Serli Polatoglu: Students should only join honor societies if they plan on participating

At the end of my freshman year, I was excited to receive an invitation to join the Alpha Lambda Delta & Phi Eta Sigma honor society at UCLA. Sure, I had to pay a membership fee, but a few dollars was nothing compared to what I’d be getting in return, right?

But three years later, as I begin the law school application process, I can’t help but re-evaluate my choices with regard to my extracurricular activities.

When I stare at my resume, the text describing my memberships in ALD & PES and Golden Key, another honor society at UCLA, mocks me.
Having just joined Mortar Board this year, that brings my total to a whopping three honor societies listed on my resume, two of which I can comfortably say I’ve had no involvement in.

My case is not atypical.

Hundreds of students pay a membership fee upwards of $80 to join an organization that will, at most, populate their inboxes with weekly reminders that remain largely unopened.

According to Bita Yazdanian, ALD & PES president and fourth-year political science student, ALD & PES has about 2,000 members at UCLA and the average attendance at bi-quarterly meetings is 30 students.

This apparent lack of equitable involvement doesn’t necessarily mean that honor societies aren’t worthwhile organizations; rather, as with many things, their value to a student will only be as great as the level of involvement.

And for many people, that doesn’t seem to be a lot.

So, if the vast majority of members in large national honor societies are inactive, why do so many people join in the first place?

The same reason college students do a lot of things: to boost their resumes.

But would mere membership really make much of a difference to graduate school admissions officers?

“We look at (a student’s) involvement in activities, not just membership,” said Rob Schwartz, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at UCLA School of Law.

Professor Michael Gutperle, former chair of the admissions committee for the UCLA graduate department of physics, said that, taken on its own, membership in an honor society plays a negligible role in the admissions process.

“If membership is based on a student’s GPA, that’s redundant information,” he added.

Both Gutperle and Schwartz pointed to the fact that UCLA’s graduate admissions process is holistic: every student’s application is thoroughly reviewed, and thus no one component inherently outweighs another. ALD & PES offers membership to first-year students with a 3.5 or higher GPA who are in the top 20 percent of their class. Golden Key offers membership to all students in the top 15 percent of their class. For both, thousands of people are offered membership each year.

Ultimately, membership in an honor society does not guarantee that you will stand out to admissions officers or anyone else. It’s what you do with that membership that counts. Differentiate yourself from your peers by either being an active member of an honor society or dedicating your time and efforts to organizations that you are passionate about.

It would also help if honors societies incentivized participation. Though soliciting more involvement from their members via email and other means would be a step in the right direction, even if all 2,000-some members of, say, ALD & PES, were to participate in the organization, the logistics of organizing events would be a nightmare.

By increasing the GPA requirements or asking interested students to submit a resume before accepting their bids, honors societies could keep their numbers selective and invested.

ALD & PES and Golden Key should take a page out of Mortar Board’s book. Mortar Board has interested prospective members apply and go through an interview process. It awards membership to about 20 members each year. And, this way, it is able to engage with each of the members, have meetings with high attendance each week and work toward realistic goals each quarter.

It’s never worthwhile to spend time or money joining an organization you have no intention of participating in.

So, before you write that $75 check, take a second to think about whether that’ll truly be money well spent.

Email Polatoglu at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected] or tweet us @DBOpinion.