Phi Beta Kappa

[supastudier2000]

Hey guys,

So apparently Phi Beta Kappa is the nations oldest and most "prestigious" honors society. this sounds interesting, It's an invite only society and i received an invitation, so did 5 other students in my major. Has anyone heard of this society? It completely caught me off guard and i don't know why i was selected to join it. What is selection based on? How will this help me advance my professional career?

Thanks guy!

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[tessellations]

Phi Beta Kappa has nothing to do with greek life. It is probably the most prestigious undergrad honors society currently around, and has strong name recognition, especially in academia. Every school has slightly different criteria, but usually it goes to a top percentage of students studying a liberal arts major. Some schools include other requirements like extracurricular involvement and community service. It's definitely a high honor to be nominated! Would also be worth putting in your medical school application.

 

[LizzyM]

Adcom members have reacted positively to seeing this on an application. I'd say it is the one honor society that is universally recognized by name.

 

[deleted972488]

At my school, it was based on GPA and I missed the cut off by like 0.01. Definitely accept the invitation; as others have said, it is a highly-regarded honor and has nothing to do with greek life. Congratulations!

 

[langwang3]

best frat hands down

 

[Moko]

PBK is essentially the undergrad equivalent of AOA (the recognition given to the 'best' medical students). It can only help by having PBK in your application, so do accept their offer. In contrast, things like Dean's list are hohum and not worth mentioning imo. Just my thoughts

 

[JSD2]

PBK is potentially the most respected honors society in the US. The criteria differs from school to school and it can be hard to figure out how your school picks members. I know at mine they do it based on having a GPA in the top x% of students, community involvement, contributions to academia (publications, etc), second language proficiency, and recommendations from professors (how they get any of this information is a mystery to me). At my school they will host special talks with distinguished members, have study break events during finals, etc. They actually started as a secret society (which is pretty cool imo) and some of that has definitely carried over into the present day (see: mysterious selection process and vaguely cult-like induction ceremony).
If you've been invited you should join, there isn't really any sort of time commitment and it has the potential to open doors for you. The only real negative I've noticed is that some members can be a little pretentious/unconsciously elitist but they're easy enough to avoid.