<p>What I meant by mentioning WFU is that it's a good example of a top 30 school, and its inter-quartile range is almost identical to PHC's.</p>
<p>ah, gotcha. But I have to say, in every way, up and down, comparing PHC to WFU would strike me as seriously off base. Academically, selectivity, ECs, campus and resources, spiritually, distribution of student body, etc. etc. Posing a comparison of what might be 2 fine but enormously different institutions as like-institutions in virtually anyway, perhaps especially admission selectivity or class profile is a verdict requiring evidence beyond what you or I may say. </p>
<p>And I don't mean that in a perjurative way. Only that PHC is apparently a very young place working ...probly struggling mightily...to survive in a world drowning in options. Knowing it's mission, I'll pray for its survival and thrival.</p>
<p>Can you or others answer the issue of definitive student body profile(s), where they might be found, and where or if PHC is in process of seeking to be accredited beyond TRAC, whatever that is. I'm not familiar with that.</p>
<p>I just came across a reference to a book about Patrick Henry College:</p>
<p>God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America, by Hanna Rosin</p>
<p>TRACS is as valid an accrediting agency as the more well-known ones, as it is itself accredited by the DoE.</p>
<p>No, PHC certainly does not have the range of options as a national university. Nor am I saying it's similar to top 30 universities, other than in the "intellectual quality of [its] students." That, I think, based on standardized test scores is hard to question.</p>
<p>Well, Bart ol' buddy n brother ...I must confess, you fell off the ol' credibility wagon on this one.</p>
<p>Alleging TRACs is analogous to the other accrediting associations. While this says little to nothing of the quality of education delivered through member institutions, in reviewing that list, I admit to never hearing of about 98% of them. Again, that's no indicator of quality lacking. The more apparent void is that literally none of the generally considered quality Christian colleges belong either. None, zilcho. Wheaton, Biola, Liberty, Nyack, Gordon, Hope, Calvin, Grove City, Geneva, Crown, and on and on ...NONE belong. None of the Coalition of Christian Colleges that I could identify either. </p>
<p>Furthermore, I'm afraid you'd have to provide a whole lot more evidence than Pat Henry does on their own website to even suggest that the academic level is within a 30-06 rifle shot of WFU. That's frankly, just ludicrous and totally unbelievable.</p>
<p>Now, having said this, and its obviously one opinion, let me say that I'm in no way maligning PHC or any of these other virtually unknown (beyond their presumably very narrow circles of awareness) institutions, their faculty, or students. Many are undoubtedly good students and better people doing fabulous work on their campuses and beyond. But it does them a serious disservice to attempt to assess or evaluate their value using the measures embraced by more established institutions, which include many Christian as well as secular and other types of insitutions.</p>
<p>Just doesn't work, and frankly, that's one of the reasons, and understandably so, that a PHC intentionally chooses NOT to portray those classic indicators. They don't do well on those measures. And remember, the world's measures ain't God's, so I'd not fret one second. The TRACS institutions are playing a game in which the score has eternal consequences, and THE Scorekeeper that never cheats!</p>
<p>Bartleby - Here's something you need to think very seriously about when evaluating Patrick Henry and similar schools.</p>
<p>PHC's Mission - "Educating students according to a classical liberal arts curriculum, and training them with apprenticeship methodology, the College provides academically excellent baccalaureate level higher education with a biblical world view."</p>
<p>Mission of PHC's Classical Liberal Arts program - "To provide students with a broad background in classical languages, logic, rhetoric, Biblical studies, history, English composition and literature, philosophy, science, and mathematics. They will encounter a multiplicity of ideas animating the world's great leaders and thinkers of the past in order to see how God has worked in and continues to work in His creation."</p>
<p>From the PHC Statement of Biblical Worldview - "Humans and each kind of organism resulted from God's distinct and supernatural creative intervention and did not result from a natural evolutionary process, nor from an evolutionary process that God secretly directed. In particular, God created man in a distinct and supernatural creative act, forming the specific man Adam from non-living material, and the specific woman Eve from Adam."</p>
<p>Let me put my comments in context. I'm a Christian and have been a college VP for over 20 years - formerly serving as a VP at a Christian college. I left that college for a public university when I realized that the former was producing students who believed they had an education, but instead had been taught a slanted approach to critical thinking for which few people outside its narrow culture have any respect. PHC purports to offer an "academically excellent" higher education and a "multiplicity of ideas," and to teach science. Then they require adherence to a conclusion they've pre-adopted without any without scientific evidence, telling their students that it's appropriate to embrace the answers that you wish to believe before gathering or analyzing data which may support or conflict with it.</p>
<p>I hire a lot of young people, but I can't hire anyone who's been taught such a distorted mode of critical thinking. This isn't about evolution vs. creationism (though you should be aware that the response of educated members of the world community is to laugh at PHC's version of the creation, and accordingly, at schools such as PHC). This is about whether one is truly open to learning, objectively reassessing, and if necessary, adapting one's point of view. Being a successful and well-educated person in the 21st century requires that ability. PHC not only fails to teach that most basic of intellectual skills, it teaches that biased and closed-minded thought is acceptable. Any college that does this is not in the business of higher education, and its students are being defrauded and damaged.</p>
<p>Pepperdine isn't evangelical.
It's affiliated with the Church of Christ, which is nondenominational.</p>
<p>I am in love with Gonzaga =]</p>
<p>Gonzaga is a Christian college?</p>
<p>Jesuit (which is catholic, which to some people means no)</p>
<p>how religious are people at Gonzaga?</p>
<p>Consider Messiah College (Messiah</a> College - A Nationally-Ranked Christian College) -- an outstanding Christian college of the liberal and applied arts and sciences in beautiful Grantham, Pennsylvania. Rigorous academics, outstanding athletics program, nationally ranked study abroad, accounting, nursing programs. I attended a public university, not knowing many other options existed. Students at Messiah get a one-on-one education from professors who have committed their lives to scholarship, and who are open to sharing. Messiah is unlike any Christian school in the United States. Visit and you will see why! To get a glimpse into the lives of Messiah students, faculty, and alumni visit Messiah</a> College: StoryLink.</p>
<p>I am a Westmont alum, and my daughter attends Gordon. Both are terrific schools, though, in my opinion, Gordon and Westmont are a notch down academically from Wheaton, which I think is widely considered to be the top Christian college academically. Westmont for me was a wonderful school, with good academics, small classes, caring professors, and a spectacular campus (which was not destroyed by the Tea fire -- as someone posted -- though there were several building lost, which are being rebuilt). My BA degree from Westmont got me into one of the most competitive law schools in the country (and I was not a straight A college student), and the education and friends I made (and wonderful wife I married) have convinced me that it was the right choice for me.</p>
<p>My oldest daughter is at Gordon, and she loves it. She was HS valedictorian, and got a terrific scholarship and a spot in their honors program. She turned down some terrific highly-ranked schools (including secular and Jesuit) to attend Gordon and it was the right choice for her. She has made a diverse group of friends, and is receiving a great education at a school with a beautiful campus, ranked one of the safest in the country.</p>
<p>My younger daughter is now deciding, and may go to Gordon or Westmont, but more likely will attend a non-Christian school (she loves the NESCACs -- Amherst, Colby, Middlebury, etc.). Just my $.02, but I think there are some great Christian colleges out there, and I would encourage anyone looking for great academics, too, to consider Wheaton, Gordon and Westmont.</p>
<p>XCDad</p>