Today's Group Work: Admissions Committee

In groups of three or four, consider the seven personal statements by college presidents in light of the following two categories/activities:

1. Choose the three essays that seem most like argument essays to you, the ones that seem to make a debatable point. For each of these three essays, identify a sentence that you think is the best candidate for a thesis statement.

2. Imagine that your group is the admissions committee for an elite graduate program for college administrators seeking an advanced certificate in Social and Emotional Learning. Excellent writing skills are one of the criteria for admission. Other qualities the committee is looking for are strong leadership abilities, good critical thinking skills, and emotional intelligence. 

You have a group of seven finalists, all of whom have been deemed equal in every respect (graduate school transcripts, publications, service to their universities, etc.) and now you must choose which two candidates to admit based on the writing samples you have before you. Who would your committee choose, and how would you justify this choice?