<p>our high schools nhs admits not on service etc but solely on gpa. the grinds get in with no service hours etc…</p>
<p>We needed service, gpa, leadership, and recommendations. We are required to do 20 hours of service after being inducted, actually.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, some colleges send their admitted students goodies.</p>
<p>I’m so glad I found this thread! I received an invitation in the mail today and thought it would be a good opportunity at first, but the fee and fact that they got my school’s name wrong (good job, guys) made it seem a bit off…I guess it’ll go into the trash now. How do they pick which students to “invite,” anyway, if so many students with sub-par GPAs are being included? Is it based solely on PSATs?</p>
<p>I think it is PSAT’s… I got over 200 this year, that may be it. AND I LOVE that there are three people in a row with Latin-based/-referencing usernames!</p>
<p>that makes sense, Interficio, I got above a 200 as well. And I agree on the Latin usernames; I love AP Vergil! You certainly picked an interesting vocab word for yours…</p>
<p>The National Society of High School Scholars FOUNDATION is listed in IRS Publication 78 as a nonprofit, BUT, their 990 return is not filed with guidestar nor is it listed on the society’s website. That, in and of itself, makes me suspicious. The annual reported posted on NSHSS’ website states that a little over 80,000 students became members last year (I subtracted out the ones who received full or partial fee waivers). So, just on the membership fees alone last year, this society earned over $4.8 million…and it only dished out $133,000 in scholarships. You do the math and decide…</p>
<p>Now that’s a business model I could sign on to! Anyone wanna partner up to found the American Society of Spectacular Seniors? (Acronym intentional.)</p>
<p>An honor society is a membership to a society, one of the benefits being access to a number of scholarships. Most honor societies offer things like better car insurance rates and credit card rates. They ARE NOT, however, actual scholarships themselves. People keep talking about whether or not honor societies are scams, basically with the idea of “if I pay my membership dues to join this SOCIETY, I will be awarded scholarships automatically.” This is not how honor societies work. You must apply for the actual scholarship in order to be considered for it. Honor societies have many benefits, including paticipation in classes and forums that can help a student get scholarships and even gain college credits.</p>
<p>In short:
Scholarships ARE NOT honor societies.
Honor Societies ARE NOT scholarships.</p>
<p>They are two separate things. However, honor societies can help in getting scholarships.</p>
<p>Membership dues go to PAY FOR scholarships offered directly by the society, classes, forums, trips, and other benefits. Without money, they could not offer any of these things to aspiring students. That’s the point.</p>
<p>If money is the issue, honor societies also offer lower membership fees or even free memberships. The students who join the societies with a free membership also get the benefits of access to their scholarships, classes, forums, and partner programs, some of which include:
The Boy Scouts of America
National Hispanic Business Association
My College Guide (a publication and website to help prospective students)
The Princeton Review (included is a discount for NSHSS members)
The Cambridge College Programme (for study abroad)
and many others.</p>
<p>If you or your student do not plan on taking advantage of ANY member benefits, then it is a waste of money. If you take advantage of them in any way, it’s worth it. The membership fee for any of them is considerably cheap. </p>
<p>I met my husband on one of the study abroad programs in Oxford, England offered by one of the honor societies I joined. I even got a scholarship to help pay for my study there.</p>
<p>ATT, T-Mobile and Verizon have offered significant discounts for members of the National Society for High School Scholars.</p>
<p>I urge anyone interested in this topic to read the ENTIRE thread. It’s enlightening, and you’ll quickly learn that calling the National Society for High School Scholars an “honor society” is a gross exaggeration. Please don’t rely on the posts of a new member who appears to have joined just to rush to the defense of this for-profit organization (an employee or principal is my guess).</p>
<p>(BTW, if you want to join something to get discounts on stuff, I recommend AAA. They’ll also come fix your flat or give you a tow!)</p>
<p>Serving on the Board of Advisors of NSHSS are Nobel Laureates, industry tycoons, actors and educators.
The current advisors include </p>
<p>Maya Angelou (famous American autobiographer and poet)</p>
<p>Paul J. Crutzen (Nobel prize winning chemist)</p>
<p>Clive W. J. Granger (economist and professor, won Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences)</p>
<p>Larry Griffith</p>
<p>Ed Harris (famous American actor, writer and director. The Abyss, Apollo 13, The Truman Show, etc)</p>
<p>James J. Heckman (Distinguished Service Professor of Economics and Nobel laureate)</p>
<p>Herbert Kroemer (professor of electrical and computer engineering, Nobel Prize in Physics)</p>
<p>Anthony Leggett (professor of physics, won Nobel Prize for Physics in 2003)</p>
<p>Rudolph A. Marcus (Canadian chemist, won Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1992)</p>
<p>Ferid Murad (Albanian-American physician and pharmacologist, won Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1998)</p>
<p>Elon Musk (South-African-Canadian engineer, entrepeneur and philanthropist)</p>
<p>Stanley Prusiner, (American neurologist and biochemist. Won the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1994 and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1997) </p>
<p>Stacey Snider (UCLA graduate, highest ranking female executive at a Hollywood studio when she was named president of production at TriStar)</p>
<p>Brian J. Spencer</p>
<p>Sandra L. Thurman (appointed by the President on April 7, 1997 as the Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy at the White House)</p>
<p>John E. Walker, (English chemist, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1997)</p>
<p>Di Yerbury, (Australia’s first female Vice-Chancellor, held vice-president and president positions on the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee)</p>
<p>Ahmed Zewail (Egyptian-American chemist and chemistry professor. Won Nobel Prize for Chemisty in 1999)</p>
<p>The National Society of High School Scholars offers about ten different scholarships total, with the annual Claes Nobel Academic Scholarship being its most competitive and prominent. Scholarships include,</p>
<p>The Claes Nobel Academic Scholarships - $5,000
National Scholar Awards - $1,000
Robert P. Sheppard Leadership Award - $1,000
Abercrombie & Fitch Global Diversity Scholar Awards for all members - $1,000
Griffith College Scholars: Griffith College, Dublin, Scholarships - $1,000
Academic Paper Awards - $250
Oklahoma City University Business School Scholarships - $5,000
DCU “Think Science” Challenge
NSHSS Ambassador Scholarships - $1,000
NSHSS Earth Ethics Doctoral Program Scholarship</p>
<p>By the way, MommaJ, I’m not a principal, employee or member of the Society. :)</p>
<p>AAA is great too! I am a member of that. They give great discounts.
However, they’re not geared toward helping prospective students find helpful information for saving money on college, finding programs of interest, or scholarships. If you’re only looking to save money on hotels and get a tow, then join AAA, I agree!</p>
<p>Again…
The National Society of High School Scholars FOUNDATION is listed in IRS Publication 78 as a nonprofit, BUT, their 990 return is not filed with guidestar nor is it listed on the society’s website. That, in and of itself, makes me suspicious. The annual reported posted on NSHSS’ website states that a little over 80,000 students became members last year (I subtracted out the ones who received full or partial fee waivers). So, just on the membership fees alone last year, this society earned over $4.8 million…and it only dished out $133,000 in scholarships. You do the math and decide… </p>
<p>Why isn’t the NSHSS’ 990 published online - either on its website or guidestar?</p>
<p>I don’t know and don’t really care why. I don’t know anything about their 990 to be honest. </p>
<p>I just think it’s fantastic that all these brilliant Nobel prize winners, tenured professors of our nations top schools, and highest appointed officials have been fooled for all these years, but these bloggers have discovered the “scam” by going back and forth saying “I really don’t know anything about it, does anyone else? I haven’t looked into it. It must be a scam.” Way to go guys.</p>
<p>I don’t have a thing to gain or lose by anyone signing up or not signing up. It makes no difference in my world. I just wonder why people get on here making a proclamation about what this society is or isn’t, saying “I haven’t done a bit of research” and thinking that it’s an informed decision making process by listening to other people who are self-proclaimed uneducated on the matter.</p>
<p>From the Guidestar website:
Financial information digitized from an organization’s IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ is available to all GuideStar Premium subscribers.
In all fairness, I will ask you first: Are you a GuideStar Premuim subscriber to see this financial information for NSHSS? I am not.</p>
<p>I would like to address this question, which was a very good one:</p>
<p>“So, just on the membership fees alone last year, this society (NSHSS) earned over $4.8 million…and it only dished out $133,000 in scholarships. You do the math and decide…” </p>
<p>I decided to look up the financials for Golden Key, which is the largest and most respected honor society worldwide, and found this very similar financial information. </p>
<p>“…Golden Key claimed to “return 75 per cent of each membership as benefits and services to local chapters and their members [while the] other 25 per cent is used for administrative expenses,” the Ubyssey found that in 1997 salaries, management and general expenses totalled $2,997,827, almost 47 per cent of the $6,430,054 in total expenditures. A second article found that Golden Key spent just $289,461 (US dollars) on scholarships, less than 5 per cent of their total expenditures for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1997. The society now claims to spend approximately $500,000 annually on scholarships and awards,[15] though it is unclear whether this allocation has remained proportional since then…”</p>
<p>Even if GK gives out “over $500,000 in scholarships a year” that does not total $8.8+ million it brings in annually (this figure came from their last financial statement) In fact, when you figure out the percentage that gets paid out in scholarships, GOLDEN KEY comes out to a LOWER PERCENTAGE! Weird…</p>
<p>So this well respected world renowned society MUST be a scam, right?
What are some of the other expenses that such a business might incur? Let’s explore:</p>
<p>REVENUE:
Membership dues…$ 5,659,120 65%
Member services…$ 944,649 11%
Corporate sponsorships contributions,
and contributions in kind…$ 262,736 4%
Royalties…$ 1,434,700 16%
Investment gains and losses
and interest income, net…$ 377,708 4%
Other…$ 28,823 0%
Net assets released from restrictions…$ 127,155
TOTAL SUPPORT AND REVENUES…$ 8,834,891</p>
<p>PROGRAM EXPENSES:
Student recognition…$ 2,896,303 34%
University activities…$ 1,867,338 22%
Member benefits…$ 1,735,781 21%
Leadership/volunteer training…$ 914,783 11%
TOTAL PROGRAM EXPENSES…$ 7,414,205 88%</p>
<p>Which leaves the rest for scholarships. About 12% if my math is correct. While your figures for the National Society of High School Scholars comes out to about 27%.</p>
<p>I’m no expert. I’m not an accountant - never have been, never will be. All I can say is that it looks like non-profits have to pay for things too.</p>
<p>Again, I have nothing vested either way.</p>
<p>We aren’t talking about Gold Key. We’re talking about NSHSS. Anyone can sign up to access a nonprofit’s 990s. For someone who has “nothing vested” you sure seem to be very defensive…perhaps a PR flack for NSHSS???</p>
<p>If NSHSS published its 990, then we’d know how much of its income is eaten up with administrative costs. I can only venture to guess at this point…$4.8 million - $133,000 = $4,786,700. I’m not sure what your reference to 27% is…but $133,000 of $4.8 million is 2.7%. That leaves 97.3% that we just have to guess where the money is going.</p>
<p>All I’m saying is that you have some info on statistics, but you also have to interpret that information. Look around at other similar organizations and see what they must spend money on in order to operate. If it’s anywhere within the same percentages give or take, where is the problem? And it looks like even the largest and most well known honor society has a low percentage allocated to scholarships. I would say it’s probably because it’s better to help the masses find out how they can help themselves save money and offer them the recources to do so. Of course it takes money to operate a business and pay it’s employees. You can’t just say “Well we’re not talking about Golden Key. Golden Key is allowed to spend millions of dollars in other places, such as member benefits and activites, but this other society has to turn around and award all of it’s money in scholarships or else it’s a scam.” If you look at other honor societies which are doing basically the same activities, such as student recognition, courses, training, management, recruiting, supplies, then of course they don’t dole it all out. But I’m sure there’s a criteria for being listed as non-profit, and all of them have lawyers that know more about that than you or I, so none of us can say “I’m darn tootin sure that they’re lyin’.”</p>
<p>Is it such a bad thing to have an organization based on helping students with activities and information to help them in their college career and offer lifetime benefits, whether they get a scholarship or not? And even creating jobs for a heck of a lot of people along the way? What’s the beef? I just don’t get it. If it’s all about scholarships, then apply to some scholarships! No one is stopping you, whether you join a million honor societies or none! Apply away! </p>
<p>I just don’t see how a measly $50 or so for a LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP of benefits is a scam. I save money on my credit card and car insruance EVERY MONTH through honor societies. Is that right there, alone, worth my little membership fee? You betcha. Perhaps some honor societies were not in existence when some of the people on here were in school, or perhaps they didn’t do well enough scholastically to be invited. Just because they haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it’s a “scam.” Especially since most of the people posting on here are saying “I choose not to look anything up and I base my decision on my lack of information.” I think that might give us a big clue into why they don’t know what an honor society is, what they are there for, and probably why they weren’t invited. “Scam” is a big word, and I’m not sure most people on here throwing it around knows what it means. </p>
<p>Pittsmom, you’re really the only person I saw that posted something worth looking into. But you have to look at the big picture, and look at other organizations too, and see what it takes to run a big organization before making accusations that it must be a “scam” because you don’t personally know where all their money is spent when other organizations of the same type are allowed to allocate most of their money to other areas of running business.</p>
<p>No, I’m not a PR agent, employee, cheerleader, or even a fan of NSHSS. I have nothing to do with the organization. I’m not even a member. I’m just throwing the other side of the coin out there for people to look at. Do some research, and decide for yourself whether it’s a benefit that you or your student will take advantage of, or not. Because some people will, and some people won’t. If you do take advantage, $60 is not a lot. If you don’t, then it’s a waste of $60. Go spend it wisely on McDonalds and Starbucks and Hollywood gossip magazines. But it’s totally unfair for you or anyone else to tell others that it’s a scam that nobody can take advantage of.</p>
<p>The lists of all the scholarship winners from each organization are posted on their respective sites by name and state of residence. Maybe some people on here would spend their time more wisely trying to get in touch with them and ask if it’s a scam. I’m sure they were scholarship winners by taking advantage of the benefits available, and not waiting for some magic fairy to come knocking on their door with a lump sum of money just for sending in the acceptance notice and fifty bucks.</p>