Should awards cost money?
Many students seem to think so, judging by the success of supposed “honor societies” that send letters to high school and college students asking them to become members. These societies collect the names and addresses of “high-achieving” students and encourage them to join the ranks of the best and brightest; the catch is that students must include a check for $60 or $80 with their reply forms.
Are we so desperate for recognition that we have to pay for our awards? Shouldn’t honors be bestowed regardless of one’s financial capabilities, based on merit alone?
The laws of the free market stipulate that where a demand exists, a supplier will come along to meet it. Students, then, are partly responsible for these seemingly ubiquitous pseudo-societies. We live in a culture in which high school kids applying to college are pressured to get the best grades and the highest SAT scores — and, of course, join as many clubs as possible. An invitation to a society with a name as fancy as “Who’s Who Among America’s High School Students” sure looks like a good idea to those kids who just have to get into the Ivy League. This pressure on students is partly self-imposed, but for the most part it comes from their parents, who would do well to teach their kids that awards come from academic excellence, not loads of cash.
But the blame also lies with the high schools and colleges who give out students’ names and addresses to these honor societies. It is the societies’ prerogative to solicit whomever they want, but schools have a responsibility to make their students fully aware of which societies truly seek to honor students and which are only out to turn a buck. Schools should require the societies to disclose whether they are affiliated with universities, and do so in a prominent place on the letters sent out to students, signaling legitimacy to students who may be unsure.
Honor societies out for profit raise important questions about how far students will go to get ahead in college admissions and in applying for jobs. While becoming a member may yield short-term gains, students should consider strongly whether their membership will have any long-term meaning if it was accomplished through money rather than merit.