<p>My (soph) dd just received her invitation to apply to the National Honor Society. What exactly is it, and does it matter in the applications game? Does it really mean anything?</p>
<p>I'd like to know what to advise her about applying for it. </p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>it doesn't mean much if you are a potato member. However, abssence of that title may raise eyebrow.</p>
<p>she should apply.</p>
<p>For the top ranked colleges -- HPYS, MIT, etc. it usually doesn't mean anything unless she ends up being a state or national officer, joins NHS over adversity (such as if her school is in general very low performing and students make fun of NHS members) or if she leads some kind of major service effort as an NHS member. That's because virtually everyone who applies to such colleges is or could be an NHS member.</p>
<p>For colleges that are second tier or below, it might be important. There are a few colleges that automatically give scholarships to NHS members. Use a search engine to find them. To my knowledge, no top ranked colleges do this.</p>
<p>She should apply, but shouldn't feel her world is ended if she doesn't get in.</p>
<p>chedva, I'd say sure. Do it. I wish D's school had NHS instead of National Beta Club, a competing high school honor society. It won't hurt and might help at the right school.</p>
<p>Go with the advice that it won't help, but can't hurt. The NHS is a national organization that has guidelines on who can be admitted, but then they leave it almost totally up to the high school on how people are admitted. In general, everyone who applies to the extremely selective schools is in NHS. The admission committees don't notice it because everyone has it, and they wouldn't notice either if somebody didn't have it.</p>
<p>I didn't get into NHS when I was in high school. It's now 13 years since I graduated, and NOBODY cares whether or not I was in it. My boss won't fire me because I wasn't in it. If I had been inducted, I'd look awfully silly if I tried to use it as grounds for asking for a raise.</p>
<p>I'll put a different "spin" on the NHS thing. DD is a top 10% student (actually top 6%) with mostly A's and a very aggressive courseload. In high school she has never been recognized at awards nights despite her outstanding academic record (and ECs). When she received the invitation to apply for NHS she was thrilled. She knew it wasn't a huge honor, but it was the first time her academic record had been acknowledged at her school. She applied, and was accepted (at her school not everyone was accepted who applied), and she is an active member of her NHS group. Does she (or do we) think this will get her into a great college? No. But it was an acknowledgement for our kiddo that she welcomed.</p>
<p>Each school in my local area all have different requirements. Some don't have NHS for 10th, others have 11th & 12th, and still others only 12th. Some schools require community service hours & leadership positions some schools don't. GPA requirements also vary. NHS has its good points, but my son has a friend that is one of those "once in a lifetime students" and he didn't get in this year. Why? Who knows.</p>
<p>There was a third-party presidential candidate an election or two ago that put on his official campaign resume that he was a member of National Honor Society back in his high school days. The news commentators that reported that fact all thought that it was ridiculous for a fully grown adult to be mentioning a commonplace high school achievement like that when seeking the presidency. He didn't get many votes in the election. </p>
<p>To the OP: go with NorthStarMom's advice.</p>
<p>I agree with Simba: NHS has little or no impact at a top school, but there's a chance that its absence, if noticed, could raise a concern that there was a problem, since membership is routine for top students.</p>
<p>NHS admission criteria are so variable from school to school, I can't imagine that it would be a plus. Cum Laude Society, I suspect, is a different story. Anyone else with thoughts about this?</p>
<p>thumper1 - Interesting story. Our HS is the ONLY one in this geographic area that uses unweighted grades to select NHS students. One has to have unweighted GPAs over 90. My son had a couple of Cs in his freshman year at another school but has always taken all honors classes and has 7 AP classes (he is graduating). He never made the NHS even though his weighted grade is significantly higher. Meanwhile, many of the students who have never taken an honors or AP class are in the NHS. I don't mean to demean that others - I cannot understand why the HS doesn't use both unwtd and wtd. We are a small hs and there is a big difference in the curriculum requirements from H and AP to level 1. </p>
<p>Many kids think it NHS is more important than it is. Colleges seem to be aware that schools vary in acceptance criteria. .</p>
<p>Thumper, I'll put yet another spin on it. At my son's HS, a secret committee of teachers selects students for NHS, and the bias against math and science stars is pretty obvious. The highest ranked student in this year's junior class, for example, isn't in it. Neither is my son, who has a 4.2 and a large scholarship and Honors Program invite for college. No one is allowed to know how students are selected--beyond the basics required nationally, which many rejectees, including these two, fulfill, and it's a sort of faculty popularity contest, so if your son or daughter tends to speak her or his mind, they've pretty much had it. </p>
<p>Consequently, the students who are in it who are borderline turn up their noses at those who don't get in, and those who are in it who are really sharp have little respect for it. (Virtually ALL of my son's friends are in it and are disgusted, as were even some of his teachers when he was passed over this time.)</p>
<p>All around a bad experience and one that should be stopped, but what can one do?</p>
<p>Bottom line is that is can be a matter of petty politics at such a school rather than merit and seems to matter not in the least for colleges, so I'd check out the situation at your child's school before allowing her to invest herself in the process.</p>
<p>I agree completely with ctymomteacher's comments here. Individual high schools are afforded a great amount of latitude in how they administer those national guidelines, and depending on the type of school one attends (academically rigorous and competitive), the national offices actually encourage schools to relax those guidelines to make NHS more inclusive. For instance, a local school can relax the academic requirements and move service requirements to the top. That way, kids who aren't necessarily at the top of their school academically, can still make it into NHS. Problems arise, though, when the top academic kids end up being passed over (as in Ctymom's example, post #13). The requirements and standards vary so much from school to school, that membership is getting to be meaningless. I would think college admissions folks know this, too, so I doubt being an NHS member makes any difference in the end. In my daughter's h.s., an NHS member can be a TA (and those are the only students who are eligible to do that), so that was a plus. Other than that, I'm not sure.</p>
<p>At our average public high school, NHS invitation is based on weighted gpa. Over the past few years, the gpa required has been raised, as too large a group met the rather minimal former cutoff. After invitation, the student has to fill out an application showing how they have been involved in the school and/or community. NHS members are required to participate in at least two service activities performed by NHS. These include serving as guides at orientations for new students and at back-to-school night for parents, assisting at kindergarten registration, and their biggest project, a huge school-wide blood drive for students who are old enough and staff. I don't think there are any politics involved in selecting members - the process is very straightforward, and the organization actually serves a valuable function in our school community.</p>
<p>Ctymom,
Your post made me curious, so I went to the website for the NHS, and
it looks like your S' HS is not following the NHS rules. According to the NHS website, the criteria should be published and available to parents:<br>
"The selection procedure should be determined by the local Faculty Council (the five member selection committee facilitated by the chapter adviser who sits as the sixth, non-voting member of the group), approved by the principal, and must be published and available for review by students, faculty, and parents." </p>
<p>I'm not suggesting that you do anything, but since you asked what could one do, I'll suggest that the NHS website also says : "Persons noting a difference between the guidelines below and those in use at the local level should first direct their concerns to the local chapter adviser (a member of the school's faculty assigned to this role by the building principal), to seek clarification of the local policies. Chapters can share local bylaws or selection procedures to assist in making this clarification. Any local policies found to be out of compliance with the national constitution should be adjusted and may, if necessary, be brought to the attention of either the school principal or the national office."</p>
<p>Yes, I understand . We looked into this the first time he was passed over. However, questioning decisions at this high school only makes trouble for the student. It isn't worth it. We have told him to simply bide his time until he can get out of here. </p>
<p>I know it's too bad, and we know of other students who have been hurt by this situation, but this is the way it is in the town where we live.</p>
<p>BTW, the school principal is part of the problem--one of the clique of faculty and staff who graduated from the schol and now work there.</p>
<p>I actually have a lot of experience on this subject, for what it is worth. Our hs had a process that was much more in line with the popularity contest when I first heard of it. My girlfriend's daughter was invited, she applied and was rejected. So my girlfriend gave me a head's up about how political it was and for my son to start early to prepare his "resume" if he really wanted in. Needless to say, he wasn't interested in our thoughts. At the time of his first invitation, all one needed to get invited was an 85 GPA. Then they were to write up a brief document as to why they should be accepted. They were to describe their leadership, their volunteering/service history and this was then available in the main office. Apparently, the office had a binder with the names of all the applicants, and the teachers could mark a column for the characteristics of leadership, service and character with an evaluation of 4,3,2,1. Voting by the teachers was not mandatory....so a "popular" child could have many many votes that gave them a minimum average evaluation and they were easily in. A kid who was shy or quiet or introverted geek might only have a few votes that were 3's and 2's and so they were averaged out of NHS. The whole thing was just absurd. Along with the fact that it was offered to juniors in the spring of their junior year for senior year. The visibility of the organization was nil until graduation. Kids didn't understand what was needed until it was almost beyond salvage. And so it was almost self fulfilling in that the top kids, especially boys, were never admitted because they were not extroverted or often, mature enough to "win" votes. </p>
<p>I actually had been on a committee to interview our principal candidates in the previous year, so when another honoring situation fell short of my expectations (the end of year class honors) I made an appt. with the new principal to voice my concerns that all the honors decisions appeared to be too arbitrary. The principal agreed that there was much that was not defined, not communicated to kids/parents and so this merited a review. A task force was cobbled together to revamp NHS and I was on it, along with my son. There were 3-4 faculty, the principal, 3 parents, 3 students. Also the existing NHS membership reviewed the guidelines we developed prior to going live with them to the School Baord. This beginning of the task force is when I found the NHS web site with their guidelines. That was the beginning of my realizing that in fact, all they (NHS) do is offer minimum rules and much latitude in specifics. So, we created a 5 member selection committee, with a chapter advisor (unpaid cause there was no $$ in the budget for one) and the principal as the final arbiter. We decided to have the kids submit an evaluation form to 3 teachers of their choice for evaluation on Leadership, Service and Character. Leadership criteria included responsible, example, initiative, influencer. Character criteria included behavior, integrity, respectful and adaptive. Service had two criteria, participant and documentation. We felt that by having the kids own the solicitation of the evaluations, which the teachers would submit directly to the chapter advisor, it would be a good intro to the college app process and start them realizing that their behavior etc mattered and they were constantly being evaluated. We also had the kids write up two paragraphs, 1 on leadership, 1 on service for committee review. All of the guidelines were published. Additionally, we offered up a fall round of invitations for seniors so that they could be accepted and indicate it on their college applications. And we offered up invitations starting in sophmore year. Our intent was to bring it to the kids attention sooner in their hs career...and also have the hs benefit from the service component directly. And, because we were doubling the number of potential candidates, we raised the minimum GPA to 92 from 85. We did the research on the previous 2 yrs classes and found everyone in NHS had a 92 GPA so this move did not eliminate anyone who was in. </p>
<p>Issues that still exist include a burdened faculty, both 5 member committee folks, and specifically the chapter advisor who was very troubled to have to tell kids they were not accepted. The first year the decisions were released in the spring was a disaster cause it was the Friday of the start of April vacation. Several of the kids left early for break and did not find out until their return that they were not in.... an oversight on our part to not follow-up. The guidelines have apparently not yet made it onto the web site. We had 90 applicants in the most recent round. One child that did not make it in was a 2nd try applicant. Apparently, the kid will not try again in the fall and the mom is very unhappy with the school over the disillusionment that her child has experienced. I have heard that the essays did not demonstrate leadership nor service. I have no idea if that is true as I am not on the actual committee. However, I suspect that there will always be some who do not get in. </p>
<p>Our task force will meet again to tighten up the process once more. </p>
<p>Finally, my hindsight perspective on NHS is this:<br>
* it truly is not a significant line item on an application because the criteria is so varied from hs to hs.<br>
* it is often the first real time that "smart" kids are not automatically included in the "smart" kids group, because NHS is actually more about service and leadership. The only component "smarts" plays is to get the invitation. But, parents think it is about smarts and so the initial impact of a denial can be traumatic.<br>
* often it comes up at the same time that the college app process is on everyone's mind. It is a very quick process to connect the dots that one's child must be in NHS to receive acceptance at the a top school, after all, if one can't make it in hs, how can one make it in college?
* my personal observation is that all of our HS's need to do a more proactive job of coaching and guiding our kids on these leadership and service and character traits. We need to explain it, we need to teach it, we need to show them how to do it, we need to highlight examples of it, we need to privately coach them when they are straying from these traits. My preference would be to give each student a HS Resume folder as freshman with all the different clubs, roles, opportunities available to make a difference in the folder for them to begin to collect checkmarks against. For them to realize they have a lot of choices, that they must decide where to allocate their time...and slowly build their own resume. Feel good each year as they begin to see it flesh out. To me this is an area that guidance could do more with if we could cobble out a 1/2 day in the fall, and a 1/2 day in the spring, for a total of 4 days over 4 years at most. To help the kids learn skills that will boost their confidence and give them something to be proud of....</p>
<p>Most of the kids who do get into top schools probably have it on their list, but not all. I definitely know of a child who got into two IVY's this year who said no thanks to NHS after being denied in junior year. In my opinion, the real value NHS offers kids is to boost/confirm/validate their hs efforts and encourage more thinking along the lines of service, character, leadership. The value is not as a resume item. Hope this is helpful.</p>
<p>Interesting re: the emphasis on service and I know that our NHS is service oriented once you have been accepted. I know because my son accompanied all the NHS members when they were asked to shovel out the elderly as part of NHS all winter. My son has always played sports, gets home at 7 every night since practice is daily and has limited time for service activities. He has squeezed them in - and he volunteered at a hospital all summer. To me, if NHS doesn't have a standard criteria then it will always be meaningless and open to politics. The sad thing is, at graduation, my son will not have a gold tassel and the rest of the community will not realize how hard he has worked or how much he has accomplished.</p>
<p>Agreed, Riley. My son will be the only member of his senior class "Honor Block" who is not a member. However, he will also likely have the largest (publickly announced) finaid package at his school's awards ceremony. Personally, I hope the "secret committee" sees some error in their machinations. But I doubt it. The year before last, they did the same thing to another similar kid and his response was to give up. He didn't end up with anything. Either way, it's destructive.</p>
<p>Fortunately for my son, I care a lot more about what this did to him at the time than he does! He doesn't care any more, but I'll never forget the hurt in his eyes that day...</p>