<p>I'm a member of the National Society of High School Scholars. It's not just a scam. Being a member of NSHSS automatically granted me admission to the World Scholar Athlete Games in Kingston, Rhode Island this past summer (other students had to submit an application for reviewal before being allowed to participate). I'm not a college admission counselor, so I don't know if being a member helped me in the admission process, but it couldn't have hurt.</p>
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However, I also received another letter today notifying me that I am an Illinois State Scholar. I haven't heard of this before so I'm not sure if this is legit.
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<p>Is that the same thing as AP State Scholar? If so, it's definitely legit.</p>
<p>I got one of these self-esteem raising postcards, ignore my thread, apparently I can't read! haha So for all the people who received one of these...what do your stats look like? gpa? SATs/PSATs?</p>
<p>I'm a member, and I can say that although it's not a SCAM SCAM, it's not worth it. Yes, you get an 'automatic qualification' to the World Games, but I honestly don't think that it is that hard to get into anyway. As soon as you join you are invited to buy merchandise like a teddy bear or a shirt. You can go to certain conferences and you get like 8% off of a certain program (I forget what it's called, but it's like People to People). The only problem is that I live on the west coast, and they never held any conferences here. They say that you'll get special scholarship info and offers, but the only scholarship they have is extremely selective, and they don't even tell you about it (you just list all of your clubs and submit your info). If you are really desperate for the websites they give you, e-mail me and I'll send them to you. They are pretty good, but they aren't exclusive. Some of them you've probably gone to already like Yahoo college and Fastweb.</p>
<p>Ok, so not a scam, but not helpful...great...and no conference for me too I guess, that's discriminatory against west coasters! What exactly are the world games?</p>
<p>The World Scholar Athlete Games (I'm assuming that's what hopefullybright was referring to) is an event held every 2 or 4 years (the next one is Australia 2008). Basically kids from around the world come to participate in a given activity. Most go for sports, but there was also theater, choir, orchestra, etc. I went for soccer. We participated in our activity for about 6 hours a day, and then we also had activities that were suppose to be cultural learning experiences or something. In the evenings there were speakers (some of the speakers were Bill Clinton, Claes Nobel, Bode Miller, Bill O'Reilly). They also had some bands play at night and other activities were set up so there was always something to do.</p>
<p>But I'd have to agree that it wasn't that hard to get in. I thought the competition was going to be much better than it was. Unfortunately, there were many soccer players that wouldn't even make it onto a competitive HS varsity team. I talked to some of the coaches about it and they said that in the past the players that came were better, but that the governing body must have decided that they wanted more people to come and diversify the group. So while it was nice to have people from all over, it was at the cost of a higher level of play.</p>
<p>Note its a us gov website
"Claes Nobel, of Sweden’s Nobel Peace Prize family, spoke at the June 24 opening assembly, and former U.S. President Bill Clinton delivered the keynote address June 26."</p>
<p>I got mine today (I live in Japan), but it says I have to reply by the end of April, which is like in 3 days. That's ridiculous.
As some of you mentioned, NHS is a completely different thing because the organization doesn't choose the members, the school does.</p>
<p>This is what I got from NSHSS. It's an organization that you have to pay a membership due. It might be selective, but most likely not. It will not give too much credence toward Admissions Officers.</p>
<p>However, it does not appear to be a scam. There appears to be events specially for memberships along with scholarships (although those might be infinitely harder to get than just membership). If you really need financial aid, the fee can even be waived.</p>
<p>Overall, if you can shell out the money, why not? It's one more thing for Admissions Officers to see. If you can't, don't worry about it. There are other things out there. Getting into NSHSS will not guarantee admission into HYPS.</p>
<p>Why not? Because it's totally not worth it? NSHSS pretends to be some prestigious, honorable group, (even mimicking NHS's title - doubt that's a coincidence) and you KNOW the title of being a member is just meaningless. Don't do things you don't want to just for the sake of getting more eye candy on your college application. In this case, you're deluding yourself if you think it's going to help your application. </p>
<p>I'm pretty sure that it's <em>not</em> a scam. But neither are a lot of things that cost money and have no value. </p>
<p>So, it seems exciting when you first get the letter (it did for me), but the bottom line is, it's an organization that (according to other posters who have been members) offers marginal benefits at best, with a primary motivation of getting money. I wouldn't trust that.</p>
<p>There's also probably a stronger argument for NSHSS hurting your application than helping, anyways; just my guess.</p>