Michael Schaeffer hasn’t had the typical high school experience.

He doesn’t worry about grabbing a parking spot in the crowded lots. He doesn’t sweat it when he walks in a minute after class has officially begun. He doesn’t even have to worry about the questionable quality of cafeteria food.

Instead of grabbing his books from a locker and sprinting to class, he comes home and flicks on a monitor.

Schaeffer, a senior, is a student at Insight School of Washington, an online high school that provides more than 10 courses taught by certified teachers in a digital classroom. For Schaeffer, a talented tennis player whose dedication to the sport takes up most of his time, enrolling at Insight School was a no-brainer.

“I was missing 10-11 days a semester because of tournaments and all of that,” said Schaffer, who spent his freshman and half his sophomore year at Sammamish High School. “That’s why I needed to do Insight.”

A look at Schaeffer’s typical day leaves no doubt. The senior wakes up each morning at 5:30 and practices for a few hours. After practice, it’s time for school, then lunch, followed by an hour of fitness (weights or off-court training), then two more hours of tennis followed by more schoolwork. These days, combined with the travel that high-level tennis demands made Insight a desirable alternative to a more traditional education.

A relative newcomer to tennis, Schaeffer has only been playing the game for six years. Origanially a football and baseball player, Schaeffer, whose dad is a former University of Oregon tennis player, was a natural. But his game didn’t truly take off until the summer between his freshman and sophomore years at Sammamish. That’s when he realized he needed to really dedicate himself in order to reach his goal of a Division-I scholarship.

“I thought I needed a little bit more time for training and traveling,” he said. “To reach my goal in my limited time, I needed to step up. Insight allowed me to do that.”

Schaeffer, who spends around 30 weeks a year all around the United States, captured a Class 3A state doubles title his sophomore year for Sammamish to go along with the boy’s sectional doubles championship that year. Schaeffer has already won the 2009 boy’s sectional doubles, the largest tournament in the Northwest, with partner Emmett Egger, who also attends an online high school.

“I find that for the most part, and you do have a few exceptions, that the really competitive players are doing the online schooling,” Schaeffer said. “They say you need to have 10,000 hours of tennis in to be really good. If you want to do that by the time you are 18, well it would be really tough to do that with a regular school schedule.”

Schaeffer is coached by Dan Willman, along with Michael Calkins, a former national champion at Illinois. The pair run Athletic DNA, a tennis academy out of Central Park in Bridle Trails. Schaeffer credits the pair for his rapid improvement after his freshman year of high school, when he says his tennis skills really took off – leading to the top-5 rankings in singles and doubles he’s held in the Pacific Northwest.

“My coach really instilled a different mentality into me and really inspired me,” he said. “The level I was playing at really changed a lot.”

After playing in such places as Yakima, Spokane, Medford, Eugene and several tournaments around the nation, Schaeffer reached his goal of a quality Division-I scholarship, when he was offered by Oregon, where his father played. He visited the school Sept. 19 and committed soon after. He didn’t visit any of the other schools interested in him.

“The combination of the resources that they have, the team, the great coaches and a chance at cracking the lineup, they really have it all set up,” he said. “I felt like it was a place that I could go and push myself to improve.”

Now that he’s committed, Schaeffer said life’s slowed down a bit. He’ll probably do about 20 weeks around the Northwest this year, but don’t count on him loafing around until the fall.

“It has definitely been a bit of weight off my shoulders, but at the same time I have to keep on pressing so I can be as competitive as I can be next year to help the team,” Schaeffer said. “In fact, I think I’m putting in harder work than before.”

Schaeffer is sure about one thing – attending Insight School gave him the opportunity to reach his goal. He does say it’ll be a bit of an adjustment back to attending classes with other students next year, but he is adamant about one thing: he doesn’t feel like he’s missed out on the typical high school experience at all.

“I get that question a lot,” he said. “I have friendships that I’ve maintained. I still go to the school dances. Weekends that I’m free, I definitely spend it with my friends. I don’t think I’ve missed anything.”