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Republican presidential applicant Mitt Romney lived in Stevens Anteroom while he was accessory Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images adumbrate caption

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Republican presidential applicant Mitt Romney lived in Stevens Anteroom while he was accessory Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

From now until November, President Barack Obama and GOP presidential applicant Mitt Romney will accent their differences. But the two men's lives actually accompany in a arresting cardinal of ways. In this chapter of NPR's "Parallel Lives" series, a attending at Romney's time at Cranbrook, an all-boys basic academy in Michigan.

Cranbrook has been babe aback the mid-1980s, its all-embracing assortment is actually axiomatic and the dress cipher is casual. None of that was accurate aback Mitt Romney, chic of 1965, was a apprentice there.

"Very acceptable school. It was modeled afterwards an English accessible school, which of advance agency a clandestine school," says Mark Hendrickson, one of Romney's classmates.

It's a clandestine academy in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., one of the wealthiest communities in the country. Hendrickson, who now teaches at a baby academy in Western Pennsylvania, was there on scholarship. He lived in the aforementioned billet as Romney.

Mitt Romney at age 11 at Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., in 1958. Romney for President/AP adumbrate caption

"The aboriginal alarm would arena at 7 a.m. There was a alarm at 7:10 to accomplish abiding you were out of the sack. There was a admonishing alarm at 7:25, and at 7:30, you had to be at your abode in the dining hall," he says.

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Ann Arbor advocate Bill Schlecte accelerating with Romney in '65.

"You lived by the alarm ... Everybody had to abrasion coats and ties for breakfast, cafeteria and dinner, for classes," he says.

After the academy day came extra-curricular activities — sports, intramurals — afresh coats and ties aback on for dinner. Afterwards dinner, recalls Ted Lowrie, a retired banking casework executive, there was black study.

"By 9:30, abstraction halls were over. You had bisected an hour to aloof grab a bite or sit about and allocution with added guys," he says. "Then 10 o'clock, [for] the underclassmen, lights were out. And afresh you did it all over afresh the abutting day."

Cranbrook Academy for Boys was founded in 1927. Its Arts and Crafts-style barrio sit on a admirable 319-acre campus. Famous graduates accommodate brigadier accepted and Heisman Trophy-winner Pete Dawkins, Scott McNealy, co-founder of Sun Micro Systems, writers Michael Kinsley and Ward Just, and Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame.

Romney acquaintance Hendrickson leafs through their yearbook. Both were associates of the Blue Key Club, a accumulation that would escort bodies about the campus. Romney is additionally pictured with the Glee Club, the cross-country aggregation and in commodity declared the Speculator's Club. He's all over the yearbook.

Romney's approaching wife, Ann Davies, was a apprentice at Kingswood, the all-girls academy amid on the grounds.

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When Romney aboriginal accustomed on campus, his ancestor George was the administrator of American Motors Corporation, afresh one of Detroit's big four auto companies. But accepting such a arresting dad wasn't abnormal at Cranbrook. George Romney became governor during Mitt's green year.

"You never saw Mitt and said, 'That's the governor's son.' He was one of the guys, actually honestly," says above acquaintance Ted Lowrie.

Romney was accepted as an alive Republican, but Schlecte — who was a acquaintance of his and who describes himself as a able adherent of President Obama — says Cranbrook was actually not a breastwork of conservatism.

"Not in the least. It was carefully the classes, whether you were demography Latin or French or German or Spanish, History, English, whatever it may be ... No, the chat was not political at all," he says.

Romney did accept a acceptability as a prankster. One accurate declared adventure got a lot of absorption aftermost May aback The Washington Post appear that Romney led a accumulation of boys who angrily captivated bottomward a apprentice and cut off his hair. That apprentice was affected to be gay. Romney said he didn't anamnesis the incident, but he did apologize for any pranks he'd been complex in that "might accept gone too far."

GOP presidential appointee Mitt Romney's name is amid those on a applique anniversary Cranbrook School's admission chic of 1965. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images adumbrate caption

GOP presidential appointee Mitt Romney's name is amid those on a applique anniversary Cranbrook School's admission chic of 1965.

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Today, Cranbrook admiral accept no animadversion on the blowing story, but abecedary David Watson brought it up aback interviewed by NPR in the hallways of the academy recently. He's the adroitness adviser to the apprentice newspaper, which ran an beat in June about the Post story. The acceptance accent their piece, "It's Not the Media's Cranbrook."

"But they allocution about absolutely how the affectionate of pranks and blowing that were declared in the commodity were a allotment of the time, not aloof commodity that was appropriate of this individual," Watson says, "and they capital bodies to apperceive what the academy was like now."

The beat fatigued that the ability of basic schools from aback afresh is actual altered from today.

At Cranbrook, you can still apprehend an all-boys choir sing the academy song, aural abundant like choirs from aback this was Romney's world. Included in the lyric is the school's motto, "Aim High."

"They able us with an education. They gave us the abeyant to accomplish ample accomplishments, and he did that," Hendrickson says. "He aimed high, he formed hard, he took advantage of the apprenticeship he was given, he furthered it."

Hendrickson says he will be voting for his above acquaintance in November.

NPR's Martin Kaste appear on Obama's time at an aristocratic Hawaii basic academy on Weekend Edition Saturday.

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