I don't understand Blackwell

[monsterfurby]

Despite spending 11th grade at a US high school (I'm European), I don't really get what kind of school format Blackwell Academy is supposed to be. It's clearly a high school [since students take a variety of classes and are all high school seniors from what we know] and a boarding school [dormitories], but in many respects seems to try and be more of a junior college.

What puzzles me about it is that its size and curriculum seem to suggest that it's basically a one or two-year thing aimed at seniors or juniors and seniors, which seems like a massive waste of resources - after all, who would change their high school after 10th or 11th grade for what boils down to a year or two in a hopeless town out in Nowhere, Oregon? Do schools like that exist in the US?

Where I'm from, your high school diploma stops making any difference after you have entered university, and which high school you went to is basically completely irrelevant from the get-go (though I should note that, until recently, we had 13 years of school, meaning that college prep/junior college was essentially folded into high school). I get that Blackwell seems to have some reputation in the arts, but it's still a high school, nothing one would move across the country to attend.

Dear fellow forumites from the US or with knowledge of the school system: can you help me understand how Blackwell is supposed to work?

[ZephyrLuxx]

There are private schools and academies that have a focus on the arts or other specialized fields. You may feel that your diploma stops making any difference when you have entered University, however, some academies prepare students for specific fields and make acceptance into University smoother for students.

A quick google search lead me to this school, for instance:
http://academy.interlochen.org/

One of the things that's a bit odd to me, however, is the fact that it doesn't seem to encompass grades 9 -12. Like you said, it seems like it's just for 11-12. I don't know if I've ever heard of something like that. But an academy focused on the arts? Sure, I've heard of that before. I went to private school when I was in high school, not a boarding school, though. But we had a focus on the arts and were closely affiliated with the University in my area. It definitely made entry into Uni smoother.