Rise of Scholastic Excellence in Seminary Students
Diocesan Press Service. October 28, 1968 [70-18]
NEW YORK, N. Y. -- Men and women of increasingly high intellectual quality are offering themselves to the Church, according to the Very Rev. Sherman E. Johnson, Dean of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, Calif.
Dean Johnson says the scholastic excellence of entering students, as measured by Graduate Record Examinations, has risen continually since 1959 when the tests were first administered to entering students.
The Graduate Record Examinations, which are designed to measure the quality of undergraduate education and academic maturity, cover the areas of social science, humanities and natural science.
The national mean for first year graduate students for the Graduate Record Examinations is 1500. The mean for entering students at C. D. S. P. this year was 1792.
Students also fare well when compared with earlier classes at C. D. S. P. In 1959 the mean score was 1520. and scores have increased since.
"The students were not selected for scholastic excellence alone," Dean Johnson said, "although we carefully examine college transcripts. They were chosen mainly because of personal qualities which indicate success in the ministry. "