Cobb Reporter

On Saturday, May 18, Mount Paran Christian School (MPCS) celebrated the graduation of 114 seniors at Turner Chapel A.M.E. church. The event was led by Valedictorian Sydney McCune and Salutatorian Caroline Bethel. The MPCS class of 2024 includes students who have been accepted into some of the nation's most prestigious colleges and universities.

The celebrations began on Friday with the annual senior parade, a tradition born out of the COVID years. This fifth-annual senior parade, in addition to senior chapel and honors night, provided a final opportunity to recognize the hard work, dedication, and accomplishments of the graduating class. On Friday afternoon, seniors and their families decorated their cars with balloons, streamers, posters, and flags representing their college destinations. They paraded through the MPCS campus while teachers, staff, parents, and underclassmen cheered from various positions along the route.

The class of 2024 has many accomplishments to its name including acceptance into 108 colleges and universities across the country; 22 are in-state and 86 are out-of-state institutions. Of these acceptances, 67 are public schools while 41 are private schools; within this latter group, 20 are Christian colleges.

Some highly-selective school acceptances include Boston College, Clemson University, Furman University, Georgia Tech University among others. The top five colleges that will be attended by the class of 2024 students include University of Georgia (14 students), University of Alabama (11 students), Kennesaw State University (8 students), Auburn University and Georgia College & State University (7 students each), and Georgia Institute of Technology (6 students).

Two students from this graduating class were selected as National Merit Scholar finalists; 65 will receive merit-based academic achievement scholarships; one student will receive an arts scholarship; and 19 will receive athletic scholarships. These awards total more than $8.8 million in combined merit-based, performing/visual arts, and athletic scholarship monies. This does not include an estimated $3.4 million of HOPE/Zell Miller scholarship funding that brings the total estimated scholarship offerings for the class of 2024 to $12.2 million.

Mount Paran Christian School, the largest private Christian school in Cobb County, is a non-denominational, college-preparatory school for students from preschool age three through grade 12. Founded in 1976, MPCS is fully accredited (SAIS/Cognia) and located near Kennesaw Mountain on a 68-acre collegiate-like campus.