Overabundance of clubs downplays merit of membership

Every year, the ASB is bombarded with requests from of students requesting to form a club. The wide variety of skills and interests at SHS has led to almost 61 clubs, with five more impending on campus for a school population just under 1,400. However, the sheer number of clubs has become a problem.
The desire to appear as a well-rounded candidate in college applications has led many clubs to be formed just so students can gain leadership titles. To combat this problem, the ASB should more closely monitor clubs and impose stricter rules to be considered a school sponsored club. At the moment, students are only required to have a committed teacher adviser and a reasonable number of students willing to participate. ASB does not have the resources to check up on these clubs to see if they are reaching the goals they claim to achieve.

Sixty clubs is a fairly large number that provides plenty of chances to grab a group of friends who share a common interest or goal.

To combat the overabundance of clubs, the ASB has capped the number of clubs on campus to only 60. The process to form a club has also become increasingly difficult. The ASB is also requesting students to merge clubs with similar ideals.

However, all these steps are not enough. Clubs should be active in the sense that they regularly plan, organize and carry out an event intended to build upon a hobby, interest or ideal. A club should not be sponsored by the school if it disintegrates into a place to just gather with friends to “earn” credit of being a member.

Clubs should be measured as inactive when club attendance drops below seven including officers or when club leaders fail to organize an event for two months in a row.

Club leaders should also proactively and effectively impart some form of knowledge, skill or experience to new members. This could range from having some sort of lesson to travelling to a place relevant to the club’s established ideals.

To any committed member or leader of a club, the hard work and effort put into their club feels empty when students join for the main purpose of “fluffing” their college applications. These members then insist on becoming leaders within the club, then gradually diminishing the club’s worth.

If everyone holds a title in a club, how can college admissions accurately determine who deserves to be accepted?

To college admissions officers, differentiating between which club actively pursues its ideals or one that simply exists as window dressing on a college application. The club that actually follows through in organizing and attending an event will probably earn the same merit as one that just says it will.
Perhaps the best solution to this problem is to require students who wish to create clubs to send a written request to ASB, accompanied with an interview, to prove that their intentions are true.
At the moment, ASB is using its efforts to differentiate between the types of clubs on campus, although there is no established code for a legitimate club.

“It is just depressing that students are forming clubs just to feather their college applications,” said assistant principal Karen Hyde.