<p>I received a email from The National Society of Collegiate Scholars inviting me to join. Does anyone know anything about this organization and is it legitimate? Thanks</p>
<p>My D just got an invitation in the mail today to join that organization. She's a college freshman. It's supposed to be an honor society for high-achieving first and second year college students. My guess is that you got it if you achieved a certain grade point average this past semester (congrats, by the way).</p>
<p>To me, it's a lot like Who's Who Among American High School Students. More of a "name" society rather than an active group.</p>
<p>We google these whenever kids get any of these offers, and they've been plagued by them since grade school (if you've ever appeared in the media for winning any sort of academic contest such as spelling bee, science contest, etc. your name ends up on a list that's passed around forever!) </p>
<p>...vast majority appear to be vanity scams...pay a fee, get a certificate; pay a bigger fee, get listed in a book; pay a bigger fee, get a copy of the book; pay the biggest fee of all, get invited to a presentation/workshop/seminar.</p>
<p>Usually, if you google the name, you'll get plenty of articles on the society in question: then you can decide if it's legitimate or not. (most we've investigated are not legit.) One article I saw had a good suggestion: if you want to list the honor, on applications/resumes refer to yourself as a "National Society of Collegiate Scholars invitee"...you can do that for no $$$!</p>
<p>i got one in the mail today too. so it's just a name to put on the resume? and why $75?</p>
<p>The money is because it's basically these awards & honors are simply a scam aimed at our inate vanities--who isn't thrilled to be honored with awards--and the scammer is in the business to make easy money. It probably costs the "organization" a couple hundred $$ to buy a list of senior-class kids' names & addresses, then another couple hundred to mail the glossy flyers. If the get a dozen kids to send in the $75, they've made several hundred $$. Multiply these numbers by thousands, and you see it can be quite lucrative. Most of these lauded "societies" and "academies" supposedly awarding these honors exist only in the scammer's minds. There's no location, it's just a private mail box at a drop-site. The adult version of this scam is the sweepstakes scams telling the recipient he's won $$$$ or fabulous prizes--just send $100 for "handling" or "verification fees" to claim prize...</p>