The McLean National Honor Society (NHS) is for students who show leadership, scholarship, character and citizenship. This year’s NHS inductees are juniors and seniors who applied last spring. This year’s induction ceremony was held virtually on Oct. 26.

“The application and process is the same as it has been in years past. Eligible students apply through Google and the applicants are all reviewed by advisors, administrators, and counselors,” NHS sponsor Gregory Olcott said. 

Student and faculty speakers talked about academics and COVID-19. 

“The NHS officers [had] speaking parts, the NHS pledge [was] read, names [were] called off and Dr. Reilly [spoke] briefly as well,” Olcott said. 

Students that are now sophomores and juniors will be able to apply next year for the NHS. 

“This year’s application is closed. Eligible students will be invited to apply again at the beginning of the 2021–2022 school year,” Olcott said

Although the ceremony was held in a virtual environment, a large number of students attended the meeting. 

“I think that we had around 200 people come and roughly 300 people were inductees this year, so I felt that the turnout was pretty good,” NHS president and senior Sophia Ross said. 

This year, particularly, the NHS officers tried to make the ceremony more individualized and engaging for the new inductees.

“One of the things we contemplated was whether we were going to read everybody’s names out loud,” Ross said. “We did decide for all of us to individually read every single name of members that were inducted to the ceremony so it was more personalized.”

Despite the disadvantages of having a virtual ceremony, Ross found some unexpected benefits to the format. 

“It was easy for people to go to the induction ceremony. Like parents could access the meeting very readily,” Ross said. “I also thought that it was a little bit faster than what the meeting would have been like, so it kind of fit everybody’s schedules.”

The NHS officers hoped to reiterate to McLean students that their hard work and persistence resulted their induction into the honor society 

“We are reinforcing the idea that it is an honor and it is a very special thing that people are being accepted into this society,” Ross said. “There are certain standards that people need to have to be able to be inducted, so I think by having a ceremony, we hope that they realize this.”

To learn about some opportunities the McLean National Honor Society has offered in the past, check out the article below!

Guest speaker visits National Science Honor Society