^ No, unfortunately. Since freshman year D has been a varsity athlete all three seasons, and is taking some courses that are very difficult for her since she is a former special ed student. Frankly, she has been at maximum capacity during the school year, which I am fine with because she has surpassed all our expectations. But alas, being on a school team is considered a purely selfish pusuit, lol. The rest of what she has done is ineligible due to being like an internship, or because it was done the summer before freshman year, which is outside the allowable time frame. So, D has decided to submit the application including the museum volunteering, with a note of explanation, and hope it works. If not, oh well.
Here, NHS is like a “good kid” stamp. (Btw, did you ever notice how when there’s a tragedy involving a teenager, the media mentions that the student was in National Honor Society? The implication is that the loss of the child is worse because he was a really good kid.) The honor connotes exemplary character, but I agree it doesn’t mean much from an academic standpoint for the top kids. That said, to parents of more average kids it’s a real point of pride. I guess we’re just grasping at it because it’s the only semi-academic honor within reach in time for college applications, and it would at least be something…As I posted on another thread, now our subject area honor societies require discipline-related EC involvement too. For example, in addition to A’s and course rigor in English, kids have to write for the newspaper or literary magazine or something to get into the English honor society.
Seems ridiculous that she cannot include the museum volunteering.
I have to add that, although my daughter’s school has a strong, active NHS group, we have very few other options for ECs because of our rural location. We also don’t have any honor societies for subject areas.
Also, my own high school NHS was entirely driven by popularity, teachers chose their favorites, and the group NEVER did anything in terms of community service. I was not invited, nor were many other high achievers. It didn’t hurt our college admits. I went to Mount Holyoke, a friend went to Pomona, another to Bowdoin and another to Colby. So there you go. I would not worry. She has her volunteering to put on those applications, the colleges will value the museum work.
NHS is nice on an app, but definitely not necessary for successful admittance to top colleges.
The schools in our district and neighboring districts eliminated NHS years ago. Before they did they evaluated whether it made ANY difference in college admissions. It did not.
I always felt that things like NHS, and also National Merit Semifinalist, and the AP awards tend to be overvalued. Everything that goes into the NHS application should also go into college applications. So unless you are planning on taking a very active role in NHS, it seems kind of pointless in terms of admissions. The same is true for awards for people with high test scores - test scores are already on your application, the award itself doesn’t really do more (unless the school gives specific scholarships for such awards of course). I wouldn’t worry about it, and maybe try to emphasize the museum work, which sounds a lot more interesting to me than being in NHS.
NHS doesn’t mean much at my D’s school and the requirements to get in are so onorous that many don’t bother with it. Maybe to clarify - its not the requirements are difficult to achieve academically or in number of hours, but everything has to be documented in a specific way with multiple adult attestations plus there are essays and frankly, its worse than any college application I’ve seen. Its just too much work to gather everything together for the portfolio and there doesn’t seem to be any real value. Many high achieving kids don’t bother with it. My D was invited last year as a junior but was too busy to do it. She was invited again this year as a senior and decided that there was no value as she had already been accepted to two schools and most of her other apps were already in.
NHS has always been a little weird, and I guess it’s significance has waned a little. In my HS (latter fourth of last century), you theoretically had to meet all four criteria, but often a kid missing one got in. This really irritated a friend of mine who did not have the grades, so was never identified by the school, but knocked it out of the park for the other three. He really got under the skin of school administration by fighting for membership since he had 3 out of 4, just like many other inductees. Friend ultimately fought for removing kids from membership that did not meet all requirements, and lost. This is the same kid that ran for school president and did not give the assembly speech that had been vetted, but that is a story for another time - only added here to show that the guy had a passion for questioning establishment.
It seems to me that even for those who think NHS is valuable in their school, it is mainly valuable as a high school activity or honor, as opposed to something that colleges care about. This reminds me a bit of the dilemma of top-notch musicians who don’t play in high school ensembles because of conflicts with other musical pursuits, or athletes who play on club teams instead of the high school team. It creates a bit of an issue in connection with the high school, but it makes sense in terms of the long-term strategy. It just seems to me highly unlikely that NHS needs to be part of anybody’s long-term strategy.
Not sure why NMSF would be at the same level of overvaluation as the other two, since some colleges do give scholarships for NMSF, though more do for those who advance to NMF.
Sorry to hear about NHS at your daughter’s school, TheGFG. I think that admissions committee members have grown knowledgeable about the frankly weird-o NHS policies at some schools, and don’t regard its absence as any sign of a problem.
I also understand that if it would be meaningful to your daughter (and it is clear that she deserves the recognition), it would be nice for her to be selected. So I hope that it may work out.
Additionally, I think that students are better off if they have not concluded that academic honors are a joke, and so the high schools should try to avoid letting them become a joke.
I can only tell you about a couple of local experiences: A year ahead of QMP, there was an outstanding student who was not selected for NHS as a junior, because her essay contained a statement of historical fact (truly clear-cut fact) that a faculty member objected to. I was very pleased to see that this student was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at her college as a junior. A few years after QMP graduated, there was a 3-way tie for valedictorian. The valedictorian who was not in NHS was going to Harvard.
You can have a well-run NHS and have either a well administered or poorly administered school. However, I have started to suspect that if the NHS is not well-run, it may be a sign of larger problems at the school.
^ I have noticed more illogical and capricious behavior from this school’s departments and organizations than in years past. The former principal, who was a smart guy, did a lot to improve various processes. The current principal pales in comparison, and seems to allow his staff to do whatever they want.
I think lizardly hit the nail on the head. They keep trying to make it tougher so it remains meaningful in a high-achieving environment, but it has become so restricted as far as how many hours per activity, how many different activities etc. that it is bordering on the absurd.
Coming soon: To be elected to NHS, you must have one service activity starting with a letter from A to E, one from F to J, one from K to O, one from P to T, and one from U to Z. Otherwise, your service activities are lacking in “quality.” (In this case, “quality” = “alphabet soup representation.” )
Our high school has a lot of requirements, but nothing like what the OP described. My oldest D was in NHS, and I don’t think it made a bit of difference to her. I know it didn’t affect college applications, and I don’t think it was an activity she particularly enjoyed or got much out of. I don’t care if younger is in NHS; I know the top students in older D’s class didn’t even bother to apply.
At my kid’s school, a fee needs to be paid with the application for NHS. As soon as I saw that, I told her she could not be in it - and assured her it would be ok.
I guess if you’re poor you don’t deserve to be in NHS either, at D’s school anyway. (Not that we are low-income, we could afford the fee with no problem, it was the principle… I found requesting a free very unsavory.)
In my own high school, back in the day, it was pretty much what #13 said.
I think if your kid has plenty of ECs and/or a part-time job, and gets decent grades, that’s enough for most colleges - and from what I hear, the top colleges don’t care about NHS…
They can make determination holistic and opaque, like the super-selective universities, but then they would be accused of corruption, favoritism, and unfairness at every turn. Or they can preset some automatically gradable criteria beforehand to avoid that perception, but then they can get into the kind of problem that you are describing where the preset criteria inadequately show who really is a top-end achiever, and/or may create undesired incentives.
Kind of OT but this phenomenon drives me nuts. IMO, the implication is that the loss of a kid with “lesser” credentials, say a kid with a B- average who has to work a fast food job after school is not nearly as tragic as the loss of an A student who is a member of NHS.
I was a member of NHS back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and by no means, then or now, were all of them “really good kids”. Some of the NHS kids at my kids’ schools were well-known weekend partiers and some were simply not good people in spite of having academic achievements. Astonishing, I know.
The media mentions if the kid was a lifeguard at the town pool, if the kid mowed lawns in the neighborhood, if the kid sang in the church choir. When a woman is run over it mentions that she was a grandmother who played mah jong; when a man dies in a house fire it states that he was a proud member of Knights of Columbus and collected old farm implements.
This is most emphatically not a value judgement on NHS. It’s just another factoid to round out an article about a tragedy. It’s called journalism 101. No reporter gives a %^&* about NHS. There’s a template to fill out when filing a story about a car crash, a drowning, whatever. It involves some color commentary after the name, age, circumstances, professional affiliation (for a grownup, where they worked. For a kid, where they went to school).
I feel for your experience. When I applied last year, I thought the same thing, and the results from my class proved the system’s shortcomings:
Our valedictorian (99.37 avg) got denied from NHS on the basis that he didn’t volunteer enough. He had amassed at least 250 hours volunteering on our county’s Youth Court, but I guess he put it in the EC part of the app so he only had Key Club for the volunteering section.
The icing on the cake for him was that some students who had stolen a Trig test less than a year before applying got in. So much for the honor in National Honor Society.
Ours is ridiculous and allows church activity in general (“actively involved in youth group”) to count towards needed points… Ummm…some kids don’t go to church! I think our whole NHS is a total sham anyway. It made me ill seeing kids who I know for a fact had been caught cheating (it was a homework assignment but still) smiling and receiving their “honor” society certificate. The principle barely uttered 2 minutes worth of a speech and then the names were called off in lightning speed and pretty much everyone went home. Ugh. So much for praising all the hard work these kids put out and so much for all the kids who didn’t have enough points to get in even though they were invited to apply.
Seems dependent on the school. My S’12 was caught collaborating on a homework assignment with another student in the hall as a 9th grader and one punishment was that he’d be ineligible for NHS as a junior (could apply as a senior).
)