Two or more schools have a longstanding collegiate rivalry. They could be primary schools or top-flight universities, but the point is, their students and alums invariably come into conflict over whose alma mater is better.
This often manifests as a rivalry between the schools' athletics teams and their fans. In such a case, the students might not care whether they win the championship game, as long as they won against their rival on the way up. You could also wind up with Bar Brawls breaking out over somebody wearing their team's jersey to the wrong bar, or attempts to sneak into the other school to play pranks.
Super-Trope to Rival Dojos, which is specific to martial arts training centers. May overlap with Academia Elitism if one school is considered to be more prestigious than the other, or with Inter-Service Rivalry if one or more schools involved are Military Academies and/or Space Cadet Academies (as with the Real Life football rivalry between West Point and the US Naval Academy). Contrast Intra-Scholastic Rivalry and Absurdly Divided School, which describe rivalries within a single educational institution. See also Opposing Sports Team.
No Real Life Examples, Please!
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Anime & Manga
- My Hero Academia: The top two Hero Schools in Japan, U.A. and Shiketsu, have a known rivalry as they both compete to be the absolute best school in the country. Students from both schools are well known for their strength and skills, with many of them often going on to become high-ranking Heroes in society.
Comic Books
- Archie Comics: Fair and square Riverdale High routinely finds itself opposing their arch-rivals, Crosstown High, where cheating and thuggery seem to be part of their curriculum.
- The Beano: Bash Street School actually has two long running rivalries, the first with the even more rough and delinquent Blob Street School, and the second with the snobbish and vindicative Posh Street School. Many issues involve them engaging with some contest or challenge to ensure their rivals don't outdo them (or else simply getting into a scrap each time they meet). Likewise several issues involve them trying to save the school from closing down out of fear they will be transferred to either of their rivals.
- The New Mutants established something of a rivalry between the Xavier Institute (where the X-Men and the New Mutants operate out of) and Emma Frost's Massachusetts Academy (where Emma Frost tutored the Hellions). The antagonism between the New Mutants and the Hellions works in a direct manner, as in, they do rival and hate each other, and by proxy, since the New Mutants are the X-Men's protegés and the Hellions are the students of Emma Frost, who is the Hellfire Club's White Queen, and the X-Men clash against the Hellfire Club throughout the decade.
Comic Strips
- Funky Winkerbean: Some strips depict a Show Within a Show comic strip in Westview High School's newspaper. One storyline has the Scapegoats' mascot goat get kidnapped by a neighboring school, only to chew through its rope and escape back to Westview.
Film — Animated
- Monsters University: MU has a rivalry with Fear Tech, to the point that Sulley's considered a hero for stealing Archie the Scare Pig, Fear Tech's mascot.
- In Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School, Miss Grimwood's Finishing School for Ghouls is said to have a long-running rivalry with neighboring all-boys school Calloway Military School. This also has shades of a "girls-vs-boys" rivalry as well. It ultimately ends up being a friendly rivalry, however, as the boys end up helping the ghouls out when Revolta attacks their school.
Film — Live-Action
- Bring It On: For years, Big Red of the Rancho Carne Toros has been cribbing the kinetic routines of the inner city Clovers, using them to turn the Toros into a powerhouse cheer squad at the National Finals. Big Red was counting on the Clovers being too poor to afford airfare and entry fees. This year, the Clovers have a wealthy sponsor, and are determined to outshine the copycat Toros. "Tried to steal our bit / But you look like shit / 'Cause we're the ones who are down with it!"
- High School Musical: East High has a rival school (the imaginatively named "West High") whose basketball team has knocked the Wildcats out of the playoffs for several years running. Finally beating them is the focus of the basketball subplot.
- Nativity!: Paul Maddens works as a teacher at St. Bernadette's Catholic School which has a rivalry with Oakmoor School where his old friend Gordon Shakespeare also works as a teacher.
Literature
- The Asterisk War: All six schools in the city of Asterisk are permanently at odds, competing for enrollments, funding, and especially in the annual Festa tournaments, which serves partly as a proxy battleground between the six integrated enterprise foundations that fund them.
- Dirty Bertie: One story reveals that Pudsley Junior (Bertie's school) has a rivalry with another school Swotter House ("swot" being British slang for "study"), as Swotter House is full of Insufferable Geniuses.
- Harry Potter: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang, the three main European Wizarding Schools, are rivals to the point of keeping their precise locations secret from one another. Every three years, these three schools compete in the Triwizard Tournament—or used to, until the contest was discontinued due to the high casualty rate.
- His Dark Materials: All the colleges of the University of Oxford are rivals: the adult Scholars are ducking over their scholarly achievements while the children (younger pupils and domestics) are physically fighting, only uniting when faced with outsider groups such as Gyptians or townies.
- In Ōkami-san, Otogi Academy has a long-running enmity with Onigashima High. The former is an idyllic boarding school that prepares its students to be proper citizens. The latter is a Wretched Hive overrun by its Absurdly Powerful Student Council, which has allowed delinquents to take over the school.
- Reign of the Seven Spellblades: The main cast's Wizarding School Kimberly Magic Academy has a rivalry with the nearby Featherston Sorcery School. The dispute is primarily political: Kimberly is essentially the Thug Dojo with its Training from Hell curriculum and disregard for the rights of demihumans (though pro-rights students are making progress in recent years), and Featherston students often try to stop Kimberly from culling demihuman settlements and using them in experiments—and usually get beaten up for their trouble, since their school focuses much less heavily on combat training. Case in point: in volume 4, a group of Featherston second- and third-years pick a fight with the Sword Roses in a restaurant in the town of Galatea located between them, which the Sword Roses easily win, to the approval of upperclassmen looking on.
Kimberly upperclassman: Listen up, second-years! Lemme give you a word of advice. I’m only gonna say this once, so don’t you dare forget it: This is Kimberly’s town! And if someone starts a fight—you end it.
Live-Action TV
- The Really Loud House: In one episode, it is revealed that Fairway University has a rival school called Smacktauk University, with most of their fights being over golf.
- Still Standing: In "Still Narcing", nerdy Brian wins the respect of his high school's basketball team by stealing the school sign from their rival Hancock Magnet School.
Video Games
- Disney Infinity: In the Monsters University section, MU's rival Fear Tech (or rather, Fear Tech's NPCs) are the main antagonists; the Player Character sides with MU.
- Rival Schools: This is the basic premise of the storyline, as an evil mastermind is making students from all over Aoharu City disappear and is convincing numerous schools that the other schools in the city are the ones doing the kidnapping. Fighting ensues as each side slowly unravels the mystery.
- Twisted Wonderland: Night Raven College, a school inspired by the Disney Villains, is naturally rivals with Royal Sword Academy, another magic school that's implied to be inspired by heroic characters or princesses from Disney franchises.
Web Original
- Hatchetfield: A Running Gag across every timeline in Hatchetfield is the rivalry between the Hatchetfield Nighthawks and the Clivesdale Chemists, a pair of rival high school football teams; it's treated as such Serious Business that citizens of Hatchetfield will drop "Fuck Clivesdale" basically unprompted, and in Nerdy Prudes Must Die, the fact that Hatchetfield might be on its way to a losing streak due to losing its star quarterback is treated as a reason to keep the town's children inside, even moreso than a possible Serial Killer being on the loose.
Western Animation
- Arthur:
- Lakewood Elementary School has a baseball rivalry with Mighty Mountain School in the same city: they essentially only ever show up as the Little League Opposing Sports Team, with Passionate Sports Girl Francine serving as The Dreaded to the otherwise superior Mighty Mountain team.
- "The Return of the King" features Glenbrook Elementary, whose third-grade class is run by Mr. Pryce-Jones, a really snooty and much meaner version of Mr. Ratburn, a goofy and nerdy but well-meaning man who has an affinity for giving a lot of homework to challenge their minds. Mr. Pryce-Jones seems intent on turning his class into a bunch of snobby learning machines, so they behave as evil counterparts to Mr. Ratburn's class; Rusty being a Big Eater like Buster, I.Q. being The Smart Guy like the Brain, Buffy being a Rich Bitch like Muffy, and Chester beinng an Unlucky Everydude like Arthur. Mr. Pryce-Jones' class seems to beat their counterpart at what they do best at first, and while Mr. Ratburn is a little saddened that his students couldn't beat Mr. Pryce-Jones' class, he does congratulate them for thinking for themselves. Ultimately, his kindness pays off when Arthur tops Mr. Pryce-Jones' class by figuring out the riddle to pull the sword from the stone and being crowned king of the Renaissance Faire.
- The Loud House: "Pranks Fore Nothing" reveals that Fairway University has a rival school called Sand Trap University, and that once every year, they have prank wars.
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: Canterlot High and Crystal Prep Academy have a long-running rivalry due to Crystal Prep Academy having won the Friendship Games held between both schools every 4 years for a long time.
- The Owl House: Hexside was built on the bones of its rival school after they conquered it, which a younger Principal Bump is implied to have led. Presently, Hexside is rivaling the other two magic schools, Glandus High and St. Epiderm.
- Shuriken School: The eponymous ninja school has a long rivalry with its Evil Counterpart, the Katana School.
- The Simpsons: Springfield University and Springfield A&M hate each other. Homer professes to hate Springfield U until Lisa reminds him that was his alma mater.
- Tiny Toon Adventures has two primary schools; the first is ACME Looniversity, where the characters from Looney Tunes teach their junior counterparts how to be professional cartoon stars like them. The second is Perfecto Prep, a school that rich toons attend, namely the evil counterparts of the Tiny Toons. ACME Loo and Perfecto Prep often butt heads with each other in sporting events, and Perfecto Prep often resorts to cheating to ensure that they win.
