What is the GPA cut-off for Phi Beta Kappa?

JHS
Fri, 15 Jul 2011 18:15:14 +0000

Ultimately, when the dust clears, it’s supposed to be the top 10% of the class by GPA, but there always seems to be more than 10% of the class elected. I suspect what they do is look at the 90th percentile GPA, round it to one or two decimal places, and then elect everyone with that GPA or higher (rounded to the same number of places). But I don’t actually know – that’s just an educated guess.

As for what that GPA is . . . I haven’t met that many recent Chicago PBKs, and there’s only a couple for whom I have a rough idea what their GPA was. In both cases, it was above 3.8, although one was not elected until the third and last tranche.