Phi beta kappa honor society - significant soft? Forum

[DeeCee]

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I lol'd at this, too . Do you have an opinion paulina?

[somewhatwayward]

This post is 100% false. You do use your undergrad GPA to a point, once you are past that point, the employer only cares about work experience and recs.

you might use your undergrad GPA on your resume when you're searching for work before graduate school, but we were told to take it off while applying for summer jobs as 1Ls. i don't think PBK makes much difference in legal hiring, but it kind of is the only way to signal that you did well in undergrad without looking like a tool and putting your undergrad GPA on there.

[paulinaporizkova]

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I lol'd at this, too . Do you have an opinion paulina?

lol, on PBK? i said earlier i don't think it really makes a difference. i just came in to watch patriot fight with these people that don't know what they're talking about

[DeeCee]

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I lol'd at this, too . Do you have an opinion paulina?

lol, on PBK? i said earlier i don't think it really makes a difference. i just came in to watch patriot fight with these people that don't know what they're talking about

Oh my bad, I missed your comment earlier. +1 on watching patriot vs. The Others.

[Patriot1208]

This post is 100% false. You do use your undergrad GPA to a point, once you are past that point, the employer only cares about work experience and recs.

you might use your undergrad GPA on your resume when you're searching for work before graduate school, but we were told to take it off while applying for summer jobs as 1Ls. i don't think PBK makes much difference in legal hiring, but it kind of is the only way to signal that you did well in undergrad without looking like a tool and putting your undergrad GPA on there.

Ya, I worked in a recruiting firm and the general rypule was use your undergrad GPA within two jobs or a six year span, then no longer. Also, there do seem to be law firms, consulting firms, banks, etc that will ask about your undergraduate GPA for awhile. Some guy yesterday was saying how a law firm at oci commented on his shit ug GPA. And some banks and consulting fims will ask for your ug transcripts even during MBA hiring.

[surfg1203]

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[DeeCee]

When a lot of partners at Cravath put it on their firm bio pages when they are 20+ years out of undergrad, I would say it is a big deal:
http://www.cravath.com/lawyers/list.asp ... ta%20kappa

You know what is an even bigger deal?

http://www.cravath.com/lawyers/list.asp ... se=Harvard

+1 surfg

[tallboone]

Didn't say going to Harvard wasn't a big deal. But Patriot has no idea what (s)he is talking about.

[Patriot1208]

Didn't say going to Harvard wasn't a big deal. But Patriot has no idea what (s)he is talking about.

Lol bro, you need to get out of that bubble. You will be amazed how, in eight years, no one will give a shit about half the things you think they will now. No one cares about honors societies, seriously, no one.

[DeeCee]

Didn't say going to Harvard wasn't a big deal. But Patriot has no idea what (s)he is talking about.

yeah, that guy Patriot, with his 10,000+ posts, hasn't been around long and probably doesn't know what he's talking about

[patrickd139]

When a lot of partners at Cravath put it on their firm bio pages when they are 20+ years out of undergrad, I would say it is a big deal:
http://www.cravath.com/lawyers/list.asp ... ta%20kappa

You know what is an even bigger deal?

http://www.cravath.com/lawyers/list.asp ... se=Harvard

I enjoyed this exchange.

[Patriot1208]

Didn't say going to Harvard wasn't a big deal. But Patriot has no idea what (s)he is talking about.

yeah, that guy Patriot, with his 10,000+ posts, hasn't been around long and probably doesn't know what he's talking about

What's funny is that recruiting firms actually tell you to trim this type of stuff off your resume when cutting it to one page.

[tamlyric]

To OP:

You should send a LOCI letting your school(s) know about being elected to PBK. It is a significant soft, and anyone who says otherwise is full of it. I suppose, though, that people might be defining "significant" to mean something like, "will automatically get you admitted to YLS." Of course, on that definition, it isn't significant. But by any reasonable definition, it is, and will probably make a difference other things being equal.

[tamlyric]

Didn't say going to Harvard wasn't a big deal. But Patriot has no idea what (s)he is talking about.

yeah, that guy Patriot, with his 10,000+ posts, hasn't been around long and probably doesn't know what he's talking about

Yeah, because you have to be really wise, intelligent, and well-meaning to hit "submit" on TLS 10,000 times.

[tamlyric]

Didn't say going to Harvard wasn't a big deal. But Patriot has no idea what (s)he is talking about.

yeah, that guy Patriot, with his 10,000+ posts, hasn't been around long and probably doesn't know what he's talking about

What's funny is that recruiting firms actually tell you to trim this type of stuff off your resume when cutting it to one page.

What's funny is that most lawyers at top law firms not only put PBK on their resume, they put it on their firm's personal profile pages.

[DeeCee]

Didn't say going to Harvard wasn't a big deal. But Patriot has no idea what (s)he is talking about.

yeah, that guy Patriot, with his 10,000+ posts, hasn't been around long and probably doesn't know what he's talking about

What's funny is that recruiting firms actually tell you to trim this type of stuff off your resume when cutting it to one page.

What's funny is that most lawyers at top law firms not only put PBK on their resume, they put it on their firm's personal profile pages.

lol, you and tallboone should put it on some copies or your resume and not others, and see who you get hired by or what schools you get into. I'd be willing to bet there is no difference, and that your personality and experience will be the deciding factors.

[Patriot1208]

Didn't say going to Harvard wasn't a big deal. But Patriot has no idea what (s)he is talking about.

yeah, that guy Patriot, with his 10,000+ posts, hasn't been around long and probably doesn't know what he's talking about

What's funny is that recruiting firms actually tell you to trim this type of stuff off your resume when cutting it to one page.

What's funny is that most lawyers at top law firms not only put PBK on their resume, they put it on their firm's personal profile pages.

You'll notice that personal profile pages have about 400x the info than a resume should. Also, you may be right that cravath gives a shit (almost undoubtedly no), but I can definitely tell you that the financial industry does not. And this conversation got started in reference to how it looks on a resume in multiple industries.

[DeeCee]

Didn't say going to Harvard wasn't a big deal. But Patriot has no idea what (s)he is talking about.

yeah, that guy Patriot, with his 10,000+ posts, hasn't been around long and probably doesn't know what he's talking about

What's funny is that recruiting firms actually tell you to trim this type of stuff off your resume when cutting it to one page.

@ Patriot-- yeah I know what you mean. Granted mine is longer than one page, which I hope will not hurt me when I go to LS and go through OCI, but even cutting as much as possible it's still longer.

[graceful1]

Didn't say going to Harvard wasn't a big deal. But Patriot has no idea what (s)he is talking about.

Lol bro, you need to get out of that bubble. You will be amazed how, in eight years, no one will give a shit about half the things you think they will now. No one cares about honor societies, seriously, no one.

FTFY

[tamlyric]

You'll notice that personal profile pages have about 400x the info than a resume should. Also, you may be right that cravath gives a shit (almost undoubtedly no), but I can definitely tell you that the financial industry does not. And this conversation got started in reference to how it looks on a resume in multiple industries.

Oh, I see. I stand corrected.

[Patriot1208]

Didn't say going to Harvard wasn't a big deal. But Patriot has no idea what (s)he is talking about.

yeah, that guy Patriot, with his 10,000+ posts, hasn't been around long and probably doesn't know what he's talking about

What's funny is that recruiting firms actually tell you to trim this type of stuff off your resume when cutting it to one page.

@ Patriot-- yeah I know what you mean. Granted mine is longer than one page, which I hope will not hurt me when I go to LS and go through OCI, but even cutting as much as possible it's still longer.

I can't speak to oci, but in my industry i was always told even someone mid career needs to cut it to two pages, max, for applications. And then to have a longer version handy if you can adequately fill it out. Seriously, I spent hours refining resumes that were long, had useless information on them, and didn't highlight the right things.

[tallboone]

Here's a good and fairly unbiased article about the state Phi Beta Kappa today and what it means to people:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113107309946088181.html

[DeeCee]

@ Patriot-- yeah I know what you mean. Granted mine is longer than one page, which I hope will not hurt me when I go to LS and go through OCI, but even cutting as much as possible it's still longer.

I can't speak to oci, but in my industry i was always told even someone mid career needs to cut it to two pages, max, for applications. And then to have a longer version handy if you can adequately fill it out. Seriously, I spent hours refining resumes that were long, had useless information on them, and didn't highlight the right things.

Thanks for the advice. I kind of have a CV going (conferences, papers, etc) because I was going into academia until I switched gears and decided on a JD instead of PhD. I cut it down to two pages for all my apps (was 3), and I felt like it didn't hurt me at all. I'm glad to know that I can at least keep it around two pages because I feel like much of that stuff is important. In either case I'll ask Career Svcs or whatever when it gets to that point. What's your industry?

[samaside]

Offering an odd tale about the benefits of PBK on your resume.

During the summer I was looking for random work after graduation to help pay to go travel around Europe for a few months. One of the jobs I applied to was a supervisory position at McDonalds. By chance, the manager there was also a PBK graduate and the other managers I met while interviewing knew what it was even if they weren't in it themselves. While it didn't help me get the job (mostly because I was leaving the country to dick around Europe and pretty open about it), it does sort of counteract what someone said earlier about normal people don't have any idea what it is.

That said, I've been wondering about this myself and figured it didn't really matter in the grander scheme of things. I also feel a little weird because I think so far I'm the person with the lowest GPA to get into PBK that I've ever come across, lol.

[almightypush]

4. List significant scholastic honors received (Phi Beta Kappa, cum laude, prizes, etc.)

OP, PBK appears to be "significant" to the good folks in New Haven - and I don't imagine there being many schools taking dissimilar stances. Don't get caught up in what future employers may or may not think of the honor (and contrary to what is being tossed around ITT, it most certainly is an honor); they're not the ones sitting on the adcoms.