On March 25 at 5 p.m. in the Welch Activity Center, juniors will receive a certificate to commemorate their acceptance into the National Honor Society and seniors who have been in NHS and who have fulfilled their community service requirements will be given their senior cords.

National Honor Society recognizes students for their success throughout their high school career. “National Honor Society is a national organization that recognizes high school students for demonstrated scholarship, service, leadership and character,” Mrs. Lisa Ford, who serves as the NHS faculty co-moderator, along with Mr. Joshua Payne-Elliott, said.

Acceptance 

In order to be accepted, students must meet multiple requirements. “The first criteria is currently you have to have an cumulative 3.6 GPA at the end of five semesters, so that’s the middle of your junior year. Then you have to be current with your Cathedral service, so you must have demonstrated service. You also have to have some sort of demonstrated leadership. That does not mean that you have had to have been a class officer, but you have to be a leader in some sense. You can’t have any serious disciplinary issues,” Ford said.

In addition to first meeting these qualifications, students will still have to fulfill certain requirements to stay in National Honor Society.

As co-moderator Ford serves multiple responsibilities. Ford said, “Herr Payne and I are co-moderators and it is our job to notify kids that they are academically eligible because that’s the first step. We organize the application and selection process. Once kids are in, we oversee their service and make sure they’re maintaining their good grades. We organize the tutoring program and that’s our main function, but we also organize any other service that they might be doing, whether its tour guiding at open house or working at ShamrAuction.”

Once a student qualifies and applies for National Honor Society, his application is looked over rigorously.

Looking at applicants

Ford said,  “The first step is (that) Herr Payne and I get all these applications in and look over them to see if they’re complete. We look to see if all the components are there. We make sure that the applicant has followed directions. It’s very important to us that an organization that is dedicated to scholarship, service, leadership and character sees that you followed directions. We get input from the entire faculty. They are sent a list of all applicants and they vote either strongly recommend, recommend with reservation or I don’t recommend.”

If a student is not endorsed, a faculty member must explain his reasoning.

“If a teacher doesn’t recommended we ask them to explain why they’re not recommending. It isn’t possible for a teacher to just say no I don’t recommend that kid. They have to explain why or we don’t even pay attention to that recommendation. We also want people to explain why they are recommending them, but we don’t insist on that,” Ford said.

If an applicant has problems within his application he is put under review. “If there are issues, we have a faculty committee that reviews the issues. If a kid comes back and he has 12 detentions on his discipline record, the committee is going to talk about that and ask why do we have these detentions,” Ford said.

Junior Isabelle Kwon was accepted into National Honor Society and believes it will assist her in her high school career. “I’m happy to be in it because it shows colleges that I have leadership skills,” Kwon said.