Worldly Benefits of Attending Bios

Day in and day out, the teachers and students of Bios Christian Academy spend thirty to forty minutes everyday reading and teaching directly from the Bible. Every one of the teachers instructing on this campus holds to a view of the Bible that believes it is inerrant, that the God of the universe is sovereign in everything, and that eternal salvation from the condemnation of our sins is only through the priceless sacrifice of Jesus the Christ. And through God's wisdom we do a pretty solid job of teaching the Bible everyday. But that is not why I am writing this piece.

No, it is time to speak on the blessings God has provided to graduates. We talk, teach, model as best we can, and encourage believers a lot. But the world cares nothing about our efforts in this area. But weekly, and sometimes daily, people, new to the school, visiting for the first time, laugh, shout, and exclaim with joy the accomplishments of our graduates and the parents and teachers who we have supported up to the moment of graduation. And the statistics are pretty impressive in this educational black hole of ignorance called Arizona.

First, twenty-one of twenty-two 12th grade students graduated. Of those graduates, all have gone on to or will be going on to college. Five of the twenty-one were invited or accepted to at least one four year college honors school. Twelve graduates had full scholarship opportunities or the equivalents from multiple scholarship offers. Five of the other nine grads earned partial scholarships. Four year public universities were the choice of eight of our students, and four chose public junior colleges. Nine went to Christian colleges. Out-of-state colleges were the choice of seven students. Full tuition scholarships range from $17,500 to $9,000. A goal we work to attain is that 75% of our seniors are enrolled and accepted into a college by December 31 and for 100% of our students to select and commit to a post high school place of education by April 1st.

As a non-elitist, educational academy, we fare very well when compared to students state wide and locally.

In an article dated April 20 in the Republic, the seven Gilbert high schools were compared on just the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aide) completion rates as of April 2. The highest percentage of students who have completed their FAFSA forms was 30 percent at one high school and a low of 24 percent at two of the schools. That means for the rest of the student body, greatly reduced chances for public and private scholarships, federal aid, as well as acceptance into the school of their choice. For Bios, the effort is to get at least 75% of students with early enrollments to give them increased opportunities for scholarships and the college of their choice. And eventually all by March 1.

High grades in school and high marks on college entrance exams are very helpful in getting the scholarships needed to finish college without the massive debt which is averaging $22,000 after four years of college as reported in the Wall Street Journal on April 26.

The SAT and ACT are two of the largest college entrance exams. And on average our Bios scores are very good when compared to state and national averages.

	Composite	English	Math	Reading	Science
Bios ACT	27.3	27.2	28.4	27.9	25.2
Arizona	19.7	18.6	20.3	19.9	19.6
National	21.1	20.6	21.1	21.3	20.9

	Reading	Math	Writing
Bios SAT	556	600	579
Arizona	517	523	489
National	497	514	489

As you can see, there is quite a difference between Bios and the rest of the country.

Our high school math students enjoyed first place awards for scoring the highest in the Rocky Mountain Region of ACSI (30,000 students) in pre-algebra, algebra, algebra 2, and precalculus. They go on to represent the Rocky Mountain Region in the national competition.

In addition, our Bios website lists recent writing honors by our students. Local, state, and national awards including the DuPont science research essay and The Library of Congress essay.

While worldly accomplishments aren't our first goal as a school, the students of Bios Christian Academy benefit greatly from their hard work here as they look to a future of serving their Lord.