The standards for entrance into the National Honor Society are scholarship. Leadership, character, and service. Through this paper I will strive to prove that I possess all of these qualities, and moreover, that I am qualified for entrance into an organization as prestigious as the National Honor Society. Over the past four years as a scholar, I believe that I have demonstrated all of these characteristics.
That I have the scholarly ability required to be a NHS member is indicated simply by the fact. That I was nominated for entrance into the NHS in the first place, though since I get the impression that more than this is required. I will point out that I have consistently made the honor roll every quarter during my years in both High- and Middle-school. Also, my involvement in the schools Jets TEAMS (Test of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics. And Science) team during my Junior year functions as an indicator of my scholarship.
Jets TEAMS is an intense, annual competition in which schools send 8 of their strongest students to compete against other schools in a nationwide contest. During my Junior year I was fortunate enough to be selected. As one of the eight students (only 3 of whom were Juniors) who would go to the competition. And through our teams efforts, we were able to come in first in the state of Connecticut, earning recognition not just for ourselves, but for the town of Granby as well. Through my involvement in Jets TEAMS and my solid academic record, I feel that I have demonstrated the scholarship required for entrance into the National Honor Society.
It is difficult to narrow things down to a single situation in which I have demonstrated leadership qualities to the extent that is required for entrance into the NHS, but for the purposes of this paper (and the sake of brevity), I will focus on my past involvement in the People to People: Student Ambassador Program. People to People is a nationally recognized organization which sends groups of American students to foreign countries where they can learn about another culture by experiencing it firsthand. Their itinerary also stresses the development of leadership skills and the importance of teamwork. Through my involvement in this program, aside from learning a lot about a foreign culture (I traveled to Australia for 3 weeks), I also learned a great deal about the responsibilities and obligations that go along with being a leader. Shortly after the start of the trip, I was nominated to be one of three Student Delegation Leaders.
As a delegation leader it was my job to help organize group activities and meetings, as well as to find and help resolve any conflicts between individual delegation members. Through my time spent as a delegation leader, I learned a lot about the compromise, fairness, and responsibility that are required if one is be a good leader of others. I often found myself having to sacrifice my own free time and personal desires for the benefit of the group. This, I believe, is the most important part of being a leader, the ability to sacrifice some of the things you want for the overall gain of the people that you are leading. I have also learned a lot about the role a leader must play in group/team dynamics through my involvement in the Granby Tennis Team. I won’t elaborate on this point, however, as this paragraph is already becoming monstrous in scope.
Service is the quality of NHS members which I have the hardest time finding an example for. I have never been involved in community service in the traditional sense. I have, however, acted as web-master of a fairly popular website of my own creation in the past, and many parallels can be drawn between this and community service. The website that I had (during my Junior year) was entitled Definitive MP3, and it contained general as well as in depth technical information on Digital Audio (MP3), related software programs which visitors could download, and a section where people could find technical support for the software programs. I myself would be online for several hours each day to personally answer and address specific questions and concerns that my visitors had regarding Digital Audio, the software programs, or life in general.
