As Honor Students Multiply, Who Really Is One?

By WINNIE HU
Published: December 31, 2009

COMMACK, N.Y. — There have been so many honor societies created at Commack High School on Long Island in recent years that some students ended up in six or seven of them, racking up memberships like so many merit badges or thanks-for-playing trophies.

But the school reversed course this school year, cutting out its 28-student technology honor society and combining those for sign language, Latin, German and French. That left 11 societies, and a community wondering how much honor is too much.

With so many societies, some students are unable to attend all of the meetings and shirk their duties with the groups, showing up only to collect the “honor cord” — a decorative tassel — to wear at graduation.

Commack is one of many places where educators and parents are re-examining the role of honor societies, which started out as an academic distinction reserved for the top 5 or 10 percent of a class but have become a routine item on college résumés.

Read story: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/education/01honors.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

Sorry to be a smartass.

Your post just reminded me of those godawful stupid bumper stickers.

thing will just cause more of these companies to have to lay off more bumper sticker maker employees. We need MORE honor societies,
not fewer. There's a RECESSION going on, haven't you heard?

When I was in high school, there was NHS and that's it. (And I declined to join because their only two visible activities were volunteer tutoring of other students, which I was already doing on an informal basis pretty much every free period, and selling Christmas trees as a fundraiser - I forget for what - which I had no interest in.)

The article says "While the prestigious National Honor Society still requires members to maintain at least a 3.0 grade-point average (many chapters like Commack set the bar higher), fledgling societies in individual subjects often accept lower grades in other areas."

Ah, so that explains it. Everyone wants to be in an honor society because it looks good when they apply to college, but not everyone actually has the grades to qualify. Solution: Come up with new honor societies that don't require a student to actually have good grades!