Recently several parents in our area received unsolicited mailings from a corporation called the National Honor Roll. The letters were mailed from Key Club International which did the mailing in exchange for corporate sponsorhip and is considered a "member benefit" according to Mike Downs, Director of Key Club.

National Honor Roll is a vanity publisher with absolutely no prestige or clout in the academic community. It is a for-profit subsidiary of the Nelnet corporation which sells private student loans. Nelnet also owns the Student Marketing Group which was sued in 2002 by the NYS Attorney General for deceptive business practices and other violations of the state's consumer protection laws. The processing center for the National Honor Roll products is located at the same address of the Student Marketing Group in Lynbrook, NY.

The address listed on the National Honor Roll's letterhead is a prestigious Pennsylvania Avenue address when, in fact, it is a UPS store with mail-forwarding services located on the George Washington University campus. National Honor Roll was incorporated in the State of New York in December 2000, not in DC.

Unsuspecting parents are misled into thinking that a listing in their book will "bring additional attention to your child's college and scholarship applications" and are encouraged to buy a copy for $59.95. Few parents notice the privacy policy which states their child's data "can also be provided to commercial entities wishing to notify high school students about products and services of particular interest to them."

National Honor Roll masquerades as an "honor," but is anything but. It is not to be confused with the National Honor Society (NHS), which is legitimate, and one of the leading educational groups in the country. If parents dislike the idea of Key Club doing mailings for a vanity publisher like the National Honor Roll, they are encouraged to call Steve Siemen, the president of Kiwanis, or Mike Downs, the director of Key Club, at 1-(317) 875-8755.