<p>Pardon if this isn't the best place to post this.</p>
<p>I was recently invited to the Golden Key International Honor Society. What is this? Should I join?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>Short answer is that it is an honors club that you pay a membership fee.Word on the curb is that most chapters don’t do much and don’t provide much opportunites for networking, workshops etc. But you have to research to see the qaulity of your chapter. I’ve heard that it’s not helpful for anything and basically a waste of money. The best honors society to be in is PBK.</p>
<p>If you are looking for a longer answer, I would suggest using the search feature.I believe this question has been answered before and you will find detailed answers in previous threads.</p>
<p>***** Someone basically answered this question in a thread called Stanford Grad School/What are my chances(curently located on the first page). Look at post #3**********************</p>
<p>I got an invitation to join this thing last semester, and I actually thought it was some kind of scam at first. A week later, after I emailed the supervising professor, I was surprised to learn that it is apparently legitimate.</p>
<p>In my honest opinion, I think Golden Key looks like a worthless cash grab aimed at people who can swing a good GPA but have no idea what they’re doing. If you want to be in an honors society, join the honors college at your university. The best it seemed they were able to offer participants was a chintzy little gold key thing to wear on your graduation robes. </p>
<p>Also, I thought their website looked terrible. They had dossiers of people representing different schools with Golden Key chapters, and none of the schools were particularly well-ranked.</p>
<p>Golden Key used to mean a lot more than it currently does. It represents a level of academic achievement similar to but noticeably less than Phi Beta Kappa, and nowadays it is just not enough of an achievement for anyone to care about. Your GPA provides as good or better a representation of your achievements, and is more generally understood.</p>
<p>It should be noted that ALL honor societies offer additional resources (like scholarships and networking) beyond the name recognition of the honor, but few people really get to take advantage of them - they are either difficult to access (networking) or offered only to a few select participants (scholarships).</p>
<p>There ARE a few honor societies that I would consider worthwhile - Phi Beta Kappa (liberal arts), Tau Beta Pi (Engineering), Phi Kappa Phi (All) - because they still carry a lot of weight in specific communities. But any group that admits 33% of the student body is just not selective enough to be worthwhile.</p>