According to Coakley, administrators who oversee Harvard’s chapter—the oldest continually operating Phi Beta Kappa chapter in the country—have considered ways to “change the system.”

“The only way we could do it differently would be to do it entirely by GPA, as some colleges do,” he said.

“We would be electing different people, without looking at the quality of their course work or their references,” he said, adding that the chapter’s rules were unlikely to change.

The following 88 members of the Class of 2005 were elected to Harvard’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

Adams: Alexander H. Berlin, Gabriel I. Chodorow-Reich, Brian M. Haas, Rebecca L. Lambert, Andrew W. Ng, Stephen W. Stromberg

Cabot: Kerry J. Dingle, Philip D. Dreyfuss, Richard E. Freeman, Xiaoyu Gu, Kamila M. Lis, Henry M. Rosenberg, Sixiao Xu, Oussama Zahr

Currier: Lindsey A. Baker, Robert L. Cioffi, Andrea E. Flores, Patricia K. Foo, Jessica E. Vascellaro

Dunster: David H. Chao, Magali A. Fassiotto, Jared M. Fleisher, Jeffrey A. Friedman, Elizabeth H. Peterson, Eli S. Rosenbaum, Sophia I. Sherry

Eliot: Timur Akazhanov, Deema B. Arafah, Sarah L. Bishop, Bryan D. Choi, Patrick S. Dinneen, Fuad Faridi, Anna E. Harkey, Zhe Lu, Kimberley S. Mak, Arik Motskin, Joseph R. Oliveri, Katherine E. Talcott

Kirkland: Steven M. Amis, Michael D. George, Ryan M. Geraghty, Samuel W. Lessin, Richard K. Mansfield, Griffin E. Schroeder, Joseph H. Weintraub, Jeffrey J. Wu

Leverett: Matthew D. Gibson, Kerry M. Houlihan, Andrew C. Karas, Nina Ni

Lowell: Shalini Ananthanarayanan, Deepa B. Dhume, Aaron M. Golden, Nilanthi D. Gunawardane, Samuel L. Harris, Andrei Jorza, Jody M. Kelman, Mariangela Lisanti, Yulia Ryzhik, Katherine J. Thompson, Man Y. C. Tsang, Stephen C. Walker

Mather: Kexun Dong, Marcel A. Q. LaFlamme, Sarah R. Lehrer-Graiwer, Adam S. Levine, Susan K. Mathai, Swati Mylavarapu

Pforzheimer: Peter M. Brown, Sarah K. Burke, Charlotte H. Douglas, Maria Konnikova, Miriam D. Lense, Peter L. McMurray, Christopher A. Searcy, Nellwyn A. Thomas

Quincy: Victor D. Ban, Michael J. Berkovits, Raja G. Haddad, Erin M. Kane, Matthew D. Podolsky

Winthrop: Kevin B. Holden, Ronen E. Mukamel, Christine B. Peterson, George M. Saalouke, Monika H. Schleier-Smith, Brian M. Wendell, Elizabeth A. Whitman

—Staff writer Daniel J. T. Schuker can be reached at dschuker@fas.harvard.edu.