<p>What are the requirements for induction? It seems like quite a secretive process, but any input would be much appreciated.</p>
<p>Anyone…?</p>
<p>I actually tried looking this up and can’t find anything… grades are important, of course, but beyond that it does indeed seem like the process is pretty secretive.</p>
<p>It’s based 100% on your GPA. I don’t know the exact percentage of students who are given it (I think it is roughly 3%?). Some are elected in Spring of their Junior year with the rest during Spring of senior year. Don’t worry/stress about such things.</p>
<p>I think generally it’s 10%. I counted at my kid’s graduation, and it was somewhat more than 10% of the class, but the list may have included third-years. I know at my own, different undergraduate institution it was purely a matter of the top 10% by GPA. (How they determine the denominator is probably a little mysterious, since the precise number of graduates can’t be known until a week or so before graduation. I’m sure there is some estimating convention, and I’m also sure that no one cares about 100% precision.)</p>
<p>I’ve been trying to source this, but I think it’s the top 5% per year (i.e., for the class of 2014, the top 5% after 1st year will be inducted, the top 5% after 2nd year will be inducted, and so on). Thus, more than 5% of the class may be inducted after all four years, depending on the fluctuations in class ranking.</p>
<p>No, the earliest anyone is elected to PBK is spring of their third years. (At least unless Hell has frozen over recently, or something like that.) The way it worked at my college, about 3% of the class was elected after five semesters, and it was rounded out to 10% at graduation.</p>
<p>Last spring there were 172 inductees <a href=“https://cha.uchicago.edu/[/url]”>https://cha.uchicago.edu/</a> , third and fourth years, but assuming that the numbers remain about the same from year to year, you could guess that means approximately 170 per class. At what, 1200 per class? That would be more than 10%. Unless they reprinted the fourth years who had been inducted during their third year.</p>
<p>Well, a class is more like 1350, but, yes, that’s consistent with what I counted a few years ago (160-something). Maybe the cut-off is 1/8th of the class (12.5%), not 1/10th?</p>
<p>By the way, I don’t think that list contains any third-years. If it did, there ought to be a lot of overlap (like, 100%) with the student marshals, and I don’t see any overlap.</p>
<p>The list does indeed include third years. Some people are elected third year, some fourth, so the list includes third years elected that year, fourth years elected that year, and fourth years elected the previous year. Surprisingly not all student marshals are Phi Beta Kappa, although there usually is quite a bit of overlap.</p>
<p>You’re right, of course. Some of the student marshals are on the list. So it looks like what I thought it was before: 10% of the graduating class, plus about 3% of the next class.</p>
<p>Yes, my question was not whether it included third years. I knew that one. My question was whether it included fourth years who’d been elected during their third year. So is the total group at the time of graduation 10% or ~13%?</p>