Congratulations! Based on your outstanding academic achievement, you are qualified to become a member of (insert Greek symbols or acronym) honor society to join a network of accomplished scholars nationwide.

Such a greeting is familiar to the thousands of students who have received invitations to join campus honor societies.

Honor societies are usually open to students who maintain a certain GPA. They typically promise opportunities to gain leadership and volunteering experience on campus while becoming a part of a nationally recognized organization. The only barrier to membership other than GPA is usually a fee that typically ranges from $40 to $100.

I once received an invitation to join The National Society for Collegiate Scholars. It boasted nearly 300 nationwide chapters as well as the fact that NFL quarterback Tim Tebow was a member.  It also offered the possibility for job opportunities with companies that “know the caliber of students that join NSCS” (not at all vague).

While it’s a common belief that joining such an organization is a good resume booster, I think there are good reasons to suggest that joining an honor society may not be worth the money.

For starters, the exclusivity of these organizations is often overstated. The reality is that the required GPA for most societies is a 3.4 or 3.5, which actually applies to a large number of students. The organization Phi Eta Sigma, for example, has over 5,000 members from this campus alone, and over 900,000 members nationwide – hardly an exclusive club.

The University recognizes over 50 independent honor societies on campus, all claiming to have the most talented and high achieving students. The fact that you probably can’t name more than a handful of these organizations off the top of your head probably means that most employers can’t either.  

As a quick experiment, try distinguishing between these honor societies: Beta Phi Mu, Tau Beta Pi and Phi Beta Kappa. One is an LAS honor society, one is for engineering, and one is an international society for students in library and information service studies — though you wouldn’t know which is which based on their names.

Thus, a particular string of Greek letters doesn’t necessarily convey anything more than the fact that you have a high GPA (which is already listed on your resume) and that you are capable of paying a membership fee.

Ultimately, recruiters are looking for transferable job skills, and clubs that admit solely based on GPA do not contribute to this category.

Little additional value is gained from these organizations’ marketed leadership and volunteering events. This is because most honor societies operate under an umbrella style, which attempts to provide a wide scope of opportunities without particular attention to quality. This typically results in a couple meager service events per semester along with maybe one leadership conference or related gathering. Often the most significant takeaways from these organizations are just the fancy certificate and snazzy group portrait.

There are definitely better ways to showcase your abilities to employers, particularly through RSOs with more specialized objectives. These groups are able to focus on providing more meaningful experiences because they don’t waste their time trying to do everything under the sun.

Thus, if you’re interested in getting service experience, join an organization that only does service. If you want leadership experience, find a club that interests you and contribute to it as much as possible. Sure, throwing an honor society on your resume certainly couldn’t hurt, but it definitely should not be the focal point of your accomplishments.

Aside from maybe the highly exclusive and mysterious Skull and Bones society at Yale (and possibly some other Ivy League exceptions), honor societies represent nothing more to me than a means to transform my GPA into acronym form. That is why I much rather try to win employers over with my extracurricular involvements and tangible achievements than with the artificial notoriety of an umbrella style honors organization.

My sincerest regrets to Tim Tebow.

Andrew is a sophomore in Engineering. He can be reached at ajhorto2@dailyillini.com.