According to the Association of College Honor Societies, there are about 70 college honor societies at this time. Some of them date back all the way to the 1700s, while others just popped up within the last few years.
If you’re considering trying to become a part of an honor society in college, you’ll need to become an honor student first. Getting good grades will almost always be one of the top requirements for those wishing to join an honor society.
But you’ll also need to select the best honor society based on your specific interests and values. And it might not be that easy to find an honor society that you love right from the start.
We’ve put together a bunch of tips to help you choose the best honor society in the end. Utilize them while you’re attempting to track down an honor society in college so that you can hopefully join it.
Learn About All the Different College Honor Societies That Exist
As we just alluded to, there is no shortage of honor societies for college students these days. There are dozens and dozens (and dozens!) of them that you can choose from.
With this in mind, you’re going to want to kick things off by learning about as many honor societies as you possibly can. You should scroll through a list of them and start circling any of the ones that sound interesting to you.
There is a good chance that you’re going to find that many of the college honor societies won’t apply to you. But you should be able to pick out a handful of them that might be the best honor society available for someone in your position.
Find an Honor Society That Is in Your Specific Field
While you’re sifting through all of the different honor societies, you should try to find one, in particular, that would be perfect for someone in your specific field.
For example, you might want to choose:
- Alpha Beta Gamma if you’re a business major
- Beta Kappa Chi if you’re a natural sciences or mathematics major
- Epsilon Pi Tau if you’re a technology major
- Mu Kappa Tau if you’re a marketing major
- Psi Chi if you’re a psychology major
There are also some more general honor societies that don’t necessarily apply to those in one specific major. Alpha Sigma Lambda is the best honor society for non-traditional students, including adults who already have careers.
Your goal should be to find an honor society that you will fit into without a problem. There is bound to be at least one of them out there.
Make Sure an Honor Society Is 100% Legit
It’s great that there are so many honor societies that college students can choose from. It gives them tons of options when they’re interested in trying to earn an invitation to one.
But the one big downside of there being so many honor societies is that some fake honor societies have started to pop up. And many of them seem real if you don’t do any digging into them.
Before you eagerly accept an invitation to an honor society in college, you should do some research on it to make sure it’s legit. This should include visiting the website for an honor society and maybe even reaching out to someone for it to speak with them on the phone.
This should shed light on whether or not an honor society is legit. The last thing you want to do is send any money to a fake honor society that has been set up to scam you.
Check Out the Mission Statement for an Honor Society
When you’re visiting an honor society’s website to check on its legitimacy, you should do more than just try to inspect its credibility. You should also look for a mission statement somewhere on the site.
Every honor society has a mission statement that it abides by. You should find an honor society that has a mission statement that you can get behind.
If you don’t believe in an honor society’s mission statement, you’re probably not going to be a great fit for it. The best honor society for you will have a mission statement that aligns with your values.
See What the Requirements for an Honor Society Are
In addition to having mission statements on their websites, honor societies will also have the requirements that they’ve established on them. You will have to meet or exceed these requirements in order to be considered for honor society.
Some honor societies have pretty easy requirements. All you’ll need to do is be interested in a particular topic to get an invitation.
But other honor societies have stricter requirements that make it difficult for a lot of people to get invitations to them. They’ll call for people to take a very specific set of courses or get grades that are well above average. These might not be the best honor societies for you if you aren’t able to meet the requirements that are in place.
Learn About the Potential Benefits of Joining an Honor Society
Each individual honor society is going to have a long list of potential benefits that will come along with joining it. You should familiarize yourself with these benefits so that you know which rewards you’ll reap when you join an honor society.
If you join an honor society like Alpha Sigma Lambda, these will be some of the ways in which you’ll benefit from it:
- You’ll receive a semi-annual online newsletter for free
- You’ll get access to a forum where you’ll be able to trade ideas with other adult students
- You’ll have a chance to earn scholarships
- You’ll be recognized for your achievements throughout college
As an added bonus, you’ll also get to note the fact that you are a member of Alpha Sigma Lambda on your professional resume. This might help you network with other professionals. It could even earn you jobs throughout your career.
Gauge What Kind of Reputation an Honor Society Has
Unfortunately, not all college honor societies have wonderful reputations. There are some that don’t have good reputations at all in the grand scheme of things.
As a result, you should make an attempt to gauge what kind of reputation an honor society has before joining it. You should usually be able to get some sense of what an honor society’s reputation is like by Googling it and poking around online.
Joining an honor society with a bad reputation could be worse than not joining an honor society at all. You should only associate yourself with honor societies that are going to portray you in the best possible light.
You’ll be proud to show off your affiliation with an honor society when you know that it’s well respected within your specific industry in the future.
Find Out If an Honor Society Has Any Notable Members
Just about all of the different honor societies that are out there have notable members that have joined them in the past. These honor societies are typically thrilled to point this out on their websites.
You should take a gander at which notable members have been a part of honor societies in the past. You might be surprised to see politicians, professional athletes, movie stars, business moguls, and other VIPs who have been inducted into honor societies.
You aren’t necessarily going to be rubbing elbows with these people at honor society cocktail parties or anything. But it’ll be nice to know that you’re a part of the same honor society as so many notable people.
And who knows? You might end up crossing paths with some of these people at some point in your life. It would be awesome for you to be able to tell them that you’re both members of the same honor society.
Look At If an Honor Society Has a Chapter at Your School
While there are a lot of different honor societies scattered throughout the country, it’s worth noting that not all of them have chapters at every school. In fact, even the biggest honor societies around are usually only found at a few hundred colleges and universities at most.
Does this mean that you won’t be able to join them? Nope! Many of them are national organizations that will still accept you as a member if you meet their requirements and are interested in joining them.
But before you start looking at these national organizations, you might want to see which honor societies have set up shop a little closer to home. You should check out your school’s honor society chapters and consider joining one of them.
Joining an honor society with a chapter at your school will give you the chance to form tighter connections with other members. It’ll also allow you to enjoy more of the benefits of signing up for specific honor society.
Because of this, you might even want to kick around the idea of starting up your own honor society chapter at your school. It’ll call for you to put in some serious work on your part. But it’ll be well worth it if you’re able to get a chapter up and running.
Do What It Takes to Earn an Invitation to an Honor Society
The vast majority of college honor societies are invite-only. You aren’t going to be able to join them unless they send you an invitation and you accept it.
So, how can you actually go about getting your hands on an invitation? In some cases, it might not be as hard as you think.
If you simply show interest in certain honor societies, they’re going to be willing to hook you up with an invitation. All you’ll need to do is respond to it and accept it and you’ll be a member in no time at all.
But in other instances, joining an honor society will be a whole lot harder than that. You’ll have to express interest in an honor society and then cross your fingers and hope they pick you over all of the other interested candidates.
No matter what it takes to join the best honor society, you should be ready to do it. You shouldn’t shy away from doing whatever it is that they ask you to do.
Prepare to Represent Your Honor Society to the Fullest
Once you accept an invitation to an honor society in college, you might think your work is all done. But in reality, you’ll just be getting started!
From there, you’re going to be expected to help represent your honor society. You can do this by listing your honor society on your resume, attending honor society events, and speaking with younger college students about joining your honor society as you get older.
Be prepared to do these kinds of things before joining an honor society. It’s a big part of the reason why you should only join the best honor society.
Now That You Know How to Choose the Best Honor Society, Go Do It
Joining an honor society in college should be a privilege and an honor. It’s why you should strongly consider signing up to be a member of any honor society that thinks enough of you to send you an invitation.
But in a perfect world, you should be proactive about joining an honor society and look high and low for the best honor society possible. There should be at least one honor society that stands head and shoulders above all the rest.
Get more great tips for college students by reading through all of our other informative blog articles.
