NSHSS’ legal team is trying to silence us, harassing us with letters to try and clean up the first page of Google and what comes up when you search NSHSS scam.
If that doesn’t answer your question, maybe this will.
NSHSS is a pay-to-play “honor society” that sounds confusingly similar to NHS, which is a free and more prestigious honor society that most high schools have. NHS, however, doesn’t charge you a fee to give you the “privilege” to apply for scholarships.
Is it really an honor to pay to get the chance to apply for some scholarships?
Is it an honor if you need to pay for it?
Do some more research on independent sites that are a bit more hard to silence than the first page of Google.
In an interview with Local 10 in Miami, Karen Long, assistant vice president for undergraduate admissions at the University of Miami, denied having heard of the NSHSS.
“This is an organization that asks students to pay to be a part of it,” said Ms. Long. “That right there is a tip-off that we’re not talking about something that’s on the up-and-up.” Admissions officials also caution that including NSHSS membership on an application may distract from more impressive accomplishments and achievements that should be taking center stage.
Are they a scam in the sense that they promise to provide a service they are not providing? Technically no – assuming they send you the stole and list you as a “member”, they have fulfilled their promise.
But they definitely fall into the vast grey area of scammy, scummy organizations in that they are implying a promise of something they absolutely do not deliver. They imply that membership in their organization is prestigious or will confer some advantage to you – such as providing an advantage in college admissions. There is no advantage that these organizations offer because college admissions people know that they’re not representative of anything of substance. You simply pay a fee and become a member – nothing prestigious about that.
If they send you the stole, you like wearing it and it feels nice to be a “member”, then you haven’t been scammed. If you believe this is some sort of honor or prestige that others will recognize and will give you a benefit, then you’ve been a bit gullible and might want to see if you can get your money back.
Is it worth the money? Is it really an honor?
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
Recommended reading:
- Any NSHSS Reddit threads
- Any College Confidential NSHSS threads
- https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/nshss/1241551
- https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/is-nshss-legit-yay-or-nay/869529/9
- https://www.collegeprepresults.com/is-nshss-national-society-of-high-school-scholars-a-scam-or-a-real-award/
- https://www.local10.com/education/2016/11/07/high-school-honor-society-misleads-students/
- http://fuhsingspectator.weebly.com/school/nshss-legit-or-scam
I threw my NSHSS letter in the trash when I received it. I recommend you do some research and see if it’s right for you.