“I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but here we are at a mostly white college, living on top of a mountain in a largely white, upper-class community, going to largely white churches.”

In a year of recession, as many colleges are scaling back and forced to compromise admissions standards, Covenant College, an institution in the Presbyterian Church In America, is bucking the national trend and continuing to talk about progress.

Though recruitment has felt a strain, this year Covenant was “still able to fill the incoming class with students who fit,” according to Sarah Ocando, the Associate Director of Admissions.

This has allowed the college to remain optimistic about new developments in admission policies and recruitment strategies.

“We are always evaluating how we can better reflect the school’s mission,” said Director of Academic Support Janet Hulsey.

Discussion for improvement has included the possibility of raising academic standards for applicants, changing recruitment strategies, or altering the admissions process itself.

Changes like this are initiated by Covenant’s Admissions Committee…

“Changing academic minimums is an issue that we’ve discussed as a future possibility,” said sophomore Ruth Gibson, the student representative on the committee. “Essentially, we’ve talked about raising the GPA minimum from 3.0 to 3.5.”

The average GPA of this year’s freshman class is a 3.69, with 21 of 269 students falling below the minimum. At this point, raising the GPA minimum to 3.5 would affect approximately 46 more students – a total of 67, or 25% of the whole class.