My son periodically receives Invitations for membership into various honor societies/fraternities. So far he hasn’t joined any. This one comes with an $85 membership fee. For now my son really isn’t looking to pad his resume. It is just a question of if there is any real benefit to membership. There are a couple of things like “personal success coaching” , and “Leadership Collection” which is supposed to help with interviewing, but is any of this really helpful? I have to say that one thing that makes me question the legitimacy is that “Resume Enhancement” is listed as the second benefit under Scholarships and Awards. (The enhancement being membership in the organization). Really, if membership is based on scholarship doesn’t the college transcript tell that story without a need for any Greek Letters?
I would be interested in hearing if anyone has any experience with this organization or if there are any honor societies/fraternities that folks have had positive experiences with. All of the invitations come to our home rather than to my son at school so if there is a worthwhile one I will keep an eye out for it.
@spectrum2 I doubt that any of honors societies are worth joining or even adding to a college application. I feel the same way about the invitations we get to attend various invitation-only summer programs. See Chapter 17 of “25 Tips from the Dean.” http://files.collegeconfidential.com/CC_e-book.pdf
I pretty much had the same thoughts about these as you both do but I thought I’d check to see if anyone had any legit positive experience. I do wonder if joining something just to add a line to the resume is a positive or if it is seen as a negative.
I’m in it at another school and originally joined for padding. I’ve only dealt with one meeting so far and really not sure about it yet. Once you’re an initiated member, it doesn’t look like there’s much else to it except for volunteer hours (maybe) and meetings. It’s the requirements for initiation that seem a little silly to me. I’m planning on getting a masters and doctorate eventually so having extracurriculars is always a plus.