Interlochen Arts Academy: Why do so many people send their brats to this weird school in rural Michigan?

The singer Jewel went to Interlochen as well. I have no stories, however, just think it's interesting how many famous weirdos have gone there.

It's a school for famous weirdos.

No, R2, that would be Tisch.

It's an arts school with high quality facilities and accredited staff. If your kid is talented enough to get a scholarship or if you're rich enough to shell out the money, why not?

[quote] or if you're rich enough to shell out the money, why not?

Bruce and Demi were probably willing to shell out the money for Rumer to attend as a consolation prize for being too weird looking.

I have had horrible experiences as a college teacher with Interlochen students. They're rich and woke and arrogant.

It's a school for children who don't "fit in" and whine to their parents about how unhappy the are at whatever school they're in at the time. Or they flunk out and this is the only school that will take them.

Basically cunts and sometimes dumb cunts.

What r7 is mostly true... .though it's not exactly skid row, there are still a few special care schools (from disability to addiction and psychiatric or undiagnosed behavioral issues. There a couple military schools that are famed for taking young disciplinary problem child stars.) that are truly the last resort but they're far more expensive, the waitlists are longer and pretty damn isolated.

For normies - yeah, their kid is a kid is a misfit, usually a theatre/music/arts geeks or pre-homo and needed to escape their hometown before they the inevitable suicide or murder.

then you have the stage parents, socialites, schmoozers that are more interested in getting to know the other parents...

the international and expats, which it probably wasn't their first choice...

the majority of boarding schools (which are estimated around 400) in the U.S. are of the religious variety,

next up are traditional boarding schools - very few are old money, most aren't that different from public schools except they offer housing.

then alternative programs - which usually break from the public structured format, some may be more educationally intensive, focus more on electives or enrichment programs and otherwise try to pack in more than the standard school would.

then you have the specialty education programs (arts, sciences, non-traditional/specialty athletics, etc), prep schools (usually geared towards the ivys and many do start in elementary these days), military, specific disability, specific cultures or non-english, and so on... the numbers dwindle as requirements, tuition and waitlists climb.

and many more industry-related folks that can't drag their kids along on every gig and need a place to house their brats and generally feel more comfortable if their kids are around others with fam in the industry, which they feel gives them a greater sense of normality and the ability to make genuine friends.

the majority of graduates don't go in the arts. . . but obviously, may have a slight advantage if they do.

I don't know of "juicy" rumours but I can say there's a long tradition of rivalries among similar schools across the nation and they were the most hated because they got the biggest hype. And, since they also hosted a popular camp, many would claim to have gone to Interlochen but leave out the camp part. . . and that just meant there were more people to hate.

skimming through recent media, it seems they're more pretentious now than decades ago... I'm also inclined to think it has become a cult as surprisingly, there aren't any too cool for school students bitching about it. . . but I didn't look too hard.

How about Simon’s Rock? I knew a weird girl who went there.

[quote]Why do so many people send their brats to this weird school in rural Michigan?

It's far enough away to make it really, really difficult for the little shits to hitchhike home.

My parents considered sending me to Interlochen, but I had no interest in leaving public school.

It's not really rural, if you mean farm country. It's in the woods between two lakes (inter-lochen), but not far from Traverse City.

I've been there a bunch of times, mostly to see the high school musicals they do in the summers and the kids don't seem any odder than you would expect at an arts school.

Michigan has a strong Germanic culinary heritage. We love our brats and take them with us everywhere there’s a grill!

I went to the 8-week Interlochen summer music camp when I was 15 and it was a wonderful experience. Beautiful scenery, lots of arts and music, cute boys, what's not to like?

I wonder if the Interlochen staff had to set up booster chairs for Linda Hunt when she was there.

They used her as a pinata.

As R1 noted, Jewel is the only famous alumnae I am aware of. She apparently studied operatic singing while she was there. She got in on a scholarship and her small town in Alaska fundraised to help pay her first year of tuition. She says she wrote “Who Will Save Your Soul” while taking buses and trains to Mexico during spring break while she was attending (she couldn’t stay on campus apparently and had nowhere to go). The story sounds apocryphal but may actually be true. It’s hard to tell with her.

Michael McMillan who played Steve Newlin on True Blood attended the school. He has a paranormal podcast called Bigfoot Collectors Club and he mentioned the ghost stories on there a few times.