History Main / SchoolForScheming

* ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'': As over the top as the series may be, [[spoiler:Hope's Peak Academy]] is outed as a rather realistic example, being horrifically corrupt and damaging to everyone involved. [[spoiler:In [[VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc the first game]], Hope's Peak Academy was portrayed as a good and noble institution, where students lived together in harmony and got a quality education, before being perverted into something horrible by the machinations of Junko Enoshima. By [[VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair the second game]], Hope's Peak Academy is shown to have been actively defrauding hundreds of average-joe students of their parents' money through the Reserve Course just to keep financially afloat, was riddled with bullying and dysfunction that they swept under the rug to keep up their reputation, and used mad science and high tuition to create the [[BrokenAce infinitely talented but soulless]] transhuman nihilist Ultimate Hope, Izuru Kamukura. Junko only had to give it the least push to get it all to come crumbling down. ''[[VideoGame/DanganronpaAnotherEpisodeUltraDespairGirls Ultra Despair Girls]]'' more-or-less reveals that huge sections of the school, including the "Elementary" branch, were horribly abusive towards their students, with one kid's parents who were also teachers at the school treating him more like a lab rat than a son with the institution's apparent approval. ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'' shows that the main course students don't even have to attend class, and are there to ''be studied'' rather than get an education.]]

The benevolent (mostly) version of this is an ExtranormalInstitute. Different from BoardingSchoolOfHorrors, because it's not a question of the facilities being bad or the teachers or other students being mean -- usually everything is outwardly quite nice, because it makes a better contrast with the Terrible Lurking Secret. Do not confuse with a [[AcademyOfEvil school that teaches you how to scheme]], or a school that teaches you [[UsefulNotes/ScriptingLanguage Scheme]].

* ''Film/TheFaculty'' is about a high school in EverytownAmerica being infiltrated by parasitic aliens who proceed to infect first the faculty, then the student body one at a time. It's up to a RagTagBunchOfMisfits to stop them.

* ''Manga/KekkoKamen'': "Satan's School for Girls". Seriously who would send their daughter to a school with Satan in its name?

* The Gallagher School for Girls in ''Literature/TheGallagherGirls'' is a training ground for young female spies and the girls are constantly being thrown into life-threatening situations as "tests".

* In ''Literature/HarryPotter'', Slytherin House at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry basically becomes a grooming platform for future Death Eaters once Voldemort comes to power. When the entire school is taken over by the corrupt Ministry of Magic in ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hallows]]'', it is bent to Voldemort's will. Students are taught the Dark Arts, Muggle Studies is made compulsory and taught with a bias against Muggles, and corporal punishment is put into use. However, all of this stops after the Voldemort is killed and the Second Wizarding War ends.

* The [[FunWithAcronyms Higher Institute for Villainous Education]] in the ''Literature/HIVESeries'' is a more obvious one: the kids are told from the start that the aim is to produce villains.

* In ''Literature/TheSolomonCode'', though Director Wolfe of Camp Solanas technically doesn't seem to have any nefarious purpose for the boy Nephilim, she definitely is a malevolent force with little interest for the boys' education.

* In ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryCoven'', Miss Robichaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies is this -- originally an exclusive boarding school for girls that was used as a military base during the US Civil War, it was then taken over by the current generation's Supreme (the most powerful witch alive) and the school was used as a cover for the training of young witches.
* ''Series/AreYouAfraidOfTheDark'' has an episode in which two kids discover that their boarding school is run by monsters, who brainwash the students into taking care of alien eggs.

* In ''Series/KamenRiderFourze'', Amanogawa High was ostensibly set up to encourage creativity in bright students and lead them towards an interest in space exploration. It's really a front for [[spoiler:unleashing the power of the Horoscopes, using the kids for experiments with Switches, and eventually gathering all twelve fully-evolved Switches to open up a black hole that'd destroy Japan and allow the BigBad to meet aliens and transcend humanity in the process]].

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* In Maladomini, one of the layers of [[FireAndBrimstoneHell the Nine Hells of Baator]] in [=3.5e=] ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', there's a school for devils and other lawful evil beings seeking to become corrupters, complete with a training course doing mock-ups of Material Plane events.
[[/folder]]

* In ''VisualNovel/DoubleHomework'', [[spoiler:Dr. Mosely/Zeta is using the class as subjects in her sex experiment: Lauren, Morgan, Amy, and Rachel are four very different socially isolated girls, the protagonist is the alpha male who’s supposed to have sex with all of them, Dennis is the threatening beta male who’s supposed to drive all the girls into the protagonist’s arms, Johanna is there so the other girls will trust the protagonist more, and Ms. Walsh is the ineffectual authority figure who allows the protagonist to take a leadership role instead. Dennis derails the experiment with his prying, but Dr. Mosely/Zeta vows to run the experiment again somewhere else]].

* While the title ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'' is still simply a morally ambiguous ExtranormalInstitute, as more is revealed about [[spoiler:Jeanne and the founders]] it seems to be going in this direction.

* Naturally, the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'' has one: the deVille Academy, a world-class education establishment where the meanest, nastiest, and sneakiest street urchins and gutter rats whom the proprietors can find get turned into master thieves, spies, torturers, and assassins. They have a rivalry with both [[NinjaSchool Yama Dojo]] and the titular SuperheroSchool Whateley Academy, but are much less pleasant about it than the Devil Dojo are -- they tend to see the ninjas as insular and outdated, while they view the Whateley students as overblown buffoons who would be lost without their powers (with a fair amount of justification in both cases). However, their love of their own sneakiness was what allowed one of the training mission teams, who up to then had been leading everyone else around in circles, get outwitted themselves by InsufferableGenius [[OverlordJr Jobe Wilkins]].

* WesternAnimation/CoolMcCool attempts to track down his six major nemeses (the Owl, the Rattler, Jack in the Box, Professor Madcap and Greta "Green Lips" Ghoul, and Hurricane Harry) who have gathered to form a "College of Crooks". Their initial assignment is to get rid of [=McCool=].
* Variation: In ''WesternAnimation/RecessSchoolsOut'', the school is only used for a secret plot during summer vacation when no one is around. A mad scientist uses it to hide a tractor beam with which he plans to move the Moon in order to send North America into a state of perpetual winter. To improve the students' test scores. And thus be elected President. Or something. He was trying to abolish summer break.
* The episode of ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'' that introduces Brother Blood to the series has Cyborg going undercover at the HIVE Academy (no relation to the one in the Literature section) as a villain-in-training named Stone. It's really not all that different from a regular high school (there's a Sadie Hawkins dance, regular lunchroom, etc.). The only thing different is the subject matter. The HIVE and Brother Blood exist in comics, but the Church of Blood and the HIVE are totally separate organizations, and neither spent a great deal of time grooming new supervillains in a full on "[[Franchise/XMen Xavier School]], but evil!" setting. By the way, HIVE stands for [[FunWithAcronyms Hierarchy of International Vengeance and Extermination]].

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': The episode "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S2E8StraightAndNarrow Straight and Arrow]]" involves a school where children of wealthy parents are brainwashed and controlled to create political weapons.

%% Image removed per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1602904894072905500
%% Please see thread to discuss a new image.

* Variant: In ''Manga/DeathNote'', Wammy's Orphanage for genius children really exists in order to find a successor to L. Interestingly, it appears to have started off as a regular orphanage, until L came along and won Watari's favor...at which point, the focus switched to finding a successor to L.
* ''Manga/{{Monster}}'' does the opposite: the Kinderheim 511 orphanage [[spoiler: really exists in order to create a heartless monster to become the next Hitler. They're almost all killed when they find Johan, a kid who is exactly what they want, and he leaves pretty much everyone dead.]]
* ''Anime/YuGiOhGX''. Duel Academia is basically a giant roach motel for [[CosmicHorror Cosmic Horrors]], training kids to fight said horrors in the process.
* Mugen Gakuen (Infinity College) in ''Anime/SailorMoon S'' acts as a front for activities of the Death Busters, aliens from Tau Ceti who possess human bodies and seek to summon Master Pharaoh 90 to end the world.
* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' reveals us during the later parts of the series that ''every single person'' in Shinji's class is a pilot candidate. It does make sense to collect all of them into one school as said school is located in the same city which the StarfishAliens are attacking and which houses the HumongousMecha to fight said aliens. It even makes more sense when it's revealed that the Marduk Institute that selects pilots is a front for NERV itself who can quickly forge the necessary papers, thereby calling up new pilots on their discretion. Just watch episode 18: Unit 03 is completed and is about to be shipped to Japan. Cue NERV approaching [[spoiler:Touji]], using his [[spoiler:sister being transferred to a better hospital]] as leverage.
** Even the LighterAndSofter [[{{Manga/NeonGenesisEvangelionAngelicDays}} Angelic Days]] manga uses this trope, although only six are positively identified ([[spoiler:Shinji, Asuka, Rei, Touji, Kensuke and Kaworu]]) while the rest are said to be incapable of piloting. [[GambitPileup Knowing the franchise however]], that may be a lie to motivate them.

* ''Manga/AfterschoolCharisma'' features a school for clones of famous historical figures; there's lots of plotting going on around them, including [[spoiler:the clones being implied to be killed if they don't display the talent of their originals. After all, they're disposable; the scientists can always make another one.]]

* The Purgatorium Remedy Academy in ''Manga/{{Psycome}}'', is said to be an academy where murderers are rehabilitated to become a better part of society. [[spoiler: In truth however, it is actually a training ground for professional killers where killing courses start in the student's second year.]]

* Done in one of the ''Aspen'' comic books. It's an odd cross between Corporate Assassination and Geisha-like training. Seriously.
* The overarching plot of ''ComicBook/StarsAndSTRIPE'' revolves around Courtney's high school being the cover for the base of the Dragon King, a 40s supervillain. This includes a supervillain art teacher, kidnapped students turned into brainwashed ninjas, and Courtney nearly getting her brain transferred into a giant mosquito due to her cheating on an IQ test.

* The [[Film/Suspiria1977 1977]] and [[Film/Suspiria2018 2018]] versions of ''Suspiria'' are both about a dance school in Germany that is secretly a cover for a [[WickedWitch coven of witches]].
* ''Film/TheFaculty'' is about a high school in EverytownAmerica being infiltrated by parasitic aliens who proceed to infect first the faculty, then the student body one at a time. It's up to a RagTagBunchOfMisfits to stop them.
* ''Film/FrightNight2NewBlood'': Gerri is a vampire who starts working as a history professor at an international school in Bucharest to get access to more victims.

* Battle School and Command School in ''Literature/EndersGame''. Although they're a bit more transparent and honest about their motives than usual.
* Though technically Director Wolfe of Camp Solanas doesn't seem to have any nefarious purpose for the boy Nephilim in ''Literature/TheSolomonCode'' series, she definitely is a malevolent force with little interest for the boys education.
* Humorous example: In ''Regarding the Fountain'', Dry Creek Middle School turns out to have been built [[spoiler:on top of the local natural spring that is the source of the town's famous creek]] as part of a plot by a pair of [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Corrupt Corporate Executives]] to [[spoiler:control the local water supply]]. The nefarious scheme is brought to light when the school drinking fountain needs replacing.
* Hailsham, the British boarding school where the protagonists grow up Kazuo Ishiguro's novel ''Literature/NeverLetMeGo'' is really [[spoiler: an experiment designed to prove that cloned children would grow up to be as intelligent and sensitive as regular people if raised in the right conditions]]. That wouldn't seem so bad, except the children get [[spoiler:cannibalized for organ donations]] anyway.
* Hampden College, the setting of ''Literature/TheSecretHistory'', isn't specifically ''for'' scheming--but there's enough of it going around all the same. Richard calls his classics lessons "Julian's private university," which certainly fits this trope.
* The ''Literature/GemmaDoyle'' trilogy.
* In ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'', the Yeerks, mind-controlling aliens that inhabit their hosts, use a Boys & Girls Club type organization named ''The Sharing'' to recruit. The Vice-Principal of the protagonists' school is infested, and the janitor's closet is an entryway to the aliens' feeding grounds.
* In the ''Literature/AlexRider'' series, Alex attends a corrective school for delinquent rich kids. All is normal until the "changed" students turn out to be genocidal clones of the BigBad about to use their parent's resources for a new apartheid.
* ''[[Literature/HIVESeries H.I.V.E: the Higher Institute for Villainous Education]]'', is a more obvious one: the kids are told from the start that the aim is to produce Villains.
* ''Literature/ThePrimeOfMissJeanBrodie'', where a gang of pupils are secretly coached by Miss Brodie for her own purposes.
* The Gallagher School for Girls in ''[[Literature/TheGallagherGirls I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You]]'' and ''[[Literature/TheGallagherGirls Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy]]'' is a training ground for young female spies and the girls are constantly being thrown into life-threatening situations as "tests".
* Robert C. O'Brien's ''Literature/TheSilverCrown'' has a secret school in it, which brain-washes/trains children as assassins, via the [[MacGuffin Heironymous Machine]].
* In Creator/LoisDuncan's ''Literature/DownADarkHall'', the exclusive school Blackwood (it's really ''really'' exclusive, it only has four students counting the main character) is really for the purpose of [[spoiler: collecting kids with ESP so dead writers, artists, composers, scientists, and mathematicians can use them as vehicles to produce all the things they didn't get to when they were alive. This would be all fine and dandy--in fact, Ruth, the most intelligent of the girls, [[WillingChanneler doesn't mind being used to write down mathematical theories]]--except that not only can people like Emily Bronte and Vermeer get through, but so can anyone else. Sandy ends up transcribing a terribly vulgar poem in French, and let's not even get into what Lynda paints. Also, Blackwood is not the first school Madame Duret opened; there was one in France and one in England. Of all the students at those schools, ''four killed themselves and the rest are mental hospitals''. And Madame Duret ''keeps trying anyway''.]]
* In ''The Grounding of Group 6'' by Julian F. Thompson, five kids are sent to an exclusive boarding school...whose administrators use the school as a cover to have select groups of students taken into the woods with a hitman [[OffingTheOffspring hired by the kids' parents]] to kill them all.
* The Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened in ''Literature/TheMysteriousBenedictSociety'', which due to some FunWithAcronyms and SdrawkcabAlias becomes E.V.I.L. The main base of Mr. Curtain (in the first book, anyway) and therefore of all his schemes.
* In ''Literature/HexHall'', the AllGhoulsSchool is a cover for [[spoiler: the Casnoffs' attempts to raise demons.]]
* In ''Literature/AnimasConquest'', Salva Academy seems to be a front for some sort of eugenics campaign - students who graduate at the top are invited to procreate with one another, and an on-campus research facility is manufacturing bizarre drugs that appear to alter the users' DNA (spontaneous hair/eye color change).
* The "Mr Browser" series of children's novels begins with "Mr Browser and the Brain Sharpeners" in which aliens artificially enhance the intelligence of students at a school as part of a plot to TakeOverTheWorld.
* Slytherin House at [[Franchise/HarryPotter Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry]] basically becomes a grooming platform for future Death Eaters once Voldemort comes to power. When the entire school is taken over by the corrupt Ministry of Magic in ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hallows]]'', it is bent to Voldemort's will. Students are taught the Dark Arts, Muggle Studies is made compulsory and taught with a bias against Muggles, and corporal punishment is put into use. However, all of this stops after the Voldemort is killed and the Second Wizarding War ends.

* The new series of ''Series/DoctorWho'' has a few episodes with this. In the episode "School Reunion", the school is secretly run by Krillitanes, who use the children to crack the "Skasis Paradigm", which gives total control of time and space. In "The Sontaran Stratagem"/"The Poison Sky", Luke Rattigan runs a school for gifted teens, planning to repopulate a new world with geniuses after a Sontaran takeover of Earth.
* ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'': "Revenge of the Slitheen" has a plethora of schools worldwide being used, via new technology blocks, by the Slitheen in a revenge plot against humankind. They are attempting to use the technology in secret rooms hidden in each of these new buildings to switch off the sun.
* ''Series/AreYouAfraidOfTheDark'' had an episode where two kids discover that their boarding school is run by monsters, who brainwash the students into taking care of alien eggs.
* An episode of ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' involved a school where children of wealthy parents are brainwashed and controlled to create political weapons.
* The Academy that River was sent to in ''Series/{{Firefly}}'', supposedly a school for the exceptionally gifted, but in reality a twisted government/corporate facility where she and others like her were subjected to [[MindRape horrific experiments and brainwashing]] in order to [[SuperSoldier turn them into weapons]]. Luckily, [[PromotiontoParent Simon]] [[AFriendinNeed rescued her from it.]]
* ''Series/{{The Hardy Boys|2020}}'' series on Hulu features Rosegrave Preparatory Academy, a prep school founded by George Estabrook, one of the three leaders of the Circle of the Eye, who also happens to be the Hardy Boys' great-grandfather. Frank and Callie are accepted by their competitive admissions program, but soon learn that the whole school is really just a front for a secret organization that runs Bridgeport from behind the scenes. They further discover in the second season that, back when George was still alive, Rosegrave experimented on some of the students there, one test of which left one victim in a vegetative state.
* In ''Series/KamenRiderFourze'', Amanogawa High was ostensibly set up to encourage creativity in bright students and lead them towards an interest in space exploration. It's really a front for [[spoiler:unleashing the power of the Horoscopes, using the kids for experiments with Switches, and eventually gathering all twelve fully-evolved Switches to open up a black hole that'd destroy Japan and allow the BigBad to meet aliens and transcend humanity in the process.]]

* ''Series/{{Goosebumps}}'' has ''The Perfect School'' episode. A school where trouble kids are sent, and they ''always'' return as perfect kids. It's hinted that brainwashing is taking place, [[spoiler:but in fact, the kids are being cloned. The "perfect" clones are sent back home, while the original kids are locked up in the "Nursery".]]
* In ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryCoven'', Miss Robichaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies is this - originally an exclusive boarding school for girls that was used as a military base during the US Civil War, it was then taken over by the current generation's Supreme (the most powerful witch alive) and the school was used as a cover for the training of young witches.
* An episode of ''Series/MidsomerMurders'' revolved around a boarding school which had an exclusive student organization called the Pudding Club which was in fact [[spoiler: the recruitment drive for a decades-old antiques smuggling group]]. The first murder was because a student discovered what was really going on and chose to leave and was killed in case he went public.

* In Maladomini, one of the layers of [[FireAndBrimstoneHell The Nine Hells of Baator]] in [=3.5e=] ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', there's a school for devils and other lawful evil beings seeking to become corrupters, complete with a training course doing mock-ups of Material Plane events.

* In ''[[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin]]'', Wade Elementary is actually a cover to test drugs on the children in order to increase their psychic potential.
* ''VideoGame/GenshinImpact'' has the Sumeru Akademiya, the most prestigious and renowned institution of higher-learning in all of Teyvat's seven nations. It's hinted at that something is amiss through [[HotWitch Lisa Minci's]] backstory and reports of the [[TrainingFromHell stressful curriculum]] from [[SeniorYearStruggles frazzled Akademiya scholars]] the Traveler meets in Liyue and Inazuma, but only once arriving in Sumeru and trying to meet the Dendro Archon does the true horror reveal itself. [[spoiler:The nifty high-tech Akasha Terminals given to all who enter Sumeru or reside there are actually capable of {{Mass Hypnosis}} by putting unwitting citizens and visitors alike in a {{Lotus Eater Machine}} {{Hive Mind}}, and [[DreamStealer harvesting the dreams of the wearers]] so the Sages of the Akademiya can use the harvested memories for some nefarious purpose.]] All of the experiment's participants experience additional fatigue and headaches, while those with [[spoiler:[[DelicateAndSickly serious illnesses]] continue to degrade and decompensate while stuck in the Akademiya's Sabzeruz Festival Samsara, even to [[KillTheCutie the point of death]].]] [[spoiler:One researcher remarks that they risk losing additional "subjects" but [[MadScientist another]] urges the highly unethical and immoral experiment to press onwards because results are [[AboveGoodAndEvil too valuable to lose]].]]
* Leafmore High School in ''VideoGame/{{ObsCure}}'' was founded as a way for [[BigBad Principal Herbert Friedman]] to get test subjects for his medical experiments. After an attempt to discover the secret of immortality [[GoneHorriblyWrong went horribly wrong]] and turned his brother Leonard into a [[PlantPerson plant monster]], Herbert founded Leafmore High as a cover for his experiments and to have a steady stream of test subjects, hoping to find a way to save Leonard.
* Akademi High in ''VideoGame/YandereSimulator''. In addition to the lovesick serial killer running around, there are some questionable things going on: many of the students have some dark rumors floating around about them, any crimes on school grounds can't be investigated for more than six hours, and the Headmaster seems to have some shady connections to the [[MegaCorp Saikou Corporation.]]

* In [=ClockUp=]'s ''Euphoria'', [[spoiler:this is used during the LotusEaterMachine.]]
* ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'', As over the top as the series may be, [[spoiler:Hope's Peak Academy]] is outed as a rather realistic example, being horrifically corrupt and damaging to everyone involved. [[spoiler:In the [[VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc first game]], Hope's Peak Academy was portrayed as a good and noble institution, where students lived together in harmony and got a quality education, before being perverted into something horrible by the machinations of Junko Enoshima. By the [[VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair second game]], Hope's Peak Academy is shown to have been actively defrauding hundreds of average-joe students of their parents' money through the Reserve Course just to keep financially afloat, was riddled with bullying and dysfunction that they swept under the rug to keep up their reputation, and used mad science and high tuition to create the [[BrokenAce infinitely talented but soulless]] transhuman nihilist Ultimate Hope, Izuru Kamukura. Junko only had to give it the least push to get it all to come crumbling down. ''VideoGame/UltraDespairGirls'' more-or-less reveals that huge sections of the school, including the "Elementary" branch, were horribly abusive towards their students, with one kid's parents who were also teachers at the school treating him more like a lab rat than a son with the institution's apparent approval. ''Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool'' shows that the main course students don't even have to attend class, and are there to ''be studied'' rather than get an education.]]
* In ''VisualNovel/DoubleHomework'', [[spoiler:Dr. Mosely/Zeta is using the class as subjects in her sex experiment: Lauren, Morgan, Amy, and Rachel are four very different socially isolated girls, the protagonist is the alpha male who’s supposed to have sex with all of them, Dennis is the threatening beta male who’s supposed to drive all the girls into the protagonist’s arms, Johanna is there so the other girls will trust the protagonist more, and Ms. Walsh is the ineffectual authority figure who allows the protagonist to take a leadership role instead. Dennis derails the experiment with his prying, but Dr. Mosely/Zeta vows to run the experiment again somewhere else.]]

* The psychic academy in the webcomic ''Webcomic/{{Zap}}''

* Naturally, the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'' has one: the deVille Academy, a world-class education establishment where the meanest, nastiest, and sneakiest street urchins and gutter rats whom the proprietors can find get turned into master thieves, spies, torturers, and assassins. They have a rivalry with both [[NinjaSchool Yama Dojo]] and the titular SuperheroSchool Whateley Academy, but are much less pleasant about it than the Devil Dojo are; they tend to see the ninjas as insular and outdated, while they view the Whateley students as overblown buffoons who would be lost without their powers (with a fair amount of justification in both cases). However, their love of their own sneakiness was what allowed one of the training mission teams, who up to then had been leading everyone else around in circles, get outwitted themselves by InsufferableGenius [[OverlordJr Jobe Wilkins]].

* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/CloneHigh'': The military wants to utilize the clones' inherent greatness to lead the Army, while Principal Scudworth wants them to be the main attraction for his theme park (Cloney Island, natch). Neither of these intentions seems to trickle down to the student populace.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDragonJakeLong'' episode "A Befuddled Mind", [[EvilSorcerer Eli Pandarus]] fronted an academy for gifted children in the hopes that one of them could solve a magical puzzle box containing powerful magic.
* The episode of ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' that introduced Brother Blood to the series had Cyborg going undercover at the HIVE Academy (no relation to the one in the Literature section) as a villain-in-training named Stone. It's really not all that different from a regular high school (there's a Sadie Hawkins dance, regular lunchroom, etc). The only thing different is the subject matter. The HIVE and Brother Blood exist in comics, but the Church of Blood and the HIVE are totally separate organizations, and neither spent a great deal of time grooming new supervillains in a full on "[[Franchise/XMen Xavier School]], but evil!" setting. By the way, HIVE stands for [[FunWithAcronyms Hierarchy of International Vengeance and Extermination]].
* WesternAnimation/CoolMcCool attempts to track down his six major nemeses (The Owl, the Rattler, Jack In The Box, Professor Madcap and Greta "Green Lips" Ghoul, and Hurricane Harry) who have gathered to form a "College Of Crooks." Their initial assignment is to get rid of [=McCool=].

* While the title Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt is still simply a morally ambiguous ExtranormalInstitute, as more is revealed about [[spoiler:Jeanne and the founders]] it seems to be going in this direction.