My son made President’s list for academics as a freshman. All of a sudden we have been getting mail from these different honor socety groups to join. Of course there is a fee…anywhere from 60 to 90 $$. Anybody have info on this. It’s interesting but how prestigious are these groups, esoecially if they are asking for $$ to join.
Search the forum (use magnifying glass next to page numbers)…this subject comes up every year and many have posted about their experiences.
With my own hindsight, we suggested son join 1 his freshman year so that he had something additional on his resume; they all tout that they offer scholarships, but unless you are active with the chapter, your chances are slim-to-zero to recoup any gain from these memberships, in my opinion. These so-called Freshman (and later Sophomore and even Junior-year) honor societies are pretty useless.
The exception would be the main prestigious national societies (Phi Beta Kappa; Phi Kappa Phi), AND any honor society within your student’s major field of study. In my son’s case, this was Sigma Gamma Tau (Nat HS for Aero Eng’g). Every field has one (or more), and those are useful. Also, have your student join (as a student) the associated professional industry organization (i.e., AIAA for aero engineering).
Bottom line - don’t get sucked into joining. If you have a top student anyway (and making President’s list in engineering suggests he is!), many more relevant honors will come his way.
Thanks for the input!
There are a few UA-specific honoraries that are quite prestigious - Jasons (not sure they’re still around), XXXI (for women), Anderson Society. A list is at honorsocieties.ua.edu/honor.cfm. There is a day in April set aside for tapping ceremonies.
^ yes, thank you for pointing these out! within that same webpage are other opportunities - some are self-apply; some you need to be nominated for:
http://honorsocieties.ua.edu/outstanding.cfm
http://honorsocieties.ua.edu/wide.cfm
https://sa-app01.ua.edu/premierAwards/public/?CFID=11557151&CFTOKEN=93780351