Do grad schools care about honor society memberships?

[Jack21222]

I'm starting to get junk mail from honor societies asking me for money to join their ranks. I'm really not interested, and half of them sound like scams (well, at least one in particular does, the rest look legit).

Do grad schools care what honor societies you've paid to join? Or can they just look at my GPA and assume I could have joined honor societies if I was dumb enough to give them money?

 

[eri]

The only ones that appear to matter would be Phi Beta Kappa (all subjects honor society) and Sigma Xi (scientific honor society, usually have to do research to get in). And even those, not very much, although they do offer scholarships and in some cases conferences.

 

[PhDorBust]

I've always viewed honors societies as a way to get a line on your CV without actually doing anything. They might impress the liberal arts professor whose business it is to flaunt his self-importance, but generally people of worth will see through it. Feynman has a nice interview on the subject..

 

[diazona]

The only ones that appear to matter would be Phi Beta Kappa (all subjects honor society) and Sigma Xi (scientific honor society, usually have to do research to get in). And even those, not very much, although they do offer scholarships and in some cases conferences.

Is that based on experience? I was actually wondering about Sigma Xi membership a while ago. My own impression is that it isn't really worth the annual membership fee.

In general, paying just for the "privilege" of being able to claim you're a member of some group doesn't seem particularly worthwhile to me.

 

[negru]

if you get invited to join you could always just write "invited to XXX" on your CV if you think it matters (for grad school it absolutely will not matter).
you get the same benefits but without the ridiculous fee.

 

[RandomGuy88]

Depending on your school's chapter these societies can actually be beneficial, not necessarily for grad school apps or anything but just in general. If your school's chapter is very active they may host various seminars, skill building workshops, do outreach programs, the engineering honor society at my university took field trips to various manufacturing plants in the area. But if the students are not active then it is pretty much useless.

 

[Jack21222]

Sounds like they're pretty much useless and I won't bother. I'll save my money, thanks.