# Opinions on Covenant College?



## Marrow Man (Apr 11, 2009)

Does anyone on the PB in the PCA (or anyone else for that matter) have any opinions on Covenant College? Is it a good place to go? Is it a good academic _and _spiritual environment?

We have someone in our congregation who may be interested in applying there. At present, I would not trust our own denominational college (Erskine) with the care of our young people, at least not w/o some major things happening first. I'm trusting that that Covenant is a different matter.


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## TheocraticMonarchist (Apr 11, 2009)

You might want opinions on Geneva and Dordt, also.


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## ww (Apr 11, 2009)

For my children unless things change it will be Geneva, Grove City, or Covenant. All excellent institutions with good educational and theological standards.


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## jwithnell (Apr 11, 2009)

I've known families who were very happy with their sons or daughters at Covenant. If Dr. Henry Krabbendam is still teaching, he is absolutely wonderful. I think there are some strong churches in that area too.


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## Marrow Man (Apr 11, 2009)

whitway said:


> For my children unless things change it will be Geneva, Grove City, or Covenant. All excellent institutions with good educational and theological standards.



What about other Christians colleges like Wheaton or Cedarville? What is your opinion of those?


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## westminken (Apr 11, 2009)

One of my best friends went to Covenant College and he loved his experience there. He said that his academic and spiritual growth was nurtured there and would move back to Chattanooga in a heartbeat.


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## ww (Apr 11, 2009)

Marrow Man said:


> whitway said:
> 
> 
> > For my children unless things change it will be Geneva, Grove City, or Covenant. All excellent institutions with good educational and theological standards.
> ...



Not very good but thanks for asking.  I'd rather they go to BJU my alma mater.


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## DMcFadden (Apr 11, 2009)

Wheaton is still probably the "gold standard" for broad evangelical institutions. It has the highest academic standards and typically ranks as the best (or one of the best) of the Christian colleges in the secular rankings. However, like much in the broad evangelical tradition, it is flirting with some pretty marginal ideas typical of the movement at large.

Cedarville is one of the four schools my daughter has been considering for next year. It comes from the GARB tradition but was disaffiliated because it was not fundy enough for the GARBers (a good thing in my book!). The national rankings put it #3 in the midwest (John Brown is #3 in the south). It has top flight academic standards. When my daughter visited a few months ago the girl she was placed with overnight had a perfect SAT and a "presidential scholarship" but was staying up all night prepping for tests (she felt that the classes were VERY challenging). They take a 24/7 view of creation, are one of only 20 colleges in the U.S. with a working "big board" functioning stock exchange lab, and had the most up-to-date (nearly luxurious) campus buildings of any of the schools we visited. The class we attended (Romans) was expertly taught, extremely interactive (the prof through out candy bars for good points made), and quite impressive. I asked if the school was rigidly dispi and received the answer that they try to be students of the biblical text and not doctrainaire adherents of the tradition from which they came. Profs in that department characterize themselves as "evangelical" in the ETS sense.

Cedarville runs about $27,000 (compared to some Christian colleges in CA in the mid $40,000s!!!) and was the most techno campus you can imagine. In some of the buildings you can hardly go a couple of hundred feet with encountering a computer kiosk (for logging on) or a large flat screen television tuned to the news or ESPN.

It is in the middle of NOWHERE, however. 40 minutes to the nearest mall and 60 to the nearest real city (Columbus). But, they say that you can get on the internet wirelessly from anywhere in the cornfields surrounding the school!


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## BG (Apr 11, 2009)

S


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## ww (Apr 11, 2009)

DMcFadden said:


> Wheaton is still probably the "gold standard" for broad evangelical institutions. It has the highest academic standards and typically ranks as the best (or one of the best) of the Christian colleges in the secular rankings. However, like much in the broad evangelical tradition, it is flirting with some pretty marginal ideas typical of the movement at large.
> 
> Cedarville is one of the four schools my daughter has been considering for next year. It comes from the GARB tradition but was disaffiliated because it was not fundy enough for the GARBers (a good thing in my book!). The national rankings put it #3 in the midwest (John Brown is #3 in the south). It has top flight academic standards. When my daughter visited a few months ago the girl she was placed with overnight had a perfect SAT and a "presidential scholarship" but was staying up all night prepping for tests (she felt that the classes were VERY challenging). They take a 24/7 view of creation, are one of only 20 colleges in the U.S. with a working "big board" functioning stock exchange lab, and had the most up-to-date (nearly luxurious) campus buildings of any of the schools we visited. The class we attended (Romans) was expertly taught, extremely interactive (the prof through out candy bars for good points made), and quite impressive. I asked if the school was rigidly dispi and received the answer that they try to be students of the biblical text and not doctrainaire adherents of the tradition from which they came. Profs in that department characterize themselves as "evangelical" in the ETS sense.
> 
> ...



Let's get something straight regarding my opinion listed above "You can take the boy out of Bob Jones, but you can't take the Bob Jones out of the boy."


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## DonP (Apr 11, 2009)

Marrow Man said:


> At present, I would not trust our own denominational college (Erskine) with the care of our young people, at least not w/o some major things happening first. I'm trusting that that Covenant is a different matter.



If Erskine is a denominational school why don't the ministers clean it up, get better profs?


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Apr 11, 2009)

DMcFadden said:


> Wheaton is still probably the "gold standard" for broad evangelical institutions. It has the highest academic standards and typically ranks as the best (or one of the best) of the Christian colleges in the secular rankings. However, like much in the broad evangelical tradition, it is flirting with some pretty marginal ideas typical of the movement at large.
> 
> Cedarville is one of the four schools my daughter has been considering for next year. It comes from the GARB tradition but was disaffiliated because it was not fundy enough for the GARBers (a good thing in my book!). The national rankings put it #3 in the midwest (John Brown is #3 in the south). It has top flight academic standards. When my daughter visited a few months ago the girl she was placed with overnight had a perfect SAT and a "presidential scholarship" but was staying up all night prepping for tests (she felt that the classes were VERY challenging). They take a 24/7 view of creation, are one of only 20 colleges in the U.S. with a working "big board" functioning stock exchange lab, and had the most up-to-date (nearly luxurious) campus buildings of any of the schools we visited. The class we attended (Romans) was expertly taught, extremely interactive (the prof through out candy bars for good points made), and quite impressive. I asked if the school was rigidly dispi and received the answer that they try to be students of the biblical text and not doctrainaire adherents of the tradition from which they came. Profs in that department characterize themselves as "evangelical" in the ETS sense.
> 
> ...




Cedarville was in my athletic conference when I played college soccer. They had the rowdiest and most vulgar fans (not that we ever did anything to warrant or egg it on...) in the American Mideast. Though the campus and academics are top notch. Sits right in the middle of the Dayton, Cincy, and Columbus triangle. Love the area personally.


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## Montanablue (Apr 11, 2009)

I have some dear friends that went to Covenant, and they had a lovely experience there. Although its small, the faculty seems to be dedicated and very supportive of the students. I have noticed that some Christian colleges offer a much lower standard of education than state universities or other secular colleges, but I don't think this is the case with Covenant at all. I would say the education is just as good as most secular institutions and better than some. I've also had friends that have had good experiences at Dordt and Grove City. 

Incidentally, my cousin has a very bad experience at Cedarville. I think the school in general can be quite good and there are many dedicated faculty there, however, some things about it could be...trying...for some students. I don't know that its appropriate to talk about the situation on a public board (it feels a bit like gossiping...), but if you're seriously considering attending there, pm me. Depending on your situation, I could have some relevant information for you.

Edit: Whoops, should have read the OP closer. I see that _you're_ not attending, but a student in your congregation


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## Hamalas (Apr 11, 2009)

Don't forget Patrick Henry College.


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## Marrow Man (Apr 11, 2009)

PeaceMaker said:


> Marrow Man said:
> 
> 
> > At present, I would not trust our own denominational college (Erskine) with the care of our young people, at least not w/o some major things happening first. I'm trusting that that Covenant is a different matter.
> ...



A good question. That is in the works, but like many things in presbyterianism, things often move _slowly_. The Board of the College (which has non-ARPs on it) has not helped us here. The fact that many of the problem profs flew under the radar and now have tenure is a problem. And Erskine College suffers from some of the same problems that plague other Christian institutions -- too much compromise endured in an effort to seem "acceptable" to secular standards. And the ARP is too "nice" to a fault.

When I was going to Erskine Seminary (both institutions are on the same campus), I was shocked one day to see a female student walking on campus with a shirt with the time "4:20" on front (for all of you non-hipsters out there, that is reference to the time in which all potheads gather to smoke marijuana) and a palmetto tree on the back (Erskine is in SC) made to look like a marijuana leaf. The logo on the back indicated it was commemorating a party head by a fraternity and sorority on campus. Sorry, but there is NO WAY that should have been allowed on a supposedly Christian campus. That was not the last time I saw students wearing that shirt either. I complained, but I don't think anything was ever done about it.


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## Ackbeet (Jun 14, 2009)

I believe Krabbendam has retired, though he's still very active in missions (watch out, or he'll recruit you!), especially in Uganda.


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## SolaScriptura (Jun 14, 2009)

Go to a good state school and major in Classics or something like that.


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## WarrenInSC (Jun 14, 2009)

Tim,

College selection is such an individual match decision - so I have learned after just having my youngest of a bunch graduate last month (from Grove City). Major questions about the prospective student make such a huge difference. 

- Is the student a top performing student with a real academic / career focus?
- Is the student desirous of a nurturing Christian family atmosphere that is not necessarily academically tops?
- Does the student even want to go to a four year liberal arts school, or is it more the parents desire?
- If the student already has some career focus, do any of the schools being considered even address that focus? The size of the student body can make, or break, the kinds of academic opportunities available regardless of other qualities. Even the personality of the student make the difference in prospering or languishing at any given school.
- Be careful not to depend on 'dated' info about a school, a mistake I made with one of ours
- has the student spent a life time in Christian Schools and/or home school and does that make for considering a change, or not.
- Don't even think of encouraging a student to go to a school that they haven't personally visited and stayed on campus over night in the dorms.

My wife and I met at Covenant back in the early '70's. Got married the day after graduation - Dr. Dr. Henry Krabbendam doing the honors (believe he is long gone from the school and probably still working on projects in Uganda). 

When our biological children were still young, we brought a long time family friend teenager into our family - who, of course, was ready for college long before our oldest biological child. While we thought we were pretty good a making educational decisions for our kids, we made a faulty assumption that Covenant would be for our adopted daughter what it was for us, just 16 years earlier - wrong. I'm sure that part of it was that that we had changed as much as Covenant had. Without casting any aspersions on what Covenant is like now, our adopted daughters' reaction during her 1st semester (this was '89) was that the school as a whole was not a nurturing environment - she was very upset about the social and spiritual maturity of the students in particular. (She also had Dr. K for some classes - one of the brights spots). We were shocked and, grasping at straws, I remembered another Christian College near by - Bryan College in Dayton, TN. It did not have the academic reputation Covenant did (nor particularly Reformed), but it students, I thought, had a better reputation in the areas she was concerned about. We visited during a visitation weekend and ran into piles of PCA parents with upcoming freshman, who had gotten the same comparative impression. She decided to transfer to Bryan, and it was like a hand in a glove. 
* The lessons - 1) Bryan was a great place (into the early '90's anyway) for someone wanting a solid but not necessarily top academic education that offers a more mature nurturing Christian environment. 2) Don't rely on dated info.

Our oldest biological child was a top-of-the class focused student since K-4. We knew what we/she wanted - an unrivaled academic reputation (especially in biology for her) in a serious, conservative and hopefully reformed school, that was economically as close to a State school cost as we could get. Grove City won that hands down. She graduated with both a BA and a BS (class of '01), went on to med school, and now both she and our son-in-law help staff a vibrant Christian ministry at the medical university, sponsored by a large Baptist church with a thoroughly Reformed Baptist pastor.
* The lesson - for my money, for most academic disciplines, for the high achieving focused student wanting a Christian (with Reformed tilt), AND economical college education, Grove City is very hard to beat.

Our two boys both had career/vocational desires/bents that were not going to be addressed by a Christian College at all. The older loved aviation from the time he could look up, and went to a great (but very expensive) university that was all aviation. He works in that field now, and is very happy with his job and employer. He and our daughter-in-law are part of a PCA church in GA. Our younger son had a cop/sleuth bent since he was old enough to sneak up on his siblings. Went to our State Univ for a degree in Criminal Justice, got hired into one of those 3 letter gov't agencies in the DC/MD area that you can't talk about when you work there, got his Masters a related field, and is just finishing joining a large OPC church in MD - never knew the OPC HAD a large church until I visited his .
* Lesson - for many good Christian offspring, going to a 4 year Christian liberal arts school simply is not the correct target.

Youngest daughter graduated last month from Grove City, aiming at Law school, after a year teaching ESL in China starting next month.
Lesson - same as daughter # 2 - for my money, for most academic disciplines, for the high achieving focused student wanting a Christian (with Reformed tilt), AND economical college education, Grove City is very hard to beat.

Tim, I hope that helps - ask lots of questions of the prospective student.


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