HansK2012

What is your area of interest, broadly speaking?

Thank you for sharing and good luck with your interview!

Thank you for sharing and congratulations!

Fourth! Tell us!!!!

Congratulations! So, give us all the juicy details! Were you contacted by a POI or the DGS or someone else? Any idea on whether or not others will be interviewed? How far out is the interview? Are all the promising candidates being interviewed or just some? Inquiring minds want to know!

I think you're being uncharitable here. The poster who commented on Wheaton and Fuller could have expressed his/her views with a bit more nuance and tact, but I don't think you have any grounds for imputing malice or characterizing the poster's statements as "obviously false." The confusion seems to stem from the slippery nature of the designations "conservative" and "liberal." These terms are completely relative and so blanket judgments that presuppose but do not acknowledge their starting point are bound to be unhelpful. Standing form the vantage point of HDS, Duke and PTS look mighty conservative. And yet, to the observer seated at Gordon-Conwell, PTS appears to be way out of bounds theologically--far too liberal. Move down the conservative spectrum to an RTS or Westminster and now all of sudden even Gordon-Conwell begins to look a bit suspect.

I think TolleLege nails it in post #21: if you are on the middle-to-conservative half of the evangelical spectrum and you are not looking to advance to a competitive PhD program at a secular university then you would not be particularly well served by attending PTS, Duke, HDS, YDS, etc. Although it is surely correct that many students at the aforementioned institutions go on to pastoral ministry, they serve primarily in mainline contexts or at least on the progressive end of the evangelical spectrum. All of these terms--"conservative," "liberal," "mainline," "evangelical," etc.--are so relative that broad statements are difficult to make. However, I think it's fair to say that if you want to serve as a pastor in a conservative, evangelical church helping lay-people to better understand and apply their Bibles, then you will receive far more relevant training (note, not necessarily "better," but "more relevant") at schools like Gordon-Conwell or TEDS than you would at places like PTS, Duke, HDS, et. al.

Grow up.

The top programs will have scores of applicants with both: great ideas and exceptional students. Why would they bother with someone lacking one or the other?

Yes, but those prep book have a strong financial incentive to convince you that study will pay massive dividends. It is not in their best interest to admit the obvious: that while careful study obviously can raise your score, everyone has a ceiling and all the studying in the world will not change that. If everyone could score a 170 simply by studying more then many people would do just that and the percentile rankings would change accordingly. This does not happen because ETS has devised a test that only 1% of test takers are capable of acing.