<p>My daughter received an invitation to join this organization. They claim they give out lots of scholarships. Has anyone's child ever received a scholarship from them?</p>
<p>Do you have to pay anything to be part of this organization? If so, run the other direction. (My son gets all sorts of mail like this, and he’s learned to toss them.) Not that it’s necessarily a scam, just that it’s having you pay for something that will probably have no actual benefit.</p>
<p>Our D also was invited to join when she was a freshman (which she did and paid the $95.00 one time fee). It does appear to be a legit organization. It is a member of the Association of College Honor Societies and adheres to its requirements for eligibility (GPA of at least 3.4 and in top 20% of one’s class). They claim to provide 500K in total scholarship money to members. With this being said I am not aware of anyone who specifically got any scholarship money from them (I am not saying it didn’t happen but I am not aware of anyone getting scholarship money from them). If a student maintains their GPA at UD they are likely to be invited to join a number of additional registered Honor Societies at UD. Our D was invited to join at least six of them and choose to join about half of them. Some had joining fees and dues while others did not. The benefit of joining such Honor Societies rests with an individual’s perspective. Some people feel that membership in these societies looks good on their resumes as they do at least provide some additional documentaion of their scholastic achievements and that this may be helpful in getting into grad school or help them to land a job. Others feel differently. IMHO joining this organization with a significant degree of expectation of getting scholarship money is probably not the best reason for deciding to join. Just my perspective.</p>
<p>A paraphrase from the letter we received - “You don’t have to participate in any activities once you pay to join but we believe that you’ll be a better person in you attend meetings and activities.” Per my daughter, just about everyone in the Honors dorm received the letter.</p>
<p>I’ve participated in college recruiting for my employer and would laugh if any student listed membership in this organization on their resume.</p>
<p>My DD joined soph year. I went to the induction ceremony. It was nice and it made her feel good about her college academics. That alone was worth it to me. She hasn’t gotten involved, but it’s a line about academic achievement in her resume I guess. </p>
<p>The MPR at Trabant was full with students and parents for the induction.</p>
<p>Just re- read the post above mine. </p>
<p>You would laugh at this on the resume? Why?</p>
<p>Seeing an achievement like Dean’s List on a resume is impressive as the requirements are purely academic. Membership in an organization that requires payment but no time or effort commitments doesn’t demonstrate anything positive for the candidate. Listing service as an officer of a society like this could be a positive if the candidate can demonstrate that it was more than winning an election or being appointed.</p>
<p>I understand that students add ‘filler’ to their resumes and I would consider membership in the NCSC as filler. To clarify, I would laugh (afterwards) if a student spent time in a 30-minute interview mentioning membership. My follow-up questions would be “What were the requirements of membership? Were you required to maintain the GPA requirement to remain a member? What activities did you participate in as a member?” If the student couldn’t reply with any positive benefits or experiences, they would have lost a few precious minutes that could have been used to sell themselves. Not to mention the possibility of becoming flustered and blowing the rest of the interview.</p>
<p>As a recruiter, I spend a good bit of time prepping for interviews and have a list of questions prepared based on the information on each resume. I would only pursue questions on organization memberships if there are leadership roles or if the student brings it up as a positive experience.</p>
<p>No offense meant to any current or prospective members.</p>
<p>I have SERIOUS doubts about NSCS. They raised $7,200,000 last year and paid out only $412,000 in scholarships! They spent almost $3,500,000 to attract new members. Would you call that a charity? If this is such a great organization why are they only on 300 campuses out of the thousands of schools? If they have 800,000 members, how much money have they taken in since 1994? It costs $95 to join now but it was $75 earlier so even if you multiply 800,000 times $75 (the lower fee) you get $60 Million and they have paid out less than $10 million is scholarships. Do not waste your money! [2011-2012</a> Annual Report](<a href=“http://issuu.com/nscs/docs/2012_annual_report_final]2011-2012”>2011-2012 Annual Report by The National Society of Collegiate Scholars - Issuu)</p>
<p>It is a scam. Those in the know don’t find this impressive at all on your resume. It isn’t worth the $95.00. You are much better off becoming a member of your school’s honor society or a society specific to your major.</p>
I graduated from high school in 2004, but wasn’t ready for college. I withdrew from many classes, and even failed a couple. As a result, my transcript before now doesn’t look great. I have earned straight A’s since I got back on the horse three semesters ago. At the end of last semester, I had boosted my GPA up to a 3.8 which is when I received the nomination letter from NSCS.
I don’t know if it’s normal for an honor society to consider a student with that kind of transcript, but they did. What I do know, with the schooling I’ve had so far, is that when you type whole paragraphs in bold face and underlined them, you give a scholarly reader the feeling that they are being screamed as if they were watching a Super Bowl commercial.
They extended the deadline for registration because of the blizzard (I live in DC,) and since then I have been getting bombarded with emails. It may very well be a legit or even prestigious organization, but they do not come across as so, despite their beautiful letterheads and watermarks. I’ve also been asking all kinds of friends and family members about this organization and nobody has heard of it.
I think it’s worth noting, however that I am a member of Northern Virginia Community College, and they completely and fully endorse the NSCS amd have permanent offices on campus.That stands for something in my opinion. Still, $95 to join is more than I can swing.
It’s a scam. Thousands of students get these.