Who is Eligible?
According to the bylaws of the national Phi Beta Kappa Society, local chapters may elect about 10% of the annual class of undergraduate students in their college (in our case, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, or CLAS). The process by which our chapter decides which students to invite for election is outlined below. Although the vast majority of invitees come from the CLAS, each spring deans of other colleges and programs are asked for nominations of students who are obtaining bachelors degrees in their colleges, who appear to meet the spread requirement (see below) and have studied a foreign language at the college level (or obtained equivalent credit through standard tests).
Preliminary Screening by GPA
In each Fall and Spring term, the UF chapter (Beta of Florida) screens several pools of CLAS students; for a given term, this includes (1) graduation candidates with GPA above 3.75; and (2) rising seniors – those having just passed 90 hours in their preceding term (that is, just completing their junior year, so we call them “Juniors” to distinguish them from graduating or graduated seniors) – with 3.90 GPA or higher. (Note that as the average GPAs of our outstanding students continues to rise, the chapter has needed to raise the numerical GPA cutoffs several times over the years. The numbers above reflect cutoffs as of Fall 2023.)
Diversity of Study in the Liberal Arts and Sciences: (“SPREAD”)
The membership committee obtains summaries of these students’ transcripts, which lists courses taken by major discipline. We then evaluate “spread” – the amount of coursework, in credit hours, earned in liberal arts and sciences courses outside of the student’s major discipline. The major disciplines are:
- Humanities
- Social and Behavioral Sciences
- Biological and Physical Sciences
- Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics
- Foreign Languages (after the basic CLAS requirement is met)
There are various constraints on the tally. For example, non-CLAS courses (with a few exceptions); S/U-graded classes; freshman English composition classes, and 1000-level mathematics classes (not considered as college-level by the Mathematics Department) are excluded, and a maximum of 14 in any one area can be counted. Advanced Placement courses are treated as graded UF courses and count toward spread. Coursework taken at other institutions can count toward spread as well. If the total is 39 hours or greater, the students are elected. The committee can then recommend those students to the chapter if so voted. The detailed listing of what courses are counted and what are excluded is part of the committee’s Spread Evaluation Guidelines.
Of the several hundred students with the minimum GPA each term, less than half are invited for election, largely because the spread requirement. This emphasis on “diverse study in the liberal arts and sciences” has been part of the chapter’s criteria for many years. With the size of the university, of course, it’s impossible to do what you might at a small liberal arts college, and include recommendations and/or nominations, and other materials over and above the record of courses and grades, such as senior theses. Still, we’re impressed and humbled by some of the achievements of our undergraduate electees, some of whom exceed 50 hours of spread, have advanced work in several diverse disciplines (we’ve had double majors in physics and classics), and who truly reflect the spirit of a liberal education.
Residency Requirements
Students must have earned a minimum of 45 hours of graded CLAS credits at the University of Florida. Typically, the Membership Committee makes its report to the chapter at around four weeks before the end of semester. Elected students are notified by letter about three weeks before the end of the semester, and invited to participate in the election ceremony and reception that is held around the last week of the term.