In the middle of summer, a select amount of incoming juniors will receive an envelope addressed from the school saying they have been invited to apply for National Honor Society because their GPAs meet a certain minimum. Then in the fall some will apply in hopes of securing a spot in this “prestigious” honor society.

I was one of those students, and l was accepted into NHS. Excitedly, I trotted to my first meeting, ego inflated, but when I arrived I didn’t feel as special as I had expected, and there was barely any prestige associated with this honor society.

Sitting among upwards of 400 students made me come to the realization that NHS served no other purpose but as a college application filler and a reason for students to brag that they were academically intelligent.

Although I was grateful to be accepted, NHS felt like a waste of my time. The only requirement to retain membership is to obtain 20 hours of community service and these 20 hours are completed by students for selfish reasons. Most kids just want the title and a cord so they go to a nursing home and volunteer for two hours, not because they want to help others but because they want to help themselves.

In addition, the club does not provide much substance to college applications because of the amount of students involved. Although most of these students are in the top of their class, this means they will be applying to the same schools and if admissions see all their applicants from Naperville Central have NHS listed, it does not set an applicant apart.

While I think NHS may be a great organization nationally and the idea is sound, at Central, the execution is poor and seems to be a thing students do just to add to college applications.

Now I know what you may be thinking: I’m saying all of this, yet I’m still a member of NHS.      

At the beginning of senior year, hypocritically I stayed in NHS for the reason many other students do: because I wanted to wear that glittering gold cord at graduation. But after I was informed I could order one on Amazon for $6 dollars, I quit the next day.