ADMISSIONS COUNCIL
NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY ADMISSIONS COUNCIL
THE FACULTY COUNCIL and the SELECTION PROCESS
Old Bridge High School's NHS Faculty Council members are drawn from departments throughout the school and have a high regard and standards for excellence. They likely were NHS members themselves; they are volunteers who give their time because they believe in the values of the National Honor Society.
The group is charged with the review of candidate applications and the final recommendation of candidates for induction. When the Faculty Council reviews candidates, it works to recognize and promote the national organization's four pillars: Scholarship, Leadership, Character, and Service. Putting together a totally objective acceptance process when subjective concepts like character and leadership are involved is a complex task. Some schools choose to avoid this natural conflict and opt to base NHS membership solely on a strict GPA cutoff number. This makes the process simple, quick, and easy and is not faithful to the spirit of the NHS pillars. At Old Bridge High School, the Faculty Council believes that NHS membership is about much more than a student's GPA. We value all four ideals and so the school has developed a candidate and recommendation process whereby the Faculty Council assesses candidates in all four of NHS's valued areas.
It is a complex task to assign a numeric score to abstract qualities, but that is the job of the Faculty Council and they work very hard to be fair, consistent, and accurate. Throughout all meetings, the group discusses the scoring process and standards to help ensure a fair outcome. Once an application is turned in, it becomes the property of the Faculty Council and NHS Advisor. No one outside the Faculty Council can see packets or scores, including candidates or parents. There are no quotas for either number or percentage of candidates that are recommended for induction. The Faculty Council's mindset is to review the information packets searching FOR reasons to recommend a student.
The Faculty Council will use a rubric to help assess the degree to which a student has met the NHS criteria, however other factors may be considered in an application, and all decisions made by the Council are eligible for appeal.