Phi Beta Kappa?

[Babalaco]

ElizaB...i have sent you an application for PBK. All you have to do is send me a check and youre in. I promise.

[lexylit]

you do have to pay a fee, but there is no application.  it really is invitation-only.  you have to be nominated by your academic unit, and it's not like they take nominations or anything.  it's very much a closed-door thing, followed by a surprise letter in your mailbox at the end of the academic year.

umm, dont shoot me, but im pretty sure at my school you just had to have the gpa. (i know this b/c i got the letter halfway through senior spring inviting me to join, but i needed the 4.0 that quarter which i didnt get)

i don't think they capped it at 1% of my class, though i could probably look into it-- it was a smaller group than summa cum laude but a larger group than magna. unless youre saying there was a cutoff gpa and other criteria too, which would be news to me...

[Babalaco]

Youre right, when i graduated, my class was only 600 people, and i think about 30 got in to PBK. So its greater than 1%

[ElizaB]

To RuskieGirl or whoever else insulted my intellegience:  Actually, for anyone that is interested, I am quit positive that there was not one at my undergrad. institution.  I was named Outstanding Female Student Leader out of 13,000 students my senior year of undergrad....which was the most prestigous honor that was given at my school.  I graduated with the highest GPA in my major.  I was President of my sorority (and it is a national sorority that does a hell of a lot of good and has over million members and has given me over $10k in scholarships...so don't even think about insulting it), student body VP, in the honors program and a member of about several other organizations.  I maintained a 4.0 for my last two years of school and I did this while holding down TWO jobs and paying for every red cent of my college degree and living expenses.  Please don't insult me without knowing anything about me simply because I don't know what some honor society is that wasn't even at my undergrad school.  It might have been the big *&^% at your school but it wasn't at mine!  I'm glad that you have this accomplishment in life that you can brag about and put on your application!        

[Babalaco]

To RuskieGirl or whoever else insulted my intellegience:  Actually, for anyone that is interested, I am quit positive that there was not one at my undergrad. institution.  I was named Outstanding Female Student Leader out of 13,000 students my senior year of undergrad....which was the most prestigous honor that was given at my school.  I graduated with the highest GPA in my major.  I was President of my sorority (and it is a national sorority that does a hell of a lot of good and has over million members and has given me over $10k in scholarships...so don't even think about insulting it), student body VP, in the honors program and a member of about several other organizations.  I maintained a 4.0 for my last two years of school and I did this while holding down TWO jobs and paying for every red cent of my college degree and living expenses.  Please don't insult me without knowing anything about me simply because I don't know what some honor society is that wasn't even at my undergrad school.  It might have been the big *&^% at your school but it wasn't at mine!  I'm glad that you have this accomplishment in life that you can brag about and put on your application!       

It's not that it was big *&^% at my school or ruskies...its a big *&^% EVERYWHERE!. 

[egg]

WOW, where do you go or where have you been that youve never heard of PBK? It is the most prestigous distinction you can receive when you graduate college. I went to a small liberal arts college and we had it, so i know its not limited to large national universities or anything. Small religious schools in the back country may not have it, but otherwise, its a pretty big deal

There are about 2500 colleges in the US, and about 250 PBK chapters- so most don't have it. I certainly hadn't heard of it when I got my nomination. I'd actually planned on skipping the induction ceremony and saving a few bucks, but got curious when I was quite sincerely congratulated by this ornery fossil on the faculty who'd spent the last three years scowling at me.

[TDPookie1]

you do have to pay a fee, but there is no application.  it really is invitation-only.  you have to be nominated by your academic unit, and it's not like they take nominations or anything.  it's very much a closed-door thing, followed by a surprise letter in your mailbox at the end of the academic year.

umm, dont shoot me, but im pretty sure at my school you just had to have the gpa. (i know this b/c i got the letter halfway through senior spring inviting me to join, but i needed the 4.0 that quarter which i didnt get)

i don't think they capped it at 1% of my class, though i could probably look into it-- it was a smaller group than summa cum laude but a larger group than magna. unless youre saying there was a cutoff gpa and other criteria too, which would be news to me...

first of all, whenever i go to type "kappa," it comes out "kappy" at first, like "happy."

and i goofed about the limit.  it's 1% of juniors, and 5% of seniors.  that's the UCI limit; i didn't find anything on pbk.org about limits, though i didn't look very hard either.  here's the UCI page:

http://www.due.uci.edu/PhiBetaKappa.html

2. How many UCI students are elected to Phi Beta Kappa each year?

Election to Phi Beta Kappa is very competitive. Each year, approximately five percent of the graduating class (seniors) and one percent of juniors are elected to UCI’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter.


3. What criteria are used to select new members?

...

High Scholarship: Candidates must have completed at least 120 quarter units of college work before being elected to membership. Juniors elected to Phi Beta Kappa must have a GPA of 3.75 or higher. Seniors elected to Phi Beta Kappa generally have a GPA of 3.50 or higher. However, no one is elected strictly on the basis on GPA.


it seems like PBK sets a very broad criteria, like "high scholarship," and then individual schools get to decide what that means exactly.

also from UCI's website: "Although many more institutions aspire to establish a Phi Beta Kappa chapter on their campus, only 10% of the baccalaureate institutions in the United States have received a charter to shelter a Phi Beta Kappa chapter."

[ruskiegirl]

To RuskieGirl or whoever else insulted my intellegience:  Actually, for anyone that is interested, I am quit positive that there was not one at my undergrad. institution.  I was named Outstanding Female Student Leader out of 13,000 students my senior year of undergrad....which was the most prestigous honor that was given at my school.  I graduated with the highest GPA in my major.  I was President of my sorority (and it is a national sorority that does a hell of a lot of good and has over million members and has given me over $10k in scholarships...so don't even think about insulting it), student body VP, in the honors program and a member of about several other organizations.  I maintained a 4.0 for my last two years of school and I did this while holding down TWO jobs and paying for every red cent of my college degree and living expenses.  Please don't insult me without knowing anything about me simply because I don't know what some honor society is that wasn't even at my undergrad school.  It might have been the big *&^% at your school but it wasn't at mine!  I'm glad that you have this accomplishment in life that you can brag about and put on your application!        

i think eliza wants another cookie.  no one on this site cares about what's on your resume. 

[lexylit]

High Scholarship: Candidates must have completed at least 120 quarter units of college work before being elected to membership. Juniors elected to Phi Beta Kappa must have a GPA of 3.75 or higher. Seniors elected to Phi Beta Kappa generally have a GPA of 3.50 or higher. However, no one is elected strictly on the basis on GPA.

oh, now im jealous. it's def like a 3.9 for juniors and 3.8 for seniors at dartmouth

[DOWNY]

Eliza,

Several things here:

1. PBK is the most prestigious honors society that currently exists and likely will ever exist for undergrads. The fact that you have never heard of it merely points out your own provincial understanding of the universe around you.

2. Nice job posting your resume. I do not have the luxury of posting my resume online. Why? Because some of the things I have done are so exclusive that it would be easy to 'out' DOWNY's identity on the site if I did. Not bragging, but the point is that there are a lot of succesful people here and you will impress no one by posting that *&^%.

3. Your resume does not in any way validate your erroneous claims regarding PBK, nor does it mitigate the prestige associated with membership. PBK was founded in the 1700's and one of its earliest members, someone by the name of Russel, went on to found Skull and Bones at Yale. Don't talk *&^% about something you know nothing about.

4. Posting your achievements was at best irrelevant and at worst retarded. It did nothing to advance any claim you have regarding PBK being less prestigious than it is. Further, posting your achievements merely causes you to come across as an arrogant female dog, which I'm sure you didn't intend. Next time, try addressing arguments by referencing their merit rather than irrelevant, extraneous unassociated items such as your resume.

5. People call me DOWNY, but you can call me 'god.' If you disagree with me, you might as well not even post a reply, because I am right. If you do not share my opinion you are therefore invariably wrong.

-god