<p>^^There have been dozens of threads on this organization over the years. A few posters say it’s legit, but most regard it as a scam. It’s not very selective. One parent reported his daughter had been invited to join with a 2.7 GPA. It’s evidently a real organization - they’ll answer the phone if you call them. But their main function appears to be to separate you from $60 of your money.</p>
<p>My rule of thumb is that any “honor” you have have to pay for is no honor.</p>
<p>It is listed as a for-profit organization for tax purposes.</p>
<p>EAO - To answer your “High School Scholars” question, allow me to share with you my personal retirement income plan 
:</p>
<p>I’ll plan to come up with a grandiose title. Something like “National All-American Honor Society of Scholarly High School Servant Leaders.” Then I’ll look around until I find someone with a famous last name who’s looking for an easy buck. An Einstein would be great. A Nobel is also good. Settle for a Roosevelt, Eisenhower or Kennedy if I must. Pay that person to be my figurehead and to write a letter indicating how this society perpetuates the life works of their famous distant relative, and how kids like the recipient’s are the inheritors of the world that great-step-granddad helped to create. Send Fred Roosevelt’s letter to every guidance counselor in the country and ask for nominees, explaining how great it will be for their school when they can publicize all their honored students, how the honor is free, and how those students will be aided in their college searches and have a shot at generous scholarships. Create a glitzy promotional piece to send out to all the parents of the GCs’ nominees, indicating how prestigious this honor is and how the proud parents will surely want to pay only $69 for the hardcover NAAHSSHSSL book (or $119 for the deluxe faux leather bound version, and perhaps $49 for the framed certificate, $19 for the key ring, and $199 for the coveted semi-precious jeweled pin by which the Society’s honorees recognize one another). Put a couple percent of the revenue in a scholarship fund and give out modest grants to the students who write the best testimonials about how the Society helped them get into the dream school for which they’d have never otherwise been competitive. Redirect a substantial amount of the revenue into a special one-week Washington D.C.-based “Young Leaders of America” seminar, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for which next year’s parents will have to raise only $3850. Put the rest of the proceeds into my retirement fund, except for a couple grand which I’ll want to use the next year to fire Fred Roosevelt and hire Fred Einstein.</p>
<p>EAO,</p>
<p>I’m being sarcastic. I didn’t read the whole policy at first and felt reassured. Then when I read the rest of it I realized it is idenitical to our state U’s policy where we have deaths occurring all the time from alcohol intoxication. </p>
<p>I am not against alcohol. Husband and I are very big into wine and we are not screaming at our kids to never ever drink. I actually would be for changing our alcohol laws to be like France where alcohol is part of the family meal and incorporated in a fairly healthy way into life. By pushing the driinking age to 21 I think they’ve ended up causing more drinking problems among our youth.</p>
<p>Do I think alcohol is a horrible problems at Harvard? Heck no. It’s like all the universities and that means it’s just a stupid mess. It’s actually really pathetic if you think about it that we find ourselves as parents being grateful that our kids’ peers get “amnesty” for getting them to an ER if they’re about to croak from booze. Something is really wrong here.</p>
<p>And I am bothered by the willingness of all concerned to disregard the law. Stupid as it may be, it is the law and I just find myself turned-off by the total disregard for it.</p>
<p>Regarding Harvard, I guess there isn’t much they can realistically do. Perhaps incentives such as “get caught drinking under-age and no EC involvement for a semester” or “get caught drinking under-age more than once and you’re out of the running for graduating with honors.”</p>
<p>It seems as if there are consequences they could implement short of a Draconian expulsion that would nonetheless get the students’ attention.</p>
<p>Their current policy is not curtailing drinking in the slightest because there is simply no real consequence for doing it. And that sends a pretty strong message that the college is, in fact, condoning it.</p>
<p>Is anyone familiar with MA law regarding alcohol and 18-20 yr-olds? I’m sure buying, serving and driving under the influence are prohibited, but is it unlawful for adults to drink alcohol when under 21 on private property?</p>
<p>This is a complicated issue, and I’m sure it has been discussed to death elsewhere, but for me, under-21 adult students drinking at Harvard is no different from drinking at home. Their dorm is their home and the Harvard campus is private property.</p>
<p>While I am concerned about students who might drink themselves to death, I tend not to get too worked up over college drinking in general if no one is driving.</p>
<p>In 1984, the Federal Government raised the drinking age to 21 from 18, because research showed youth motor vehicle injuries and deaths declined from a higher minimum drinking age.</p>
<p>As most of us know, there was plenty of drinking and partying before 1984; but I don’t remember any significant number of students being hospitalized for alcohol poisoning on my campus, albeit there were a number of people that were hospitalized for drugs, primarily marijuana and sedatives use.</p>
<p>Since the relevant questions seem to be: are things worse than they used to be or not, if so why, and what can be done about it, I did a bit of research over the last few days on excessive college drinking over the years.</p>
<p>As it turns out, the percentage of college age binge drinkers has not changed much over the last 15 years; but the intensity of binge drinking has. For example, the male college binge drinker in the past may have had 5-10 drinks in a sitting; in many cases, this has now become 10-15, or more drinks, landing more students in the hospital. The specific reasons for this increase are unclear.</p>
<p>As for the general reasons for college drinking, many have been listed in this forum including: the college party culture in our country, peer pressure, new found freedoms away from home, the need to experiment, the unique pressures the very accomplished Harvard Freshman face (e.g. by definition, half of them will now be below the class average), the negative efffects associated with a higher drinking age, and the lack of any significant penalties.</p>
<p>My sense is Harvard is doing much to attempt to address the problem without going over board. Among other things, it discusses alcohol and drug use and its effects, University rules, and State law in Freshman Opening days, a 2 part, 6 hour on-line Alcohol Education course is required of all freshman, and its support services for those in need are significant .</p>
<p>Yet all these efforts and the nice, adult dorm proctors don’t seem to be deterring the incidence of campus drinking and particularly the out of control binge drinker. It does seem there needs to be some kind of meaningful penalty for drinking on campus (at least for freshman), and there can also be a role for positive incentives that can be dreamed up. </p>
<p>Lastly, it appears the University tries to keep parents at arms length from their freshman offspring at school, particularly in the age of helicopter parents; but there is an ongoing role parents can play that should be encouraged. Using their influence to get their kids to drink responsibly (at a minimum) or not drink at all in their early college years is a responsibility that should not end with freshman leaving home in August.</p>
<p>The Harvard “Amnesty Policy” regarding seeking help for high-risk intoxication is the “industry standard” at responsible U.S. colleges. It needs not condone underage drinking, and it can certainly be combined with consistent enforcement and consequences for breaking the law. But in its intent, it is similar to the standard practice of providing free condoms at university student health centers, which often draws criticism from people outside the institution. Amnesty for reporting alcohol poisoning and condoms for sexually-active students (65-75% of American college students have been sexually active before arriving on campus as freshmen) prevent deaths from circumstances that are entirely foreseeable facts of life. Period. For the past three centuries, no amount of education, religion, or supervision has ever kept a sizable proportion of college-age Americans from experimenting with intoxicants or sexuality. Goal one is to prevent young people from losing their lives as a result of that experimentation. After that comes education and enforcement.</p>
<p>I made a big mistake and booked two extra rooms for Parents Day (10/22- 10/25), one at the Harvard Square Hotel and one at the Inn at Harvard. Don’t ask how I did this stupid thing, but fortunately they brought it to my attention today and are being very nice about only charging me for one room’s extra night (there’s a 48 hour cancellation policy). I’m hoping they can still book both rooms in which case I won’t have to pay any penalty.</p>
<p>So if anyone is interested in staying at either of these hotels for Parent Weekend but had found them booked solid, there may now be a room or two available.</p>
<p>Back to the drinking: I do not abdicate my parental responsibilities merely due to the fact my children are now in college. I do not expect Harvard to step into this role. I do not want my child, nor any of his fellow students, to take one second to consider possible discipline when an alcohol emergency is in front of him. I fully support amnesty policies and believe that disciplinary measures will not work to decrease alcohol use on campus. Continued education along with examples will make the most impact.
Also, I believe. Harvard is a member of the coalition of colleges working toward reducing the Federal drinking age to 18.</p>
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<p>That really does make feel better - and no sarcasm what so ever. When we make it a taboo we open the Pandora’s Box.</p>
<p>curious77, If you are talking about the [Amethyst</a> Initiative » Welcome to the Amethyst Initiative](<a href=“http://www.amethystinitiative.org/]Amethyst”>http://www.amethystinitiative.org/) Harvard has not signed on.</p>
<p>As the kids say “my bad”. Other child attends Stanford and (I believe I read) they are part of the initiative.<br>
Who is enjoying parents’ weekend? I could not make it and would like to experience it vicariously through comments of those attending.</p>
<p>My wife and I are dying about this weekend (even though our son is a sophmore). He just told us that he is singing with the Glee Club on Friday (with a solo), on Saturday with Glee Club Lite, on Sunday with the Choir and later on Sunday with the Choral Fellowes. Oh, to be rich enough (or close enough) to hear him sing.</p>
<p>anyone back yet from Parents Weekend? my hubby had a wonderful time last year with our son.</p>
<p>we had a nice time; cold on Friday and very wet on Saturday; my husband and I really liked the programs offered. Parents are a friendly group and it’s no wonder their kids are so special too. We found other than taking our son out to dinners we had very little to do with him and other students though.</p>
<p>Just got back from Parents Weekend. Had a great time, meeting son’s friends and seeing sophomore daughter as well. Great group of kids, love my son’s proctor and son is really happy with his dorm, life etc. Son did have 3 papers due on Monday and Tuesday as part of his final midterm stuff which did put a damper on some of our activities. Did go out to dinner with roommates and parents on Friday which was fun, took a few kids who were orphaned. Son’s proctor treated the “orphaned kids” to dinner Saturday night which I thought was really nice. Spent about 10 minutes at the football game (very rainy). Bought a sweatshirt…All in all it went too quickly. </p>
<p>On the drinking front, I have always been an advocate of “logical consequences” or consequences that make an impact. Perhaps kids consistently caught binge drinking should have to perform community service in a halfway house or alcohol abuse center or homeless shelter where they can see the effects of drug and alcohol abuse first hand. Or Harvard could require them enter a substance abuse counseling program or some sort of counseling to address the issues that caused them to drink so much in the first place.</p>
<p>When we consider college-age drinking, I think we adults often try to understand it from our own age-group’s perspective. But from the perspective of a recent adolescent, alcohol is a social lubricant at precisely the time in their lives when their social skills (particularly around potential romantic partners) are typically pretty squeaky. It’s occurred to me that we might put a dent in it if we just assigned a significant other at Freshman Orientation, as we do a proctor. It would be interesting to take a look at the subset of college frosh in stable romantic relationships who go off to the same college as their same-year significant other. I’d bet that the incidence of underage drinking and bingeing among that group is considerably lower than among the entire freshman population because their need to medicate away social awkwardness is much less.</p>
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<p>I’d prefer to see these brilliant adults indentured to lobby for lowering the drinking age. If they could legally drink, alcohol would lose its appeal as a source of “dangerous/risky excitement,” which is probably how students view it now. Being drunk would cease to impress anyone as an act of rebelliousness, and drunkards would more likely be shunned for their stupidity and lack of self-control.</p>
<p>Bay, if you read my earlier post, I too agree that 21 is too old and I agree that part of the reason many drink is precisly because it is illegal and thus exciting and cool. I do think however that regardless of age, many people have issues with alcohol abuse and that we should be addressing this as well.<br>
Sew Happy said “It seems as if there are consequences they could implement short of a Draconian expulsion that would nonetheless get the students’ attention” My suggestion was in response to that comment.</p>
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<p>I don’t think the illegality is pushing college kids to drink. Because here in San Diego we live only a few miles north of the Mexican border - south of which the legal drinking age is 18. And every weekend you see the discouraging sight of carloads of undergrads from UCSD and San Diego State headed south to Tijuana to get drunk. Why in Tijuana? Because there it’s legal.</p>
<p>If illegality were the basis of the thrill, they’d stay in San Diego to drink.</p>