Oh, You'll Love This

Being the one who conducted that interview, I can say that probably that _will_ be the new philosophy of admissions. But really it just makes official what was already going on. No one reads through all those essays anyway - at least not closely.

And in Mr. Anderson's defense, he was talking about formal writing like you see in the stereotypical admissions essay, not anything creative. That I would think does show more of a correlation.

"I can't help but feel that SAT scores have something to do with writing well" - that's what he's saying, too.

Dear Mr. Anonymous Evan Donovan:

pure GPA & SAT scores == diverse as a room full of white people. Covenant needs to remember that they're a PCA school, so they're responsible for educating PCA kids, and if the demographic of the PCA Is predominantly white kids with a particular GPA, fine, but by virtue of being PCA, missionary kids, pastors kids, etc. should get in, almost regardless of their SAT & GPA's.

Instead we're treating Covenant like any college, which means treating students like consumers and vice versa. Ah, fast food nation.

Well, I'm glad someone else was as impotently outraged by this as I was.

Actually, my experience suggests that there is an almost one-to-one correlation between a strong verbal SAT score and a lucid, clear writer. If Covenant pays more attention to these scores, they will bring in a student body with greater writing talent.

And it doesn't mean jack.

For the past four years, I've seen the Covenant student body slide into mediocrity as SAT scores have progressively climbed. THe trouble isn't how well the students can write -- it's that that they have nothing they care for enough to write about. Passion can never be measured by an SAT score; it's something you discover reading between the the lines of an essay. And it's the thing that will keep Covenant a vibrant place.

I'm not so sure I agree with Josiah, however, about the whole PCA kid=instant admission ideal. Give that one more generation and we turn into a Davidson or Washington and Lee, a place where any snarky little bastard gets a free ride if his parents have the right last names. Some PCA kids shouldn't be going to Covenant, and that's OK. I do think they should get the first priority, of course; but I'd rather have passion for Christ and academic pursuits be the final litmus test.

Mesh, I think we agree.

I definately do think that there exists a corrolation between a strong verbal SAT score & being a clear, lucid writer as you put it. Hence I was lumping it (verbal & math) all together and speaking of there being a connection between the SAT score in general and being a competent writer. Though it is possible someone score say a perfect on the math, and only mediocre on the verbal, and still get a respectable score.

But we still wouldn't think that a strong SAT verbal score has anything to do with someone being a "good" writer in the sense of anything beyond merely technical competance. Those folks always annoyed me in some of my philo classes. (boy, aint I arrogant).

But then I see it coming to what may be the fundamental difference between a couple things: the first is ours and Mr. Anderson's definition of a competent writer, and the second is that we probably have very different ideas about what kindof student's should be attending Covenant College.

And finally, Mesh, I understand the concern you have in regards to the PCA kid = instant admission deal. I'm more thinking about MK's & PK's etc. Sure, there's nothing like the clergy to establish some kinda elitist status quo, we all know those crazy Rayburn's & Belz's are doing their best to make that happen (that IS a joke). But I'm really concerned about it going the other direction, to where we establish a suburban yuppie white priviledged status quo, where the entire campus is as diverse and distinguishable as the number/letter halls in Carter (with notable exceptions).

I think loony MK's, PK's, & EK's, and JK's (Jewish Kids) go along way to helping fight that. I mean heck, Paul Jaussen, Jimmy Ruffetto, our dear sexy wholistic leader himself, and on and on and on. I mean, I'm not saying that the ranks of Covenant Soul-infusers are filled solely with MK's, PK's, EK's, no not at all. But they do take up a sizeable portion. I look at campus personas in my "Ty-Willison 5 yrs" at Covenant and I see a heckuvalot of MK's PK's & EK's or other kids of parents in some kinda ministry.

And I think it's tied into that passion thing. MK's, PK's, and EK's can sometimes be apathetic 'bout their faith, but for whatever reason, they're always gonna be out there doing some kinda thing with some kinda gusto.

you're right, josiah.

i don't recall any writing invitations on exams like SAT or ACT. those little penciled-in bubbles for the verbal and other portions do reflect thinking/reading comprehension/attained vocabulary, but

they say nothing of an understanding of how to throw words together -- not syntax, not semantics, not expository discernment, logic, nuance of expression, idioms, presentation, nada.

high school gpa -- writing evaluation based upon what? 1 or 2 term papers? 1 or 2 speeches or poems? scores ARE indicative, i agree. but they are indicative of more than just writing abilities. for instance, the OTHER things that high school scores (including SAT/ACT scores) indicate, such as emotions and immature priorities...

a better suggestion:
you might know an incoming student's writing abilities after reading his WEBLOG archives.

a better question:
what do the covenant college writing (even English) faculty say about gauging incoming students' writing abilities?

do they look at the SAT/ACT/GPA?
OR
do they assign an essay question?

Josiah,
Not sure I agree with the director of admissions statement, but for that specific purpose I don't think they are gaining much from the essays anyway. All he's saying is that they aren't using the essays as an admission qualification, since they feel that info can be gotten somewhere else (SAT/GPA). In that case, not making students write them sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Its not like the faculty are grading their essays to decide whether they have good enough english to be allowed in. And the faculty in the english department in intro classes are largely evaluating the same things as the SAT anyway; grammar, word usage and mechanics.
On another note, Covenant may be affiliated with the PCA, but until the PCA starts funding them in a signficant way I would stay away from the argument that certain people should get in just because of their PCA affiliations. And you know where I come from. GA Tech has quotas on the number of Georgia students they have to accept in, and so the standards for in state admission are lower. But, because they want a degree to mean something and be worth getting they still have to keep up the academic standards. That means weed out courses like calculus and computer programming that are designed to flunk people out (or force them to switch to a field that they do have the gifts for). I don't think we want Covenant going the same way.
Just my two cents. Probably not even worth that much.
Jeremy

true -- the qualification that the interviewer made and jeremy reiterated does shed a lot of light on a quote like that. in its context, it's not nearly so preposterous.

my brother is a sr admissions counselor for a liberal arts university, and i can see how a statement like that might or might NOT be indicative of an office-wide philosophy or merely indicative of an office-wide method/policy. one has wide ramifications while the other usually derives from practical distribution of resources. what admissions counselor (with his 1000+ prospective students to juggle) has time (nevermind personal qualifications) to "grade" a prospective student's essay?

don't most colleges give English course placement exams (and often a few other kinds of placement exams) upon entry anyway? and these are mostly objective too, from what i've heard. the subjective evaluation of writing skills comes later anyway -- in themes and essays and reports.

when it comes down to it, an admissions department doesn't determine admission based on writing ability anyway, does it?

Judging from the freshman essays I helped grade last fall, Covenant certainly doesn't.

Josiah,

If you read further down in the article, you'll notice that Anderson did emphasize that he wanted diversity (as per Dr. Nielson's emphasis upon it), meaning MKs, PKs, and the whole lot of it. I don't think he wants Covenant to become a flavorless passionless job factory any more than you do. It's just that he wants to balance academic standards with the unquantifyable "passion factor." He definitely mentioned passion in the interview, saying that if students applied who didn't have perhaps the academic creds but who had great recommendations, spiritual and otherwise, he wouldn't stand in their way. Maybe I didn't bring that out enough in the article.