Christ-Centered · Culturally-Engaged · Globally-Minded
International Baccalaureate
High School
Should Be Bigger Than High School
High school is four important years. They should prepare students for far more than the four years that follow.
Daystar High School offers a rigorous, Christ-centered International Baccalaureate education in the heart of Chicago. Students learn in classrooms, throughout the city, and around the world. They wrestle with complex ideas and perspectives. They build meaningful relationships with teachers who know them. And they begin asking not only “What do I want to do?” but “Who am I becoming, and how might I participate in God’s work in the world?”
Bigger Opportunities, Smaller Community
Look What Becomes Possible When Students Are Known
Students do not need a school of thousands to have a big high school experience.
When students are known, different things become possible.
Teachers know their strengths, interests, personalities, and potential. Students have room to ask questions, take intellectual risks, contribute to conversations, pursue leadership, try something new, and help shape the community around them.
They don’t have to wait years for an opportunity to participate. And when a student has an idea for something that doesn’t exist yet, there’s often enough flexibility to say: let’s build it.
Being known also means it’s harder to disappear. Teachers notice when students are flourishing and when something feels off. They know when to encourage, when to challenge, and when a student is capable of more.
A smaller community doesn’t have to mean a smaller experience. It can mean more opportunities to make the experience your own.
What Becomes Possible When Students Are Known
1
More access to teachers.
2
More opportunities to lead.
3
More room to participate.
4
More freedom to explore your interests.
5
More people who know your name.
Bigger Than The Right Answer
An IB Education Designed for a Complex World
The world does not need more people who can simply memorize information. It needs people who can ask thoughtful questions, analyze complex problems, communicate clearly, consider multiple perspectives, and continue learning throughout their lives.
That is why Daystar High School embraces the International Baccalaureate (IB) framework. As one of just 43 IB Continuum Schools in the United States, Daystar is part of a global community committed to a rigorous standard of education built around inquiry, critical thinking, research, communication, and real-world application.
Students do not simply learn information. They question it. Connect it. Evaluate it. Defend their thinking. And consider why it matters.
The result is an education that develops curious, capable learners prepared to navigate a complex world with wisdom, confidence, and integrity.
Grades 9–10 · Middle Years Programme
Students complete the final two years of the IB Middle Years Programme, learning to make connections across subjects and between the classroom and the world around them. The experience culminates in the Personal Project, an independent exploration that challenges each student to pursue a genuine interest, set an ambitious goal, and demonstrate what they have learned.
Grades 10-11 · Diploma Programme
The IB Diploma Programme offers a rigorous, globally recognized college-preparatory experience with two pathways: students may pursue the full IB Diploma or select individual IB courses aligned with their goals.
Alongside advanced coursework, students engage in signature IB experiences that ask them to think beyond traditional academics: Theory of Knowledge examines how we know what we know; the Extended Essay develops university-level independent research and writing skills; and Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) challenges students to learn through experience, initiative, and service.
Quick Facts
1 of just 43 IB Continuum Schools in the United States
Two pathways: full IB Diploma or Individual IB courses
College-level research and writing experiences
Globally recognized curriculum
Learning centered on inquiry, critial thinking, communication, and application
School Acceptance Rates
Standard Acceptance vs. with an IB Diploma
Bigger Than A Textbook
Chicago Is Our Classroom
Some lessons are best learned from a book. Others require stepping into the world itself.
Located in Chicago’s South Loop, Daystar gives High School students access to one of the world’s great classrooms. Students study history in the neighborhoods where it unfolded, science in museums and natural spaces, culture within the communities that shape Chicago, and mathematics in the architecture surrounding them.
High School students participate in approximately 10–15 Learning Excursions each year, connecting classroom learning with real people, places, institutions, and questions.
Museums and universities. Neighborhoods and businesses. Houses of worship and civic institutions. Parks and community organizations. Each offers opportunities to investigate questions, encounter new perspectives, and deepen learning through experience.
Because Chicago isn’t simply where our school is located.
It’s one of our greatest teachers.
Recent Learning Excursions
Students aren’t simply learning about the world.
They’re learning from it.
Bigger Than Your Zip Code
The World Is Our Classroom, Too
XP is for everyone
The cost of XP travel is supported by donors because transformational educational experiences should be accessible to every student.
The world is too big, beautiful, and interconnected to experience only through a screen or textbook.
Travel is not an add-on to the High School experience. It is part of the curriculum.
Through Daystar XP, students travel domestically and internationally to encounter different cultures, histories, communities, ecosystems, and ways of understanding the world. Recent students have studied ecology in Ecuador, explored ancient civilizations in Greece, examined culture and justice in New Orleans, and learned alongside communities across North America and beyond.
But becoming globally minded is about more than going somewhere new.
It means learning to enter unfamiliar places with humility. To listen before speaking. To question assumptions. To build relationships across difference. And to recognize that our own experience of the world is one experience, not the only one.
Students return home seeing the world—and their place and responsibility within it—differently.
Recent XP Destinations
Bigger Than People Who Look, Think, and Live Like You
Difference Makes Us Better Learners
Students don’t have to travel around the world to encounter different perspectives.
They encounter them across the table.
Daystar students come from neighborhoods across Chicagoland and represent different racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, cultural, and Christian backgrounds. That means students learn every day alongside people whose stories, experiences, traditions, and perspectives may differ from their own.
Those differences aren’t obstacles to overcome. They’re gifts.
Learning across difference challenges assumptions, expands perspective, develops empathy, and teaches students to listen with curiosity and humility. It prepares them to enter a diverse and complex world not believing that their way is the only way, but ready to listen, learn, contribute, and build relationships with people different from themselves.
And it reflects something fundamental about our Christian faith: the Kingdom of God is made up of people from every nation, tribe, people, and language.
Education isn’t simply meant to serve the student.
It’s meant to serve the world.
Bigger Than a Bible Class
Faith Shapes How We See the Whole World
Christian education is about more than adding prayer, chapel, or Bible class to an otherwise ordinary education. It begins with a different understanding of who we are, why we are here, and what our lives are for.
Students are grounded in the truth that they are deeply loved by God and created with gifts, abilities, and purpose. As they grow, they are challenged to consider what it means to use those gifts not simply for personal achievement, but in service of others and the world God loves.
Faith shapes the questions students learn to ask. What does justice require of us? What responsibility do we have to our neighbors? How should we care for creation? What does it mean to seek truth, extend mercy, use influence well, or move toward people who are hurting? And what might faithful participation in God’s work look like in our classrooms, communities, professions, and lives?
Through it all, students are invited to see themselves as participants in God’s ongoing work of restoration in the world.
We want graduates who are successful. But even more, we want graduates who understand what their success is for.
Faith Formation with a purpose.
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Know you are deeply loved by God.
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Discover the gifts you’ve been given.
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Learn to see the world with wisdom and compassion.
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Notice where the world is flourishing and where it is hurting.
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Use what you’ve been given in service of others.
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Follow Jesus into a life of love, justice, and hope.
Who You’re Becoming Matters
College matters. Preparing students for college matters.
We celebrate acceptances, scholarships, college credit, and the opportunities graduates pursue after Daystar. We want students to leave High School academically prepared, confident in their abilities, and ready for whatever comes next.
But college is not the ultimate goal of education.
We want graduates who pursue wisdom with humility. Who ask difficult questions. Who choose empathy over exclusion. Who move toward people who are overlooked. Who notice what needs mending and have the courage to do something about it.
We want them to love God wholeheartedly, love their neighbors generously, and understand that the knowledge, opportunities, and gifts they have received are not simply meant to help them build good lives for themselves.
They are meant to help make life better for others.
Because ultimately, success isn’t simply about where our graduates go. It’s about who they become and what they do with what they’ve been given.
The graduates we’re preparing to send into the world
14.6
average college credit hours earned per graduate through IB coursework
8
students earned the equivalent of a full semester or more of college credit before graduation
Above national average — PSAT/SAT performance in math and reading
Colleges & Universities Attended
Seattle Pacific University • Loyola Marymount University • Biola University • University of Denver • Colorado College • St. Olaf College • Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) • Calvin University • Hope College • Olivet College • Kenyon College • University of Vermont • Saint Louis University – Madrid • Temple University • Roger Williams University • North Carolina State University (NC State) • Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) • DePaul University • North Park University • University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) • Wheaton College • Trinity Christian College • Illinois Institute of Technology • Triton College • University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Bigger Than a Resume
There’s Room to Discover What You Love.
High school is a time to explore. To try something new. To discover interests and abilities you didn’t know you had.
Students participate in athletics, theater, music, visual arts, leadership, publications, clubs, service, and electives. And in a close-knit community, there is genuine room to participate, contribute, and lead.
Maybe you join the volleyball team.
Maybe you discover photography.
Maybe you write for the newspaper, serve in Student Council, join National Honor Society, explore personal finance, produce a podcast, make music, try strength training, or discover something entirely new.
And maybe the thing you’re looking for doesn’t exist yet.
Tell us. You might be the person who starts it.
Maybe High School Should Be
Bigger
Bigger than grades.
Bigger than the right answer.
Bigger than a textbook.
Bigger than your ZIP code.
Bigger than your own perspective.
Bigger than a college acceptance.
Bigger than a résumé.
Bigger than what you thought you were capable of.
High school is four years.
Four years to discover what you’re capable of.
What you care about.
What you’ve been given.
And what you might do with it.
What if those four years prepared you not only for what comes next, but for something much bigger?
Daystar High School · Chicago, Illinois
Come See What’s Possible at Daystar High School.
