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Iowa Conservatory (ICON): a Co-Ed Private Boarding and Day Performing Arts school serving grades 9-12 and postgraduate gap year program located in the heart of downtown Iowa City. Do you desire a high school experience that centers your day on the arts? Do you want pre-professional training? Become an ICON.
Iowa Conservatory (ICON) is located in a historic, tight-knit neighborhood community with renovated spaces in an expansive and newly renovated 18,000 square foot space housed within the charming Brewery Square building. Our space includes professionally designed dance, music, theatre, and visual arts studios, along with practice rooms, a costume lab, student commons, and academic classrooms. Just down the street is our very own James Theater, a performance space that readily transforms from black box to recital stage to theatre lab. ICON's partnerships throughout Iowa City and the surrounding area allow students to work in various performance settings, learning from professionals in all aspects of performing and visual arts. Student-artists can work on stage or behind the scenes at multiple venues in the vibrant Iowa City arts scene. This includes the University of Iowa's Hancher Auditorium, Englert Theatre, and the professional acting company Riverside Theatre. We cultivate the skills our students need to compete in the top 10% of artists entering college and/or other post-secondary artistic pursuits, opening doors to scholarship and professional opportunities. Network-building workshops, masterclasses, and seminars with special guest teachers and mentors from the industry broaden students' professional reach.
Our arts program is offered for the academic school year on a trimester schedule and includes an academic course of study through the Iowa City Community School District's Online Program. 9th-12th grades (+Gap Year) students attend classes Monday - Friday from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
ICON offers summer intensives with boarding availability.
ICON LIVING
At Iowa Conservatory, we cultivate A Culture of Caring, designed to educate and care for the whole student. ICON has apartment-style co-op living within three blocks of the school. Each apartment houses 3-4 students, with a residential assistant overseeing no more than 10 students in each living space.
STUDENT LIFE
Boarding students are supported by full-time residential assistants and rich student life programming. Our Student Life Director and Dean of Students oversee every aspect of student life, including opportunities to interact with the local arts community, social events for the student body, skill-building for successful independent living, and social-emotional learning. Our Student Life Team includes live-in residential assistants, school counselors, and learning coaches, all trained to respond to the unique needs of adolescent learners in a boarding school setting.
MEALS
ICON students bring lunch to campus from home. All boarding students are supported by residential assistants in successful at-home cooking of healthy meals. Our neighborhood is peppered with a wide variety of affordable restaurants to choose from when boarding students are not cooking with their live-in chaperone and suite-mates after the school day is over.
HEALTH CARE
In addition to our on-campus nurse practitioner, The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics offer top-notch and quickly accessible care in their clinics for any arising student health needs.
Iowa Conservatory accreditations: Arts Schools Network Member, currently finishing ISACS certification
When is the application deadline for Iowa Conservatory?
The application deadline for Iowa Conservatory is Jan. 15 / rolling (applications are due on Jan. 15 but additional applications are reviewed year-round as space permits ).
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