<p>so…</p>
<p>when one applies to a college — like harvard or bowdoin or middlebury or tufts, or princeton</p>
<p>does it matter if u include NHS?</p>
<p>is it better to NOT include it, or better to include it? explain why!</p>
<p>No, it’s good to include iet, but it’s sort of the constant or standard for ivy leaguers haha.</p>
<p>Don’t include it unless you either 1. Spent a lot of time on it and it’s really important to you or 2. You’re an officer.</p>
<p>Otherwise it’s just resume padding, and anyone who can get accepted to an elite college usually qualifies for NHS anyways. Colleges aren’t dumb.</p>
<p>Haha - my NHS is so funny. Some of our most qualified kids with top grades or top extracurricular achievement (like state awards across multiple activities) were denied b/c of dumb things they did freshman year (not drugs, or violence, or cheating or anything like that).</p>
<p>In my D’s high school, (and apparently many of the h.s.'s cited on CC), NHS is a political thing: students favored by the Dean for doing the particular campus activities she approves of (never anything remotely academically related, never arts related. If you’re a non-intellectual but a rah-rah, you’re in. If you’re an intellectual but happen to be on a highly visible PR type activity for the school, you’re in. (If you increase the school’s visibility, you’re increasing <em>her</em> visibility.) If you’re a sincere, committed but non-kiss-ass type, you’re out. Pardon my French. At this school, NHS is a crock. And plenty of students get into MIT and the Ivies & Stanford without it.</p>
<p>My school counselor didn’t even tell me about it and I took my PSATs my soph year and missed NHS by 5 points because of my PSATs. If I would have known I would have taken it again and actually tried. I was taking the PSAT to get experience for SATs. New School and I made Star Student for highest SAT score in school.</p>
<p>Put it down because colleges might wonder why you’re not in it. Think of it as something along the lines of “honor roll.” Not a big deal, but just something to put on there. Do try to accomplish something as a member though. Officership isn’t the point; lead a committee or organize an activity or event.</p>
<p>I had NHS under the awards section, so I didn’t explain my activities in the club. But yes, like most other CCers say to do, I did inform my colleges I am a member, although it was not on the EC list because I had other, more important commitments to list instead of NHS.</p>
<p>There was an incident in our little town where 20-30 kids (jr.'s)got caught last year at a party w/ONE case of beer. They were in trouble w/the police, but the H.S. ‘coded’ them and denied them access to NHS. The parents were outraged - they agreed w/the punishment doled out by the police, but fought like hell to stop the craziness from seeping into their kids academic lives. They lost. This was the top 20% of the class - needless to say, it was slim pickins for NHS. lol. These kids were top kids all around, and were told this was happening to them bc the distrct was going to make examples out of them bc they were ‘high profile kids.’ They are all waiting to hear from their colleges in a few weeks so I guess we’ll see if the absence of NHS on a top students records raised any red flags. I certainly hope not. This year the school changed back to the old coding system, where kids caught at parties where alchohol is present (even if they had not been drinking, which was the case w/over 50% of last years kids), they are only coded from sports. Crazy. Hope NHS is viewed by colleges to be as political and arbitrary as it is in many, many schools. The kids were offered to apply for it this year, but politely declined. They want to wear black cords instead of the NHS blue ones at commencement. Ha.</p>