My daughter is trying to decide if it’s worth applying to NHS as a high school junior. Deadline is near, time is short and she’s all over the place. I was never invited and have no experience. Reaching out to the Dope for your experiences. Either yours or your children. Was it beneficial? I view it mostly as a resume addition for the college admissions process, but I’m probably biased. Does it add value to the admissions process?
So Dope, what do you say?
It’s an honor. As I recall, there is no responsibility or work involved. (40 year old info)
I suppose it’s of some benefit at some colleges, but my uniformed guess is that it’s probably not significant. It pleases the parents, and costs nothing. That’s all I got.
I have a hard time imagining it really means much of anything in any applications. Little more than a “Who’s Who” type of thing.
There is SOME value to just adding lines to one’s resume, but for openings that REALLY mean something, I suspect real experiences conveying real experience and growth would be weighted much more heavily.
For highly selective colleges, NOT being in NHS can be a very mild red flag. If they have the grades, why aren’t they? Is there a reason the faculty committee voted against allowing them in?
The application should not be rigorous. Generally one lists activities and has a parent sign off. In my experience, there is a community service requirement to remain an active member.
If a student is looking to be more engaged in their community, NHS can provide access to group community service projects that are interesting. Once a student is engaged in a project, that can lead to other work with that organization. That, more than NHS, can be relevant in a college application. If a student is already over-committed, it’s less important.
While she is unlikely to apply to Canadian schools, my experience with admissions up here is people would think it was a gullible act
I was in NHS in high school, and it was mostly a chance to get on stage in front of a student assembly. We didn’t really do anything else (no one did service projects back then, we had our own families and farms to help with)… BUT
The high school had a traditional senior trip, for all of the seniors, from the small town in South Dakota to the big city, either Chicago, Kansas City (!), or Winnipeg (!!!). That was actually quite an experience for a lot of kids who never got a chance to travel. The year before I was a senior, some kids decided that since the drinking age was 18 in Canada, and they were 18, that it would be OK to party hardy, even though it was a school-sponsored trip. The administration came down hard when they found out, cancelling the spring musical and the entire track season.
That would have been the end of the senior trips, except they decided that perhaps we could trust the seniors in NHS with a shorter trip, this time to Minneapolis (another big-time trip for many of us). We kept ourselves in-line (mostly), and at least the NHS students got to do something that others didn’t.
Many NHS chapters sponsor trips to regional and nation events and competitions. I’m the local advisor for PTK (Phi Theta Kappa), the community college national honor society, and trips are big part of the lure. Beyond the trips, it’s mostly for showing families their accomplishments, and doesn’t hurt to put on resumes and university applications; some university applications have that as a checkbox. Most students join just because they’re asked to join, and honored to know that their hard work is being recognized.
I was in National Beta Club and National Honor Society. I think you had to have a 3.0 GPA to be in the former and a 3.5 GPA to be in the latter.
Was it a big deal? At the scale of the universe, no. But in the insular world of academically-inclined, college-bound youth, it’s one more thing to hang your hat on. And it’s a marker of status, for kids who are into that kind of thing. I think at my school, you had a special subscript printed next to your name in the graduation program if you were in the NHS.
The only real benefit that I got out of being in the NHS is that it made for a great excuse for school-sanctioned mischief. Like, for some reason they entrusted the NHS kids with updating the electronic marquee in front of the school. It is amazing how a five-minute task that can easily be accomplished by a single person would always seem to require an hour out of class and 20 people. We NHS kids were notorious for using NHS business as an excuse for why we were late for class, why we had to leave class early, and why we were in the halls during class. And teachers would go along with the ruse because we were precious angels (or maybe they were just picking their battles).
I know that’s not really a benefit. But still, it was fun being under the NHS halo even if it was kinda bullshit.
I was selected, I declined. The staff at my school didn’t know what to do with that.
It looked really dorky and they had really dorky initiation rites that I wanted nothing to do with.
Didn’t hurt me getting into college, didn’t hurt my career.
Agreed, it’s one of the baselines to have on the resume of a student who’s applying to competitive colleges. As MandaJO says, not having it might be a minor red flag. Both my kids were in NHS and in their schools it was a given that kids who had the grades would apply. The application isn’t difficult either. My older one was in honors classes and all her classmates were in NHS except for a kid who had too many absences (I think that students out for over 12 days during the school year weren’t eligible).
My experience is with my older sister, me, and my three kids. The initiation rites involve getting somewhat dressed up and sitting through a boring presentation in the HS auditorium.
The only thing my kids had to do was pass out programs at graduation ceremonies before they were seniors. I don’t remember doing anything other than sitting for a group picture for the yearbook.
I can’t think of a reason not to go for it… it may not make a difference but it can’t hurt.
As far as I can remember (from the mid 60’s) I got nothing out of it except something to put on my college applications. Whether that did me any good or not I couldn’t say. I was already branded indelibly in high school as a swot (a derogatory British term that seems to mean someone who actually studied and did the required work) and a dork, and this didn’t change anything. It didn’t hurt me either. So I guess I would recommend she go ahead with it.
It never did anything for me. Except a bragging point to my brothers. The lil’wrekker put it in college aps.
I was my school’s NHS advisor. NHS requires 15 hours of community service, some of which must consist of NHS group projects. Many of the members were so overbooked, it was hard for them to get in the hours and make the meetings.They were in it mostly for college apps, though NHS also offers scholarships.
Huh. We didn’t even HAVE NHS at my high school.
Thinking back to the olden days when I was in, all I recall is getting a pin, and maybe there was a ceremony. I know there was no service requirement or application, but that was almost 50 years ago. I have no idea if it was any value on my college applications - all I cared about was getting into my first choice school, which I did.
I never even heard about it, until now, (though I would have qualified).
Sounds like some kind of scam to me.
Huh. I was in NHS, back in the dark ages when I was in school. We did no community service projects. We had no meetings. Really, apart from the very dull initiation ceremony, it had no effect on my high school experience at all.
The initiation in our school was wearing a (poorly made) paper plate based chicken (? something avian) costume designed to make you look stupid, all day. And some other stuff that I forget.
I didn’t see why I should do that at all, for a nothing “honor”, so I blew them off.
I wouldn’t have done well in a frat, or a service academy. I naturally rebel against hazing rituals, no matter how innocuous.
I am a high school teacher. I don’t sponsor NHS, but I have helped by serving on a teacher committee that reviews and narrows down the applications.
Things have changed a good bit since I was in NHS as a student in the early 1990s. Being selected to be in it was pretty much exclusively based on our grades, and not having disciplinary issues. The only thing we did in NHS back then was go to a ceremony to be inducted, and then help run the induction ceremony the next year. That was it. And you got a nifty stole to wear at graduation. Nowadays, our NHS is much more active with regular monthly meetings and activities. Community service is emphasized (in fact, they get kicked out if they don’t earn their service hours each term) and is one of the primary criteria we look at (after the GPA and conduct standards are met) when reviewing the applications.
With regards to college applications, I agree with others that simply having ‘NHS member’ on your transcript is not a very big deal, but it may be expected by the more selective universities. On the other hand, the community service projects that a student might participate in as part of their NHS membership could be listed individually on a transcript and that might make them a more attractive candidate. Also, as with any other group or club, being an officer or other type of leader in the club will be more significant to colleges than simply being a member.
NHS is free, or nearly so. There are other “Honor” societies out there that are definitely scams though. My kids got a few letters in the mail inviting them to join some prestigious honor societies for the low, low price of $200-$500.