Many Ball State students receive invitations each semester to join various honor societies both on and off campus, but many don’t realize the invitations are legitimate.
Ball State’s official honor societies are Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, Golden Key International Honor Society and the National Society of Collegiate Scholars (NSCS).
According to the Association of College Honor Societies' website, college honor societies are deemed as legitimate if they are accredited by ACHS. While ACHS is the only accrediting institution for college honor societies, honor societies aren't required to apply for accreditation.
There are currently 65 different honor societies that have this accreditation. While NSCS has it, Golden Key and Phi Kappa Phi do not.
David Largent, a Ball State computer science instructor, serves as the faculty adviser for Golden Key. He said he wants to assure students that Golden Key is not a scam and is an honor organization that has benefits from joining.
"We are real," Largent said. "There's more available to members than the [$95] they spend to join."
But in many cases, it is the membership fee preventing students from wanting to join.
Kelsey Smith, a junior public relations major, said she's gotten emails about joining honor societies since Spring Semester of her freshman year. While she never joined any of the organizations, she said she understands that they need money, but also questioned the fee.
"It makes sense — if their intention is to do something for the community, they're going to need funding. But what if they earned the money through service, rather than a fee?" Smith said. "If [students] earned the grades, then they shouldn't have to pay for [membership]."
Currently, Largent said roughly 125 Ball State students have paid the $95 fee and are official members of Golden Key's on-campus chapter. Despite this, he said only around 25 or so actually attend their monthly meetings.
Out of the $95 fee, Largent said $10 per student goes toward Ball State's chapter of Golden key. The rest of the money goes to the international organization.
Similarly, NSCS has a couple hundred members, David Chambers, the student president, said. The junior legal studies major said 20 to 25 students regularly attend their meetings.
But Chambers said that while only a small percentage of members participate, they are "like a close family."
For NSCS, Chambers said the experience of joining is worth the fee, which is also $95. While some of the money does go to their national organization as well, he said he uses the money to create opportunities for the students involved.
Chambers said they do a lot of work with education in the local community, including working with Muncie community schools, KinderCare and March to College day at The Boys and Girls Club.
NSCS is also planning on working with Habitat for Humanity soon, Chambers said. In terms of expanding the honor society, he thinks this will be a move in the right direction.
"I think that maybe in the past, we've been thinking too small," he said. "Since Habitat for Humanity is nationwide, partnering with something big would help expand horizons."
NSCS requires a 3.4 GPA for a student to be invited to join, and freshman, sophomore, junior and senior students may receive this invitation. Golden Key doesn’t have a GPA requirement, but instead relies on class rank only when giving out invitations. Sophomore, junior, senior and graduate students in the top 15 percent of their class can be invited to join.
Incentives for students to join an honor society include scholarship and internship opportunities. Golden Key as an international organization gives $1 million worth of scholarships to its members — some large and some small.
Though it doesn’t happen often, Largent said a student officer was awarded a $10,000 scholarship last year. Before last year, he said it had been about six years since a Ball State chapter member has won a large scholarship.
Largent said each year, Ball State's Golden Key members have one or two internship opportunities, but he said he's not sure they apply to every major.
Chambers said an NSCS member can get a small scholarship by attending the induction ceremony. While there are other scholarships, Chambers said he himself has not been awarded one.
With all the differences in honor societies out there, Smith said she can't remember which ones she's actually been invited to join, because she typically deletes the emails from them right away. She said she was unaware any of the organizations were official Ball State chapters.
Largent said communication and advertising has been something difficult to express to both members and nonmembers in trying to get them more involved.
"It's something we're working on," Largent said. "There's just a lack of communication between my officers, students and myself — giving people reasons to come."
Meaghan Mahoney, a freshman international business major, said she hasn't paid attention to honor society invitations that she's gotten this semester for that reason — communication. She said she usually deletes the email invitations immediately.
"If I knew that some were official to Ball State, I might have paid attention," Mahoney said. "I just figure they're all fake."
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