Interlake High School

Ilake is located in the "ghetto" Lake Hills area of Bellevue. School colors are blue and white, a fact long forgotten by the student body, and the mascot is Bernie the Saint Bernard following a complaint that the school mascot (the "Saints") was too religious and separation of church and state yada yada. Tons of Asians commute from the Newport Hills/Somerset areas for the gifted IB program. Interlake has phenomenal academics. Ridiculous pressure to succeed results in a cutthroat environment mostly amongst the IB kids who are known for staying up until 5AM jacked on Red Bull and Adderall cramming their twelfth hour of homework for their 23095 required IB classes. IHS is one of two schools in the world that allows you to get your IB diploma a year early and consequently spend your senior year taking a combination of college classes, slacker classes (e.g. AP Stats, and Drawing and Painting), and an internship (writing legal opinions for WA state justices...or cooking fries at Five Guys). Sports suck. Music is decent, but despite the number of great musicians at IHS, most don't do music because they don't have room in their schedule since they take AP Chem as an elective. Robotics, DECA, FPS, math, chess, etc. rock. Incidentally, the same 30 kids seem to comprise all of the above activities. Getting over the preponderance of socially awkward Asians is always a barrier to entry, but if you enjoy learning, come to Interlake and we can guarantee you will not by junior year.