I’m a senior in high school and was accepted into our Nat’l Honor Society in August. Since then, I’ve found it’s basically a waste of time that will give me nothing on a resume since half of my senior class is in it, and I do more community service through Rotary Club and JROTC. I’ll probably leave the group after this semester anyways, but I saw a practice that confused me a few weeks ago.
We had the opportunity to clean up our local debutante ball one night in order to get a whopping six hours of community service. I went, thinking this would be a good way to rack up some time, but when I left I felt like I had cheated the system.
From the time I set foot in the door to the time I left, we were there only 2.5 hours (1.5 of which we sat around eating pizza and waiting for the ball to end), and we still got 6 hours added to our service record.
I can’t find any bylaws or practices that say what exactly equals one service hour, but I know in JROTC we don’t follow that practice at all. You do one hour of service, you get one hour on your record down to the minute. Plain and simple.
Is this inflation of service hours a common practice for NHS, or is my school’s organization doing something wrong?
The NHS program really depends on your school. At my school you have to write an essay and receive 3 letters of recommendation from teachers/coaches/counselors just to be screened for acceptance into the program. (Along with the normal application you turn in). Then each event you sign up for is accurate to the hour, and each hour is used doing actual work. Not to mention you have to write at least a paragraph reflection/summary of the event to even turn in for credited hours on your record. NHS is just not that serious at your school.
@trailblazer11 It is not common. Same things happen at my school. I got 4 hrs of service for an event I only helped out with for 1 hr. They didn’t anticipate the event was going to end so early and they just sent us home.
It really depends on the school. Our school’s NHS program doesn’t do anything either. Couple activities here and there, but not anything the student council, rotary, and other clubs aren’t already doing.
I would say it also depends on the school. I’m an officer for my school’s NHS, and we usually utilize a 1:1 hour ratio. However, we did make one exception this year, when the school cancelled after-school tutoring after only 20 minutes. We gave everyone who showed up a full hour, because we figured that was only fair. Otherwise, if someone does 30 minutes, we give them 30 minutes. If someone does an hour, we give them an hour, not any more.