Schools

Valedictorian Sees Math in Her Future

Providence Christian Academy's Alison Mikle will attend Alabama on scholarship.

It’s a predicament many middle- and high-schoolers face during the school year.

You can either take the time to study and stay ahead in your classes, or blow it off and do something else (You can always get to the studying later, right?).

For Alison Mikle, the decision was always pretty easy. It was just a matter of setting priorities.

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“I just always wanted to do well in school,” Providence Christian Academy’s Valedictorian said recently. “I’ve always known that if I study, good things are going to come out of it.”

For Mikle, that has meant a full scholarship to the University of Alabama, where she will study Mathematics, the subject she loves the most.

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“I love Algebra. I love Calculus. I love pretty much everything in between,” she said. “Math is where my gifts are.”
The 4.0 student has never had anything less than an A on a report card for as long as she can remember — perhaps there was a B or two on tests along the way.

Despite the stellar academic record, Mikle says she didn’t know she has No. 1 in her class until just a couple of weeks before the end of the school year.

“I wasn’t even thinking about it. I knew I had good grades, but I was never thinking I was at the top,” she said. “There were two or three [other students] that in my mind I thought were smarter that me. I just thought it would be one of them.”

At Alabama Mikle will be following the footsteps of her mother Marie, who also attended school in Tuscaloosa.

Her career goal? Anything, she says, as long as it includes Math and reflects her beliefs.

“I definitely know that my gifts are from God and I would love to use them to glorify Him,” she said.


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