As my kids get older, I gain clarity regarding the general silliness of most of the hoops they and their friends have (or have not) jumped through over their K-12 years. Hardly any of it made one whit of difference in the general trajectory of their lives.
NHS is one of those things that seemed vitally important to my oldest. Let me rephrase that. GETTING IN to NHS seemed vitally important. Actually BEING IN NHS only meant getting volunteer hours signed and handed in. By our third kid, we were experts at advising her to her keep track of hours volunteered and keeping track of things she participated in starting in 9th grade to make the NHS application easier. It was just a big slog of silliness… EXCEPT that the process of gathering info needed to apply to NHS was great practice for college applications the following year.
A couple of years ago our school district streamlined the NHS requirements for all 12 high schools, and literally half of my youngest’s graduating class wore NHS cords to graduation… Which really negated the whole thing as being meaningful in any way.
It may feel like NHS is important in high school and within your community, but in the wider world (including college applications) it is meaningless.