Welcome! When it comes to college applications, a lot of parents and students want to know what other students are doing to make sure that they are competitive with their peers.
One of the most common things to include on a college application is admission into an honor society, particularly among students applying to selective colleges.
Honor societies often get confused - some parents think they are highly selective and set applicants apart, while others view them as generic checklist items that do not really move the needle.
As usual, the truth is somewhat more complicated, and our hope is that this post will assist you in understanding what honor societies.
What is an honor society?
An honor society is a formal national recognition of accomplishment achieved by a specific student. Usually, an individual school will have a chapter of the national group, with the chapter usually meeting some specific qualifications set by the national group.
The most common is the National Honor Society, which has existed for over a hundred years. The requirements will vary by chapter to some extent, but there is usually some specific requirements:
GPA requirements
Community Service requirements
Demonstrated leadership
Demonstrated character
While the National Honor Society is probably the most famous, there are several others. Honor societies can exist for almost any affinity group (e.g., Spanish) and simply require excellence in that given area.
As time has gone on, there have been more and more honor societies that have been created, each with various requirements.
Do honor societies matter on college applications?
Yes and no.
The answer really depends on the nature of the school you are applying to.
The more competitive the school you apply to, the less it will move the needle by having it on your resume.
But that’s only part of the story.
If you apply to UPenn, being in a national honor society will not sit you apart from the other applicants. But if you are NOT in an honor society, that will stand out, because almost everyone else is in one.
But if you were to apply to University of Texas - San Antonio, being in the National Honor Society will easily move the needle. Why? Because the nature of the applicants applying to a less selective college means that there are more in the pool who do not have an honor society on their resume.
Additional Considerations
One of the latest trends in honor societies is to create more selective societies to help move the needle for applicants.
As with many things, the problem with honor societies that are ubiquitous is that if more people meet the requirements, it inherently becomes worth less. It is basic economics - if you increase supply, you will ultimately lower demand for a good.
To combat this, many have taken to joining more selective honor societies, including those they have to pay to be members of. The hope is that in doing so, they lower the number of students who can quantify and thus increase the value of adding it to their application.
In our opinion, you should take as many honor society positions as you can, but you should NEVER pay to be a member of a group.
Any college that is selective will not be moved by this in your application
Remember, colleges care less about the number of items on your resume, and more about the impact of what you do in the extracurriculars you are a part of
Honor societies show that you have achieved, but that can be shown in other ways. Paying to get something on your resume hardly ever works out. Find other ways to stand out.
Hopefully this helps explain honor societies. Have questions? Let us know and happy to discuss in further detail.