Introduction:
Idol School is a 2017 reality girl group survival show aired on Mnet. It is a program that strives to form a 9-member girl group out of 41 female participants, training them in singing and dancing in the span of 11 weeks.
While presented as being similar to another popular Mnet survival program, Produce 101, the show has it differences. From its participants, voting system, and number of winners that will form the final group, as well as how they would treat the eliminated contestants. They could still be able to debut in the 'normal class' sometime, that's if they choose to take the offer to continue studying in a different class off-campus under less public scrutiny. The group would also have a contract like a kpop group usually does, contrast to how the Produce series contracts were much shorter.
The 9 girls who would be debuting were revealed on September 29th, 2017. The new group would be called Fromis_9, meaning "From Idol School", but pronounced similar to "Promise" in Korean, and the final line symbolized the never-ending possibilities and the prosperous road ahead after graduation that would last forever. They debuted on January 24th, 2018 and have been finding more success every year.
Theme song:
The song "Cause You're Pretty" (예쁘니까) which was sung by the 41 contestants, was released digitally by Mnet on July 13, the same day as the show's premiere. The contestants also performed the song on M! Countdown. It serves as a school anthem and ending theme song.
Ranking:
The top 9 contestants were chosen through online voting along with the live votes while the episode airs. At the end of episode 3, however, internet voting was suspended almost every even week, with exams to be held every odd week, so the votes are added from the internet voting of before episode 3 and live voting of episodes 3 & 4, plus ranking +X cards that are automatically in play. The results for episode 5 was based on live-voting results of episode 5 and internet voting last week. Results for episode 7 is based on Viewership voting on August 25, Internet voting before Episode 7 and live voting.
Final ranking by episode 11:
1: Roh Ji-sun Votes: 71,834
2: Song Ha-young Votes: 71,549
3: Lee Sae-rom Votes: 71,037
4: Lee Chae-young Votes: 65,318
5: Lee Na-kyung Votes: 64,001
6: Park Ji-won Votes: 63,816
7: Lee Seo-yeon Votes: 61,083
8: Baek Ji-heon Votes: 59,577
9: Jang Gyu-ri Votes: 57,230
Aftermath:
In 2018, Jang Gyu-ri, who has already debuted with Fromis 9 and Jo Yu-ri all participated in Produce 48 as trainees of Stone Music Entertainment where Jo Yu-ri (15th) ended up debuting in the group Iz*One after finishing in 3rd place.
Jo Serim (40th place) signed with Yuehua Entertainment Korea, and made her debut as a lead dancer and vocalist of Everglow in March 2019 under the stage name Onda.
Snowbaby (Cai Rui Xue, 34th place) returned to Taiwan, and is now a Mandarin-language YouTuber, advertisement model and influencer.
Park Sun (31st place) joined Starship Entertainment as a trainee, and appeared on the MV of Love It, Live It by YDPP, a project boy group that participated in Produce 101 Season 2.
Cho Yubin (30th place) made her debut in 2018 as a main dancer and lead vocalist of Pink Fantasy from Mydoll Entertainment, as well as being the SHY subunit.
Kim Myongji (27th place) made her acting debut when she made a cameo in Mood Maker
Lee Yoojung (26th place) made her debut in 2019 as a main vocalist and guitarist for Ho1iday under Brickworks Company (Stage name: Haru).
Natty (13th place) made her solo debut in 2020 with Swing Entertainment, a subsidiary of Stone Music Entertainment.
Jessica Lee (35th place) currently stays in Korea until she moved back to Philippines and again she moved back to Korea and start vlogs, YouTube and more.
In 2020, Iz*One filmed variety show Iz*One Chu 3 - Fantasy Campus in the same campus as Idol School. It was the first time Jo Yu-ri returned to campus with Iz*One.
