<p>I got an invitation because I have a 3.3+ GPA as a senior. Is it worth it to join, to pad my resume? I'm already in other honor societies, but I just got this in the mail from an academic advisor from my school.</p>
<p>The</a> National Society of Leadership and Success - Sigma Alpha Pi</p>
<p>I'm not looking for this to be a deal breaker, but I already have a full-time job with a company. I figured I could use this as one extra line in my CV when I apply to grad school (UPenn).</p>
<p>I had never heard of this society before. I'm really amused that the Greek letters spell out "sap".</p>
<p>I <em>seriously</em> doubt that this will help you any. Grad schools would care about academic honor societies, but they don't care about some random "leadership" society. Their admissions procedures are very academics-focused.</p>
<p>I have to say, I have never heard of this before either.</p>
<p>My son received the same nomination letter today from the National Society of Leadership & Success, Sigma Alpha Pi. The one time lifetime membership registration dues are $85. Looking for advice/opinions…</p>
<p>Theses kinds of generic societies were discussed in this very long thread. The majority here believe they are valuable to those who start the societies and make money from them. <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/542056-national-society-collegiate-scholars.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/542056-national-society-collegiate-scholars.html</a>
DS1 was invited to Phi Beta Kappa. He accepted that.</p>
<p>Thanks, roberthhid.</p>
<p>I got the same invite, as did two of my friends. The letter they sen was very strange (it had our university’s logo on it, along with their own). I know that our school only has three school sponsored (aside from Phi Betta Kappa) honor societies, the Freshman one, a transfer one and a general honor society. So when I saw them using my school’s logo, I pretty much knew it was fake. And that was validated when a school wide email was sent from campus police warning the student body about scams like “The National Society for Leadership blahblah.” So, yeah, it’s a scam.</p>
<p>Wow, caemin. My S got the letter today and I tossed it, thinking it was just one of those harmless “honor” societies that takes your money and is basically a resume-padding operation. But if they are using university logos without permission, pretending they have an office on campus, so that the police send out warnings, that is a whole 'nother level of scamming. Ugh.</p>
<p>I think I’ll report this to somebody at the school.</p>
<p>D3 tossed this one as well.</p>
<p>Not sure it’s actually a scam or fake because my D not only received the invite (but didn’t join), but also received an email at her .edu address and it had a building/room number and local contact. So apparently they have a university presence though I didn’t find them listed on the school’s website. Don’t know exactly what it is though, and D has enough other stuff to put on her resume. Figured if we hadn’t heard of it, chances are most employers haven’t either!</p>
<p>I attend UTA, I actually received a letter in the mail from Sigma Alpha Pi with my schools logo on the envelope. I opened it an read it but I was suspicious. So I contacted my schools Student Affairs office and talked with one of the staff. She said The National Society of Leadership and Success is legit and all organizations on campus are required to register with Student Affairs as they keep a list of all active organizations on campus and those organizations have websites. My school has 260 members or so and the chapter Advisor is a Professor in the Biology department at my school and her information was on the postcard I received and her info is on our Universities website with a picture as well so that helps. I also contacted my Academic Advisor because I was curious about the whole nomination thing and she said that, academic organizations send out a nomination list to Advisors and professors and they can nominate certain students. But you have to be formally invited to join and of course your gpa plays a part in getting you a nomination if you make deans list and some schools have different gpa requirements. But if you did not get a nomination letter you have to have a nomination from a professor in order to be eligible to join the Society at your campus. But they are fairly new they were established in 2001 so when ppl see it they automatically think scam because it hasn’t been around over 50 years like other honour societies. And this is actually beneficial for lowerclassmen because most others are for upperclassmen but they don’t have annual dues like the other organization you just pay your $85 dollars and do whatever else is required and you get your shirt and pen and car decal as if any of that stuff matters access to scholarships and all the other B.S. that comes along with them. I’m going to join because of the scholarships and rewards students get at my school not so much for putting it on my resume I can do that any way i have the nomination letter so you can always put nominated for yaddie yaddie yadda. But they a have a national website [Society</a> of Leadership and Success](<a href=“http://www.societyleadership.org%5DSociety”>http://www.societyleadership.org) I got the go sign from my academic advisor and my school has orientations on both the 13th and 14th of this month so I’m going to accept the offer the worst that can happen is that i become disinterested and in that case i can get a refund so it can’t hurt really</p>
<p>Thank you MsSmiley! That was very well written and informational. My daughter just got a letter from TWU for the same thing. Like you, she is joining mainly for the scholarship opportunities, job bank and special discounts. Orientation is next week for her!</p>
<p>I too am a student at TWU and received a “nomination” to join. Since TWU is not a large campus, I was shocked when they said over 700 people accepted the nomination. When In inquired of the criteria in order to be nominated, I was told that all you needed was a 2.7 GPA and that was it. Considering I have a 3.9 this was less than impresive. When I contacted the advisor on getting a refund, she sent me straight to the society who then informed me that there was an “online” chapter for the same price but if I was still not interested they would issue a refund less a $15 processing fee. Conidering that their max merchant fee would be $2.55 I thought this was a complete rip-off and am currently working with my credit card company to dispute the charge. Should this society wish to press the issue I’ll file suit for deceptive trade paractices. Save your money.,…this is noothing more than a networking scheme.</p>
<p>I have posted before on this site regarding the NSLS as a possible scam and I have researched this organization and have now rendered my opinion. Apparently, the main focus of this society are first and second year college students as a way of coming out of your shell that also happen to have good grades. What I mean by coming out of your shell are perhaps, those individuals that were never involved in school activities or are shy. Unfortunately, I was invited and reluctantly joined based on a fellow classmates decision (bad on my part). I now regret that decision and would like to get my money back. I was a graduate student working on my second masters degree and have had well over 20 years experience in the field. I am sorry to say that nothing in this organization will really help me nor do I know why they kept pestering me to join since I was not a freshmen or young college student. I have also looked at the past speakers they had at this event. One such speaker was Goldie Hawn. Even though I like her as an actress, why is she a guest speaker? She is an actress; she can act and does not even have a college degree. What is her message to young college students? Finally, some individuals do not need any self motivation in preparing for their future and may realize what the consequences are.</p>
<p>Note that posts 11 and 12 are by first time posters. Organizations like this one monitor the internet for negative mentions and jump in to make defensive posts like those above. These aren’t regular CC participants, but employees participating in a public relations effort. In other words, consider the source.</p>