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April 21st, 2009

This past Sunday, The New York Times published an interesting piece that called into question just how exclusive and honorary invitations for scholar programs truly are. These invites, often presented as awards and “great honors,” are mailed out to middle schoolers and high schoolers across the country each year. As The NYTimes points out, the fancy airs and gold lettering on these letters often lure students into believing they’ve been bestowed with a rare opportunity – which may not be the case.

Though the organizations’ names and conference destinations may differ, they seem to follow a standard form. The student is congratulated on their scholastic achievement/being nominated to the position and invited to partake in a once-in-a-lifetime scholastic conference that will not only introduce them to great minds like themselves, but boost their college applications as well.

Now The NYTimes is telling us what we all suspected: these invites are more marketing techniques than marks of honor. One of the companies, the Congressional Youth Leadership Council, decides who to invite based upon recommendations and mailing lists that it pays for. And if you take into account all of the conferences that they run, including the National Young Leaders Conference in Washington, D.C., you’ll find that approximately 50,000 students attend each year – can that really be considered exclusive?

I remember receiving similar invitations in the mail when I was in high school, but I never signed up thanks to slight skepticism as to their validity and their expensive nature. Still, I feared that I was missing out or handicapping myself in the college race by not having something like “Washington Conference Scholar” on my resume. As it turns out, I had nothing to worry about. I got into one of the most sought after universities in the nation and neither my classmates nor I had one of these conferences under our belts.

So are these supposed scholar conferences all they are cracked up to be? I clearly have my opinion but if you want to form your own, and learn more about the companies that run these conferences as well as what goes on at them, head over to The NYTimes.

And really, if it’s an honor, should you be the one paying for it?

– Genevieve M. Blaber

Entry Filed under: General,News