NHS...worth it?

At my school, juniors who have above a 3.5 UW GPA get “accepted” into NHS. They can choose whether or not to join, but most people join it. I personally don’t have any interest in actually joining it because members just volunteer around the school, although it counts as volunteer hours, I would much rather prefer to spend my time working on other side projects that do help my community. Would I be at a disadvantage if I’m not in NHS, and all the advanced people in my grade are in it?

Not the first time the question has been asked. It’s a step above your good citizenship medal (said slightly tongue-in-cheek) if you don’t want to do it, don’t do it.

Worth it…to who?

To Colleges? They are more interested in the GPA, service and leadership that you did to qualify for NHS.
To You? that is up to you
TO your parents? This is a public recognition of all your hard work
To your school? This is the school recognizing high academic acheivers.

NHS
Let me tell you a secret:

  1. You can put on your college application you were inducted into NHS
  2. Your parents love that you were inducted into NHS. So proud!
  3. Colleges care more about the GPA/service hours in admissions than the NHS label
  4. So therefore, if you get kicked out of NHS because you didn’t do the service hours nobody will care
  5. You may be abel to wear the special cord at graduation

tl:dr Do it for your parents

@needtosucceed27

I know we message each other directly, but with that aside, I figure I might have some insight on whether NHS is worth the time. From my viewpoint (which is admittedly confined to the mostly non-participatory chapter at my HS), the commitment required is menial. I doubt that colleges will really be woed over by any minor involvement in an honor society. For all intensive purposes, I consider it as more of an award than anything.

Even still, and recognizing my skepticism, the opportunity can help to boost your reputation among teachers and parents on more of a two-dimensional level. While colleges might not clamor to NHS as some invaluable club experience, there’s nothing wrong in roaming around and doing some experimentation with different HS clubs.

Luckily in my case, I was able to cop the “National Honor Society Inductee” designation without piling on any more community service. In fact, all I’ve really done (as an officer) is stick to my routine of existing volunteering. Whether or not that raises red-flags, I wouldn’t get too overwhelmed with the perceived time commitments of such an activity.

It might behoove you to look over r/A2C for guidance tailored more towards the high schooler perspective. I know from the past College Confidential tends to mesh more heavily with the perspective of parents, but that forum is dominated entirely by students. And as for the feedback on NHS there, you may be surprised by the mixed signals redditors are giving. I think students are much more critical of NHS than parents are, possibly reflecting their biases on how it’s changed since they were involved back when the club was less oversaturated with admission-hounds.

I was a nominee for NHS and even though I applied, got rejected, and had the option to reapply, I didn’t for a couple reasons.

  1. The only use NHS might come in handy for an application is if someone had the exact same stats as you with the exact same extracurriculars or service hours. Otherwise, they really only care that you had the opportunity to participate and your GPA/test scores in general.
  2. NHS does not look even decent on an application if you did the bare minimum to stay in. If you were the president/vice president, did a bunch of work, and/or did something that really benefited the community, then you got their attention. However, if you were just selling cookies for a charity a couple times, it doesn’t mean that the work you did was worthless, but once again, it is something that really is only comparable to community service hours.

It is really your choice. The chance of it affecting your application is so low, so don’t feel pressured. If you are going to take it seriously and take every chance to participate and make a change, 100% join it. If you are gonna do the bare minimum, it really is not worth your time.

@BiologyMajorHere Did you get a reason for being rejected?