For families in Charlotte who want a Christian high school and also want their child prepared for a selective university, Charlotte Christian School is usually the first name on the list, and the question is whether it delivers on the second part as well as the first. In this profile, we look at the Upper School with that question in mind: the AP and Honors program, the required Bible sequence, the college counseling office, the cost, and what the school does and does not expect of a family’s faith.
Charlotte Christian is the only faith-based school in our Charlotte series, and for a family that wants faith integrated into every year of school, it has no local rival at this academic level: Niche ranks it first of 28 Christian high schools in the Charlotte area. We believe the things to weigh beyond that are the ones a nonsectarian school would be judged on too: how many seniors each college counselor works with, where the class’s test scores sit, and where graduates actually enroll. On the first of those, Charlotte Christian is the weakest of the four schools, and we say below what that means and how families work around it.
The criteria are the same ones we used for the other three private schools.
Charlotte Christian describes itself as “Christ-centered, college-preparatory, independent, non-denominational,” and it is not tied to any church. Its campus is on Sardis Road in southeast Charlotte, a short distance from Providence Day. Our Guide to the Best Charlotte High Schools compares all four private schools and Weddington High side by side.
| Founded | 1950 (as Calvary Christian Day School) |
| Grades | JK–12 |
| Total enrollment | 1,334 (2026–27) |
| Upper School (9–12) enrollment | 442 (2026–27) |
| Upper School tuition | $27,055 (2026–27), one rate for grades 9–12 |
| Financial aid | Need-based only, capped at 50% of tuition; share of students aided not published |
| Student-to-teacher ratio | 11.9:1 school-wide, JK–12 (NCES, 2023–24); the school doesn’t publish its own ratio |
| Advanced courses | 21 AP and 35 Honors courses (2026–27); no IB |
| Religious affiliation | Christian, non-denominational; not tied to any church |
| Campus | More than 50 acres on Sardis Road, southeast Charlotte |
| Athletics | NCISAA 4A; conference play in the CISAA |
| Niche overall grade | A+ (2027); #3 of 41 private high schools and #1 of 28 Christian high schools in the Charlotte area |
| Head of School | Barry Giller (since June 2010) |
Figures are from Charlotte Christian’s own 2026–27 publications, the NCES Private School Survey, and Niche, which combines published data with parent and student reviews; links are in the Charlotte Christian Resources list at the end of this profile. The Honors count is our tally of the school’s 2026–27 Profile.
Under Giller, who is in his 17th year, the campus has been largely rebuilt: a northern athletic complex (2020), a new Middle School building (2022), a new Upper School building (2023), and the Saleh Athletic Center, opening in January 2027. The 2026–27 school year is the school’s 75th.
The Upper School offers 21 Advanced Placement (AP) courses and 35 Honors courses for 2026–27, and no IB. AP courses are college-level classes with a national exam each May, the standard way a US student shows a university that they took the hardest work on offer; Honors courses are the school’s own advanced sections, weighted above standard courses in the GPA. Students need an A in the prerequisite course to move up to Honors or AP, and every AP student takes the AP exam.
The A requirement is the thing to understand about this curriculum. It means the path into AP runs through grades in 9th and 10th, so a student who starts slowly has to climb; it also means a Charlotte Christian transcript full of APs is a transcript that was earned course by course. The school doesn’t rank students, so the transcript and the school profile do the work of showing where a student sits.
Every Upper School student takes a Bible course each year: Old Testament Survey in 9th, New Testament Survey in 10th, Christian Theology and World Religions in 11th, and Apologetics and Cultural Engagement in 12th. Biblical Studies counts toward the 26 units required to graduate for the Class of 2028 and later, so the sequence takes one of the six or seven course slots a student has each year. For a family that wants this, that is the point of the school. For one that doesn’t, it is a year-by-year cost in schedule space that the nonsectarian schools don’t charge, and it should settle the choice.
Beyond AP, Calculus III is offered after AP Calculus BC and is weighted like an AP, and one dual-enrollment course, Personal Finance and Biblical Stewardship, is taken through Cedarville University. Students can graduate “with distinction” through the Academic Conservatory Program, which recognizes depth in any of six areas, from Math & Science to Fine Arts and World Languages, and can earn the Seal of Biliteracy.
Two required programs shape the Upper School calendar:
Charlotte Christian has two college counselors, Jodi Foxx, the director, and Lauren Miller. The Class of 2026 had 110 seniors, which works out to about 55 seniors per counselor by our calculation, the largest caseload of the four private schools in our series and double Charlotte Country Day’s 27. Two separate Upper School counselors handle academic and personal matters, so the college counselors’ time is not split, and college counseling begins in 9th grade.
Fifty-five is a caseload at which a counselor can know every senior but cannot give each one many hours in the fall of senior year, when applications, essays, and recommendation letters all come due at once. The students who get the most from the office are the ones who start early, treat Junior Seminar as the first draft of the application, and keep their counselor informed; the ones who arrive in September of senior year with no college essay drafted get a letter that reflects what the counselor had time to learn.
The 2026–27 Profile reports a Class of 2026 middle-50% SAT of 1120–1320, from 83 students tested, and ACT of 21–29, from 90 students tested, meaning the middle half of test-takers scored in those ranges. Those are the lowest published ranges of the three schools in our series that publish them, which affects how a family plans testing (more on that below). The Profile also reports 12 National Merit Finalists over the last 15 years, the recognition awarded on the junior-year PSAT.
The Class of 2026 received $3,164,588 in college scholarships through May 18, 2026. Five graduates enrolled at UNC-Chapel Hill, others at Columbia, Notre Dame, Colgate, Wake Forest, and Northeastern, and two received service academy appointments, to the US Military Academy at West Point and the US Air Force Academy. The most common destinations were Southeastern public flagships, led by Clemson, Auburn, South Carolina, and Alabama, along with Elon, UNC-Chapel Hill, and NC State. Recent classes have also been admitted to Harvard, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Davidson, and UVA, and to Christian colleges such as Wheaton, Baylor, and Samford.
The counseling caseload is the first thing to plan around, and the plan is simple: a Charlotte Christian family should expect to run more of the college process at home, or with outside help, than a Country Day family would. The two counselors are responsible for a job that four or five people do at the other schools, and the arithmetic follows from that.
The second is testing. With a middle-50% SAT of 1120–1320, whether to submit scores to a given university is a real decision for many students here, since a score that is strong for the class may sit below a selective university’s middle 50%. Each target university publishes its own range, and the decision should be made against that, university by university. Our guide to what colleges you should apply to covers how to build that list.
The third is money. The pull toward out-of-state flagships such as Clemson, Auburn, and Alabama means that merit scholarships, which those universities use to recruit strong out-of-state students, are part of the college plan for many families here, and the $3.16 million the Class of 2026 received reflects that. A family that wants merit money should know which universities offer it and what test scores and grades trigger it, which is a different planning exercise from aiming at the most selective schools on the list.
What the school’s list shows is that both paths exist: a Charlotte Christian graduate went to Columbia in 2026 and another to West Point, and the same class sent its largest groups to Clemson and Auburn. Which path your child is on is something no school list can tell you, and no counselor, the school’s or ours, can promise where it ends.
Planning ahead for college from Charlotte Christian? James Edge has worked with students from Charlotte Christian and schools across Charlotte. Book a free consultation to talk through your child’s path.
Upper School tuition for 2026–27 is $27,055, one rate for grades 9 through 12, which is $7,020 below Country Day and more than $9,000 below Providence Day and Latin. It also includes more than any of them:
Other costs for 2026–27:
| Fee | Amount |
|---|---|
| Enrollment fee (nonrefundable, applied to tuition) | $1,500 per student |
| New family fee (one-time) | $1,250 |
| Tuition Protection Program | $250 per student per year |
| 10-month payment plan | $300 per student per year |
| International student fee | $2,000 per student per year |
| Application fee | $100 |
Families with three or more children receive a $1,500 tuition credit for the third, fourth, or fifth child.
Financial aid is need-based only and processed through Clarity. Grants will not exceed 50% of tuition, and families reapply each year. The school doesn’t publish the share of students who receive aid or its total aid budget, so the 50% cap is the figure to plan around: a family that could not pay half of $27,055 will not close the gap with school aid alone.
The gap is where the NC Opportunity Scholarship comes in. Charlotte Christian participates in North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship program, a state program that pays part of private-school tuition, and every family applying for school aid must also apply for an Opportunity Scholarship. In 2024–25, 608 Charlotte Christian students received one, according to the state’s annual report, which is close to half the school. These are state awards, separate from the school’s own aid, and applications for 2027–28 open February 1, 2027. The combination of a lower sticker price, school aid, and a state scholarship is what makes Charlotte Christian the one school in our series that a family without a private-school budget should still look at.
Are you hoping to enroll your child in Charlotte Christian? Learn how Dr. James Edge can help.
Charlotte Christian accepts applications for junior kindergarten through 12th grade. For students entering in fall 2027:
| Step | Date |
|---|---|
| Grades 9–12 “A Closer Look” open house | November 11, 2026 |
| Priority application deadline, grades 1–12 ($100 fee) | January 15, 2027 |
| Financial aid application deadline, new families | January 22, 2027 |
| ISEE on campus at Charlotte Christian | January 23, 2027 |
| All application materials due | February 26, 2027 |
| Admission decisions | April 9, 2027 |
| Enrollment contracts due | April 16, 2027 |
After the priority deadline, admission is rolling where grade-level space permits, which makes Charlotte Christian the one school in our series where a late application still has a chance.
Applicants for grades 5–12 take the ISEE (Independent School Entrance Exam) and complete an Applicant Questionnaire, handwritten by the student. Applicants for grades 7–12 also need English, math, and principal or counselor recommendations, plus transcripts. Each family interviews with a member of the leadership team, and the applicant joins that interview. International applicants submit TOEFL scores. The school does not publish an acceptance rate.
The application asks the student about faith directly and says nothing about the parents’. The questionnaire asks applicants to describe their relationship with Jesus Christ, list any church or spiritual activities, and agree to “honor Christ at all times.” The admissions pages don’t list a church-membership or statement-of-faith requirement for parents, and the school says its families come from many churches and denominations. A family that is unsure what is expected of them should ask admissions directly at the November open house rather than guess.
For 9th-grade applicants:
Athletics are central to life at Charlotte Christian. The school counts 46 state championships through 2026 on its itemized Knights Accolades list, including a 2026 baseball title, and competes in the NCISAA 4A division and the CISAA against Providence Day, Charlotte Latin, and Charlotte Country Day. The 53,000-square-foot Saleh Athletic Center opens in January 2027. Notable alumni include NBA players Stephen Curry (’06) and Seth Curry (’08).
Upper School clubs include Model UN, DECA, Debate, and Best Buddies, and students produce Knights Knews, a weekly broadcast. The arts include an Honors Wind Ensemble, orchestra, choir, and a winter mainstage musical.
Spiritual life is woven through the week: weekly chapel, Bible studies, and fall retreats, on top of the daily Bible class. There are no uniforms; students follow an appearance policy.
Charlotte Christian is the smallest Upper School of the four private schools in our series (442, against 536 at Country Day, 586 at Latin, and 754 at Providence Day), the cheapest by a wide margin, and the only one with a faith requirement. Its AP list (21) is the shortest, its counseling caseload (55) the largest, and its published test ranges the lowest of the three schools that publish them.
The other three are the comparison for a family that is open to a nonsectarian school:
All four require the ISEE and set mid-January 2027 application deadlines.
For a family that wants a Christian school, Charlotte Christian is the choice, and it is a stronger college-preparatory school than the other faith-based options in the area by Niche’s ranking and by its AP program. For a family choosing on college outcomes alone, with no preference about faith, the other three offer more counselor time and longer AP lists at a higher price, and alternatives like Country Day should come first. See the full side-by-side comparison in our Guide to the Best Charlotte High Schools.
Do you have to be Christian to attend Charlotte Christian School? The school doesn’t publish a church-membership or parent statement-of-faith requirement on its admissions pages, but the student questionnaire asks applicants to describe their relationship with Jesus Christ and to agree to honor Christ, and every student takes Bible each year and attends weekly chapel. A student who would be uncomfortable with that should not apply; a family that is unsure should ask admissions about expectations for parents.
Does Charlotte Christian accept the NC Opportunity Scholarship? Yes, and families applying for school aid are required to apply for one. In 2024–25, 608 Charlotte Christian students received Opportunity Scholarships, according to state data. School aid is need-based only and capped at 50% of tuition.
Is Charlotte Christian hard to get into? The school doesn’t publish an acceptance rate, and because admission is rolling after January 15 where space remains, selectivity varies by grade and year.
Did Steph Curry go to Charlotte Christian School? Yes. Stephen Curry graduated from Charlotte Christian in 2006 and his brother Seth Curry in 2008, and both went on to the NBA.
At a school with 55 seniors per counselor, the course choices, testing plan, and activities a student settles on in 9th and 10th grade carry more of the college application than they would elsewhere. If you’d like an honest assessment of where your child stands and what those choices should be, book a free consultation with Menlo Coaching’s Charlotte team.
James Edge, PhD
Director & Sr. College Admissions Consultant
Education: BA
Based in Charlotte, NC, James has helped students win admission to Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Duke, and more. A former Providence Day teacher, he combines deep local knowledge, candid strategy, expert writing coaching, and a talent for helping students translate years of hard work into standout applications.
Speak with our strategic advisors to evaluate profile fit, identify best-fit target schools (Ivy League or otherwise), and define a clear application roadmap.