<p>Hi, my son got in last year as a junior-his school is fairly new, and is a dual-focus arts/academic school with an extended day format, so out of a total of 200 juniors AND seniors, 16 got into NHS. My son's "stats" at that time: unweighted GPA on a 100-point scale: 93.73 with upward trend (now as a senior it's 94.58), class rank was 5/158 (now it's 3/153), he took all the AP courses offered,plus physics, etc. ECs: Founder/EIC of LIt Mag, 1 of 2 appointed student reps on School Leadership Team, Student Council Rep, GSA Co-founder, Production Stage Manager/Lighting Designer for 8 main stage shows, performed in 6 school shows, and 5 outside shows, Center for Arts Education Intern, AIDS Walk NY Volunteer, Sunyside Community Center volunteer, internship and photographs exhibited at Internation Center of Photography, OPen School Monitor, NYC High School Fair volunteer, Coordinator of Volunteers for school auditions, Day of Silence Coordinator, etc., etc. I believe the GPA cutoff at my son's school was 90.00, with good teacher recs, and I think school leadership and community service were VERY imporatnt, as some of his froends who were initially nominated did not make the final cut.....NHS is not the biggest deal-my son did out it under "Awards and Honors" on his ED app to Columbia, and he was accepted, but I highly diubt that NHS was the deciding factor either way.</p>
<p>At my school it is basically a popularity contest with the teachers, as well as a 3.8 gpa cutoff, and being in it entails nothing other than going to the induction thing one night. I guess you have to do community service to be in it, but at my school it is mostly "geeks" and the community service club is all popular people. I'm sure it varies a lot by school though.</p>