The National Honor Society chapter of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is a duly chartered and affiliated chapter of this prestigious national organization. Membership is open to those students in grades eleven and twelve who meet the required standards in four areas of evaluation: scholarship, service, leadership, and character. Students are selected for membership by vote of a faculty council, which bestows this honor upon qualified students on behalf of the faculty of our school each fall semester.

In the fall, TJHSST NHS Adviser/Sponsors notify students and their parents/guardians of their eligibility to submit a Candidate Information Form. Students that meet the scholarship criterion of having a GPA of 3.5 or better on a 4.0 scale are invited to complete the form that provides the faculty council with information regarding the candidate’s leadership, service, involvement in the community and character. To evaluate a candidate’s character, school disciplinary records are reviewed; the candidate form also allows for the candidate to discuss aspects of character and community involvement. 

Students should also have a minimum of 6 current hours of documented service (verified and approved) in the school (TJ HSST) X2VOL account for their class year by the candidate form submission deadline. Current hours should have service dated from the end of the previous school year up to the candidate form submission deadline.  (For example: students submitting candidate forms in the fall will only include service hours earned from the end of school in mid-June up to the form submission deadline).

Candidate forms are carefully reviewed by the faculty council before decisions are made to extend or defer invitations for membership. Candidates are notified by the chapter adviser regarding selection or non-selection via FCPS school email. After the faculty council offers membership, students that accept must attend a formal mandatory induction ceremony held at TJ to recognize all the newly selected members.

Once inducted, new members are required to maintain the same level of performance (or better) in all four criteria that led to their selection, including scholarship, leadership character and service requirements.  TJ NHS requires that 24 service hours be documented in the TJ NHS X2VOL account for members for every year of membership. A minimum of 6 hours must be earned each semester, with a total of 24 earned by the end of the school year. Seniors, however, must earn and record their hours by an earlier spring deadline due to county graduation accounting deadlines.