ But, your daughter should be proud of her unwillingness to stoop low and misrepresent. She should remember the graduation as representing one of her first and hardest stands against fabrication. That’s different than missing a chance to be in a questionable limelight. </p>
<p>I dropped out of an org once, when young, because they wouldn’t credit me properly. (A legit issue.) It hurt and cost, but here I am, decades later, proud of that small stand.</p>
<p>@land64shark - I understand your position - I was very much in the same situation myself. In my senior year, I grew disillusioned with NHS because of its practices and felt I did not need to be a part of NHS to volunteer. I eventually become a committee chair of the local Relay for Life and spent many hours working to make the event possible. Therefore, I essentially said “Screw you” to NHS and quit senior year. At graduation, my high school had seven valedictorians, of which I was one. The other six valedictorians all had their NHS cords while I did not. But you know what? I did not give a damn. I was going to a Big 3 college and the other six valedictorians were all either headed off to community college or a state school. </p>
<p>So to the OP, NHS does not matter in college admissions as long as you can demonstrate service above that of your classmates. In fact, NHS students are required to complete volunteer hours, regardless of whether they like it or not. If you go out on your own and seek out your own passions like I did, then colleges will appreciate it all the more because you weren’t forced to volunteer.</p>
<p>The OP isn’t asking whether NHS matters. He wants to know if, having been caught in a lie, he can expect his school to cover this up on his college applications. In other words, can he lie by omission on his college apps, and have his high school perpetuate this by not mentioning it in the counselor recommendation. And yet, he claims to have learned from his experience. This should be an interesting conversation with the counselor during which he attempts to convince the counselor that he has learned from his mistake while trying to simultaneously get the counselor to deceive the prospective college about the lie. Hummmm.
As the kids say, good luck with that.</p>
<p>I never realized the importance of NHS in other schools. Do adcoms actually consider NHS like a legitimate EC/Academic honor distinction? I just thought since NHS was such a joke at my school that it wasn’t worth anything.</p>
<p>No, NHS is just another club. You can do service elsewhere and they would count it the same. Since it’s different across different schools that it’s hard for adcoms to compare, like comparing apples to oranges.</p>
<p>@quill, I’m not going to ask the GC to not write about it or help me cover up or anything. I’m just gonna let her know that I’m sorry about it and regret what I did, whether or not she mentions it in the rec is her choice.</p>
<p>For the record, here’s the question:
Have you ever been found responsible for a disciplinary violation at any educational institution you have attended from the 9th grade …forward, whether related to academic misconduct or behavioral misconduct, that resulted in a disciplinary action? These actions could include, but are not limited to: probation, suspension, removal, dismissal, or expulsion from the institution.</p>
<p>Agree with pton that NHS is just another club- but, often the service kids do is so light that they don’t even describe it. In the end, it can be a follower thing, not evidence you take on resps or have leadership impact.</p>
<p>@ lookingforward, then I can say “no” to that question. All that happened was my application got rejected. There were no disciplinary actions against me for what I did.</p>
<p>By the sounds of it, it doesn’t look like the incident is going on your permanent record (but you can always ask to make sure).</p>
<p>Really, it won’t hurt you in the slightest. Realistically NHS are about as common as bellybuttons on applicants - I doubt colleges will even notice if it’s missing.</p>
<p>it’s not NHS you need to worry about, more your letter of rec from the guidance counselor, as people have said. just make sure he or she knows how terrible you feel (…or how terrible you think you should feel) about it and really apologize. make the effort to apologize to the teacher who runs NHS at your school as well.</p>
<p>Side note-I didn’t list any of the honor societies I was in on my college app. They really don’t stand out.</p>
<p>But back on topic, when you say you got caught, do you mean your administrators called you down, called your parents, and punished you? Or do you just mean the people reviewing NHS apps realized some of the things you had on your app were false and told you that you were rejected because of this? </p>
<p>If this incident were recorded in your record, then you will have to declare it anyways on your college app (regardless of whether your GC mentions this in the rec) because there is a section where you have to check off whether you have been subject to any disciplinary action. As people are saying, the most important thing is explaining on your college app how you’ve realized that what you did was wrong and how you’ve changed.</p>
<p>I honestly don’t think that lying on an application to join a dysfunctional club is going to show up on a school record because it’s an extra-curricular activity. Anyways, you shouldn’t worry too much since NHS means nothing on a college app.</p>