D20 goes to an independent private school and they don’t have any honor societies.
S17 had Cum Laude society at his HS - top 10% were inducted in January of Senior year and another 10% were inducted in June of Senior year. S20 is at a small school with no honor society.
Our large, public CA high school recognizes the top 10% (weighted GPA), but has no real honors societies, and no NHS. There’s just the California Scholarship Federation, which requires a 3.5 GPA.
After hearing what the NHS entails in some of the schools here, I am even more glad that our DS’ school got out of NHS completely a couple of years ago.
@whataboutcollege congratulations! We are still at the learner’s stage here.
At our schools its the highest honor you can get. Straight A students don’t necessarily get in. It’s more of a service organization for the community. I got a slight chuckle about the kids tutoring other kids. Isn’t that what teachers are for?
@Nicki20 there are senior NHS kids in the library 2 hours a day 3 days a week after school. A lot of kids in all grades go to those tutoring hours. That’s a lot more hours than most teachers provide and some kids are more comfortable going to a peer tutor than to the teacher. Both my kids went to the peer tutoring for various classes in 9th and 10th grade and my older daughter very much enjoyed the peer tutoring she did in 12th. She was tutoring kids in first year chem while she was in IB HL Chem and when you have to explain something to someone it really strengthens your own knowledge of the topic. I have some issues with how our NHS members and officers are selected but the peer tutoring aspect is a win/win for both the tutors and the tutees.
Peer tutoring is very prevalent at our school - although completely disconnected from NHS. It’s great for kids who just need a bit of extra support.
I apologize for my bit of insensitivity about the tutoring. My daughter has never has been tutored. She has I know have helped kids “unofficially” with school work. As to how kids are selected for NHS its never going to be perfect. But that goes for a lot of things. My daughter know of kids who weren’t selected but may have been more qualified. Its certainly not kids with the top 40 GPA’s that get in and in my opinion that’s probably correct.
My daughter has finally hit the brick wall, so to speak. She is struggling in one class and has decided that she needs tutoring for the first time. To me, this is a big deal as many students go off to college never having learned how to ask for help and run into trouble at school.
@lilmom I agree! My daughter made straight A’s all the way through her freshman year of high school without even trying. I was actually glad when she struggled in a couple of classes her sophomore year. She’s starting to learn how to ask for help, but more importantly, how to create good study habits and study “smarter” rather than just study more.
Guess we are going to receive PSAT results in December. DD17 is NM scholar (one take on SAT 1550), her status got her additional N.M. scholarship from Vandy besides her full tuition merit scholarship. DS is our minimum requirement kid who just wants to go to our local option, U of Pittsburgh. He signed up for SAT in Dec, and has been getting anywhere between 1420 and 1480 on SAT practices, which I forced him do the last two weekend. Does this mean that he can possibly get commended status? Any guess on what is the cut off on commended and how to convert the scores?
The weird thing is that we will get PSAT on Dec 10th, and SAT results on Dec 14th.
The selection index for PA was 220 for the class of 2019. Wouldn’t you need to wait until the PSAT results are issued as the NM scholarship is tied to that. Converting practice SAT tests at home to an official proctored PSAT test is a bit of backyard alchemy. 
ACT from October are posted if you log in
Wish we could get PSAT scores too!
Good luck to all expecting ACT scores today!!
@fencingmom It looks like the NM child referenced in the above post is an older sibling who graduated in 2017 and is currently at Vanderbilt. The 2020 child has been getting 1420-1480 results on practice tests.
D20 bombed her science portion of the ACT - as in she got the exact same score she got when she took the test in 8th grade. I mean, seriously, she couldn’t have learned SOMETHING in three years? Anyway, it brought her composite score down by seven points (if you recalculate it without the science score). Looks like SAT may be her test. Can’t wait to see the PSAT results in December.
tutumom2001; did your D20 study at all? just curious as my S20 is taking it in Dec and hasn’t cracked a book yet. I’m hoping its better than his test he took as a freshman, but it could end up being similar. Score fluctuations are so strange sometimes.
We’ve found the whole testing thing to be crazy! My daughter had a 1490 on the PSAT in 10th grade, took the August SAT and with answering fewer questions wrong, dropped her score 50 points (1440) - she knew the test was easy and the curve was brutal, but was still extremely disappointed. Took the ACT for the first time in October and scored 35! Now we wait for the PSAT results, but have no clue what to expect - I wouldn’t have thought there’d be so much variability in the scores.
@tutumom2001 Yes, That’s what I was saying, trying to suss out potential PSAT scores from practice SAT tests is a guessing game.
Also, the science portion of the ACT is a poorly designed section of that test. Most admissions departments know that and evaluate accordingly. MIT does not even consider that score when evaluating applicants.
Darcy123 – nice score for your daughter. well done! I’d be interested in hearing her PSAT score at some point if you don’t mind sharing.