The Perfect College Admissions Committee
October 25, 2018
As parents of a high school senior, back to school means it’s time to apply to colleges. With our help, Brian has chosen the schools he thinks will best help him achieve his goals. We have applied to seven schools so far. In addition to the application itself, you must submit the application fee (of course), letters or recommendation from teachers, friends, and counselors, your academic transcript, your SAT and ACT test scores, and a resume of other accomplishments that would not appear on your transcript. Some schools even require that you submit a “mid-year” report and “final year” report from your senior year to be sure that you didn’t tank senior year after your college application was submitted.
I read a few articles about how the process schools use to evaluate students for admission. Most schools have certain minimum GPA and test scores to be admitted, but once that hurdle is cleared, they have to slice the bologna pretty thin to make distinctions among very deserving applicants. There may be several kids with the same GPA and test scores, but one kid may be an Eagle Scout, another may have gone on mission trips, another may be captain of the band, another may be an entrepreneur, another may have invented something. In addition to all those criteria, schools are very sensitive about admitting the proper ratio of males and females, and various ethnicities and religions.
If the admissions committee member who receives your application is impressed with you, he will fight for you at admissions committee meetings where final decisions are made. Meanwhile other admissions counselors are fighting for their applicants, and there are only so many openings available. Schools are very secretive about their admissions process. You may have read recently about a lawsuit against Harvard University that alleged that its admissions process discriminates against Asian Americans. Harvard had to reveal some of its admissions process, which lawyers for the Asian American kids said clearly discriminated against them. The bottom line is that the college admissions process is not perfect. Those who judge are imperfect, fallible human beings with their own prejudices and biases that affect their judgment. Mistakes happen. A more deserving kid may be rejected in favor of a less deserving kid. Life is not always fair and we need to get used to disappointment.
Not so with the Lord Jesus Christ. He is perfect, untainted by sin, prejudice and bias. He judges with perfect righteousness. His judgments are incapable of being wrong. He does not hide behind nebulous admissions criteria when deciding who spends eternity in heaven and who does not. He asks one simple question. “Why should I let you into heaven?” When I was in high school and college, cheating on tests was rampant. Our biology teacher used to give multiple choice tests, and some wise guy in our class ‘found’ the test before it was given. Some kids figured out the answers and wrote them on their book covers as quarter notes on a musical staff. The teacher thought that some music written on a text book cover was just idle doodling, when in fact it was the answer key to the test! I’m not advocating, I’m just reporting. I personally would never be involved in such scandal. 🙂
We don’t have to cheat on the test that Jesus gives us because the Bible gives us the answer to the question we will be asked. Romans 10:9 says “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” How gracious of God to give us the answer in advance! It’s the easiest test you will ever take, aside from the fact that the proctor is the Creator of the whole universe! 🙂 We often try to complicate the answer by injecting ourselves into it. We want to talk about the things WE have done and why WE deserve to get into heaven. That misses the whole point of the gospel. Let’s not kid ourselves, we DON’T deserve to get into heaven. The gospel is that God graciously allows us in to heaven if we rely on the merit of HIS SON and not our own merit.
As Brian waits for these various schools to either admit him or reject him based on his own merit, I thank God that when it comes to salvation, we don’t have to worry about our own merit. There is nothing that we can do to make God love us any more or any less. When Jesus died on the cross, He said, “It is finished.” What was finished on the cross was the work that was required for any person to go to heaven. Jesus died so we may live. Your salvation will not depend on the whims of some admissions committee or some esoteric admissions criteria. Your salvation will depend on correctly answering the question, “Why should I let you into heaven”. You know the answer. Trust in Christ. Rely on Him. Then live joyfully knowing that you will spend eternity with Him.
