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Now remember, students, this spell is only to be used on feathers, and not on your fellow students.

Unseen University was much bigger on the inside. Thousands of years as the leading establishment of practical magic in a world where dimensions were largely a matter of chance in any case had left it bulging with places where it shouldn't have places.

In ye olden days, people learned skills by being apprenticed to someone, so it was natural to assume that magicians would learn the ropes in the same manner. Then, the modern age saw the rise of public schooling and universities almost completely displace apprenticeship as the means of education. In light of this, some authors decided that the school or university setting was a viable way to educate their magicians.

Thus was born the Wizarding School, the institute for education in magic. There the young sorcerers go to learn various forms of rule-based Functional Magic (after all, there's not much one can learn if the magic is random and uncontrollable), divided into different "subjects" or even schools of magic. An exceptional talent may be a prerequisite for entrance, in which case the school is a center for Training the Gift of Magic. Expect plenty of Magi Babble on the tests. And their classrooms would be almost akin to a Wizard Workshop.

These come in two varieties: actual schools, and universities.

Schools are often boarding schools, with the attendant tropes. The pupils there are children, who leave at sixteen or eighteen. If the pupils are lucky, they'll also get a good Muggle education in math and science when they aren't learning magic words, spells and potions.

Universities usually only take students who are nominally young adults, though exceptions may be made for a rare genius prodigy who is an adolescent. The usual university tropes apply. The students will spend half their time drinking in the local bars and seeking romantic trysts; the professors will mix teaching with cutthroat academic politics and magical research.

Often the institution where the story is set won't be the only such in the world, though the others don't do very much.

A subtrope of Extranormal Institute. Often overlaps with Academy of Adventure and/or Academy of Evil. Compare with All-Ghouls School, Superhero School, and Ninja School. Sometimes comes combined with a Magical Society.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Featured in Akazukin Cha Cha, complete with a broomstick school bus.
  • The Gaius School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from Aventura, although it also trains swordsmen.
  • True Cross Academy from Blue Exorcist is a subversion. The school itself is pretty ordinary (aside from being absolutely enormous) but just happens to have a secret class that teaches you how to fight demons.
  • The magic cram school in Mamotte! Lollipop that the examinees all probably attend.
  • Endor College from Mary and The Witch's Flower teaches young witches and wizards several disciplines, and its professors are also involved in research. During the middle of the film, Madam Mumblechook gives Mary a tour there, mistaking Mary for a new student.
  • Mashle: Magic and Muscles takes place in Easton Magic Academy. It's a Hogwarts Expy with students divided into houses, flying lessons, a quidditch-like sport, and the students earn coins competing against the other houses. Across the world, there are two other schools like this.
  • Seinagi Private Academy of Mx0. Through a misunderstanding, protagonist Taiga ends up enrolled at the school and has to pose as an elite wizard in order to prevent anyone from discovering that he's really a Muggle who can't use magic.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
    • Negi Springfield trained at the Wales Magic Academy in the backstory. It was them who assigned him his job at Mahora.
    • Ariadne is an entire city-state devoted to magical education in the Magic World.
  • St. Millefeuille All-Girl High School in Otome Kikan Gretel, although it's closer to a Superhero School.
  • Warlock the "Master of Martian Magic" from Prince Planet was hiding on Earth from his magic school that was punishing him for getting drunk on prune juice.
  • Masahiro goes to an unnamed onmyouji school in Shōnen Onmyōji. It seems to function as a magic school in his world as they have practical magic exams.
  • Someday's Dreamers II: Sora takes place at a school where students can become recognized mages, which is treated like pretty much any other form of education.
  • The eponymous educational institution of the St Lunatics High School manga series probably qualifies as this.
  • Underworld Academy Overload!!: The Academy promotes absolute freedom of activities for students, as long as students attend classes, which makes hijinks and explosions a regular occurrence.
  • A Witch's Love at the End of the World takes place at Sternenlichtl, which is described as a hexenschule— literally a "witch school." The school is meant to produce strong witches to be employed by their home governments, but in actuality, Sternenlichtl is a place where witches strive to become powerful in order to eventually enact their revenge against humanity.
  • The Wize Wize Beasts of the Wizarding Wizdoms mainly takes place at Wizdom's, a magic school for Funny Animals. Charles, the Token Human in the cast, is implied to go to a wizarding school for humans far away.

    Comic Books 
  • In the 2000 AD strip Lowborn High, Wychdusk Manor is the classic boarding school type, where the most elite of magical teenagers (defined by both position in one of the senior wizarding families, and magical skill demonstrated in tests) learn how to become the next generation of powerful archmages. Lowborn High School, on the other hand, is where the other magic kids go, and is the wizarding equivalent of The Good Old British Comp. There is also mention of magic prep schools, which administer the aforementioned tests.
  • Black Mage is set in St. Ivory Academy, unique in that it used to be a Ku Klux Klan base. The protagonist is the school's first black student. It turns out they bring in a black student every ten years and use their soul to power the magic crystal that powers the school.
  • Timothy Hunter in The Books of Magic goes to the White School on Gemworld to learn magic and be safe from his enemies.
  • The eponymous "Abracadabra Academy" of Bunty was one of these, and the heroine was an Inept Mage.
  • When Gertrude becomes queen of Fairyland in I Hate Fairyland, she has to give a speech at Harbinger's School for Witches and Warlocks but during said speech, she accidentally recites a spell that blows up the entire school.
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume III has the Invisible College that's implied to be Hogwarts that now sits empty since Harry Potter massacred the staff and students after realizing that he's the Antichrist. It seems to be in Another Dimension rather than on Earth.
  • A college-aged alternate version of Zatanna is the lead character in the DC limited series Mystik U. The Zatanna of this continuity enrolls in Mystik University, a school for magic users, alongside other magical DC characters like Enchantress, Sargon the Sorcerer, and her love interest in the series, Sebastian Faust. The students of the school must figure out which of them is destined to betray the others and become a force of evil.
  • PS238 is about a Superhero School, but there's a special class for people with magical powers, leading to this exchange:
    Malphast: What is a "Hogwarts?"
    Tyler: It's a place from a book where kids go to learn magic.
    Malphast: Then why isn't this place a Hogwarts?
    Tyler: Uh... that's a good one. I dunno.
  • On their way to kill the dragon in Smax, the gang run into a wizard from Hellscab's School of Remedial Satanism with a Harry Potter expy who was the only survivor from a dragon studying field trip. The wizard mentions another school called St. Hecate's Coven School for Girls that lost an entire class of teenage witches to dragons.
  • In 2020, Marvel Comics starts up its first ever school with Strange Academy, run by Doctor Strange and taught by some of the best magic users in the Marvel Universe, such as the Scarlet Witch, Nico Minoru, and Magik.
  • The Witch Girls universe features multiple schools for witches; there's some overlap with All-Ghouls School due to the application of Mage Species and various other creatures that may end up as staff, as well as the Witch/Otherkin hybrids that may end up as students.

    Comic Strips 

    Fan Works 
  • In Absit Omen, Hogwarts is the main focus, but due to the Tetrawizard Tournament, students from Beauxbatons, Durmstrang, and Salem are currently present. Some adult characters graduated from other wizarding schools from around the world, such as Beit Gaddol in Jerusalem and Mahoutokoro in Japan.
  • Child of the Storm has the traditional Harry Potter examples, including Hogwarts itself, along with an alluded to academy in Wakanda, and fully-fledged school that existed in Camelot back when it was around. However, not all mages go to such schools, primarily being used by Wanded practitioners. Wandless, on the other hand, tend to undergo apprenticeships, in part due to the somewhat random development of their powers (manifesting anywhere between the ages of 10 and 16), and often more unique nature.
    • In the sequel, Doctor Strange decides to make partial amends for his habit of not taking many students. He's been around for millennia, been Sorcerer Supreme for centuries, and that's not including the time travelling, which puts his actual age at around 500,000 years old - and it's 'around' because after a certain point he got bored and stopped counting. And in all that time, he's only had four named students: Baron Mordo, Wanda Maximoff, Margaret Le Fay a.k.a. Margaret Dresden, and Harry Thorson- another, so far unnamed, has been alluded to. He takes the last of those students, Harry, in the sequel itself. Apparently the reason he didn't take more was that it usually went badly. He does this by, after the First Task, setting up a kind of magical university, observing that tertiary education is rare in the magical world. As for the facilities, he uses the opportunity given by the need to repair the Hogwarts grounds - devastated by an Elder Wyrm, a planet-killing dragon the size of a small mountain, which among other things created a volcano that Strange transmuted to vibranium and mithril ore with the Philosopher's Stone because he does stuff like that - to take on the job himself, set up an accelerated time bubble, and with a bit of tweaked Atlantean Magitek, build a tower jutting out of the mountain that strongly resembles "a palette-swapped Isengard." Oh, and it's funded not only by the mines beneath, but some of his extensive bank accounts and includes a lot of his vast collection of books of magic, some of which he wrote himself.
  • The Sorcerer's Guild Academy exists as such in the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story series, led by a headmaster named Albus Dumberton.
  • Malkin Academy in Malkin Academy: The Cup of Kings.
  • Mahokari Academy in Puella Magi Yuuko Magica.
  • White Castle Academy in Sonic Adventure Rings.
  • In With Strings Attached, occasional reference is made to the Wizards' University in the city of Zagesevregar; Grunnel lectured there in the past, and Brox was there searching for a solution to the no-monster problem of Baravada. The Raleka wizards also worked at or attended the place. However, the university is never seen.
  • Zero no Tsukaima: Saito the Onmyoji has the Academy of Onmyōdō in Japan. By the time he's summoned to Halkaginia, Saito has already graduated. There are probably similar schools elsewhere on Earth, considering the repeated mentions of foreign magic systems.
  • In chapter 8 part 4 of SlifofinaDragon's Sengoku Basara modern day fanfic Having fun while you can, the old abandoned building on a mountain nearby Basara Academy campus (which appeared in Gakuen Basara episode 8), with permission from Principal Oda Nobunaga's orders, gets its interior magically renovated and becomes a school with a lecture hall-sized classroom that mainly teaches "hex education" taught all by his sister-in-law Kyogoku Maria, who teaches the students the art of witchery, such as brewing up potions, researching Youkai, and using summoning magic. Local shrine maiden Tsuruhime usually stops by to teach the students divination.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Bedknobs and Broomsticks has a variant: the protagonist, Ms. Price, gets lessons in the mail from the "Correspondence College of Witchcraft." Also different is the fact that the college is supposed to be a scam, as its founder is a con artist who just copies things from an old book he didn't know was an authentic spellbook.
  • Kamar Taj in Doctor Strange (2016) is a temple Hidden in Plain Sight in Kathmandu, Nepal where the Ancient One and the Masters of the Mystic Arts live. There, ordinary men and women whom the Ancient One considers worthy are taught to draw energy from other dimensions into the form of magic, learning Supernatural Martial Arts and various other forms of sorcery. Students are allowed the option to leave with what they learned if they want (as was the case with Jonathan Pangborn) or stay and defend Earth's dimension from anything that seeks to threaten it. Kamar Taj is one of the rare examples of the trope that is a school for adults, though at the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, 14-year old America Chavez is learning there.
  • Ridley and Snails get caught trying to steal from a magic school in Dungeons & Dragons (2000).
  • The orphans from Epic Movie stop at Hogwarts to train for their fight against the White Bitch.
  • The Harry Potter movies are, like the books, mostly set at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that's based on British boarding schools, in which the titular character learns magic (along with getting into all kinds of adventures). There are other known schools in Europe such as Durmstrang in Bulgaria and Beauxbatons in France.
    • Newt Scamander from Fantastic Beasts went to Hogwarts. He and Queenie Goldstein argue over whether it or the American school, Ilvermorny, is better.
  • The Jedi Temple seen in the Star Wars prequel trilogy where Jedi are trained from childhood. The Last Jedi also reveals that Luke Skywalker held a Jedi academy for a while, until Kylo Ren turned to the dark side and killed most of the students.

    Folklore & Religion 
  • French scholar Gerbert of Aurillac (Pope Sylvester II, died 1003) was suspected of being a wizard, and according to these rumours he had studied magic at the university of Cordoba in Moorish Spain.
  • The Icelander Saemundur the Learned (died 1133) was said to have studied magic at a French university.
  • Georg (Jörg) Faust (died 1541) was said to have studied the black arts at the university of Krakow in Poland according to Lutheran Germans. Catholic Englishman Christopher Marlowe changed that and made him a doctor in Wittenberg, the first and most famous Lutheran university.
  • The Scholomance was a fabled school of black magic in Transylvania, which was run by the Devil. The school enrolled about ten students to become the Solomonari. Courses taught included the speech of animals and magic spells. One of the graduates was chosen by the Devil to be the Weathermaker and tasked with riding a dragon to control the weather.
  • In the medieval university town of Salamanca, Spain was a crypt where it is said that Satan used to teach his students nigromancy.
  • The mountain of northern Italy were said to be the roaming place of the students from the Scuola Nera di Venezia (Black School of Venice) .

    Literature 

Authors

  • The wizards and soothsayers of Avram Davidson's fantasy works generally receive their magical education in less organized settings, but Virgil (the medieval wizard version first published in 1969, not the historical poet) is depicted attending a school with a truly horrifying finals week. For herbalism, students are given a tray full of fungi and told to remove the poisonous and healing varieties. And then they have to eat the remainder. The final exam is a simple footrace...but the devil takes the hindmost.
  • Diana Wynne Jones:
    • The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, explores this trope, like most standard fantasy ones. It's called the "Invisible College", described as being like an Oxbridge university. Within, if anything with magic can go wrong, it will. Students should be prepared for every type of magical accident possible. Note this was written before Harry Potter, which codified the "wizarding school as UK boarding school" trope. In Year Of The Griffin which is set in a very similar universe, Elda the griffin goes to Wizards University.
    • In Jones's Chrestomanci series, schools often teach Magic as one subject amongst the usual mundane ones.

Works

  • 100 Cupboards references this with the (villainous) wizards. Judging by Monmouth's scars, it's a lot less fun than most examples.
  • The Robert Sheckley 1954 short story "The Accountant" is another early example. You don't actually see the school, but you do meet little Morton's teacher and learn of his lack of enthusiasm for Thaumaturgy, Conjuring Herbs, and the Geography of Greater Hell. All because he wants to be an accountant...
  • The Afterward: The Mage Keep is an entire city that houses mages, training them from novices to masters as they learn over time. Unlike in many examples, this explicitly is like a university, which includes the squabbling academics with different theories about everything they stubbornly refuse to abandon.
  • Ascendance of a Bookworm: To be considered true members of the Supernatural Elite, children of noble birth need to attend the Royal Academy, which teaches them how to use their magic among other things, from ages ten to fifteen.
  • In The Bartimaeus Trilogy, first published in 2003, this trope is averted, although it's mentioned and dismissed by the titular demon: magicians are often power-hungry and corrupt (like many Real Life politicians) and keep their knowledge to themselves as much as they can, so schools are out of the question; instead, the next generation of magicians are taken from parents who don't want them (since magicians are forbidden from having children) and taught singly by each magician.
  • Air Awakens: The Tower, a part of the palace in Solaris, where the young sorcerers live, study and share all chores — in contrast to the rest of the palace, there are no servants there. When a child Awakens their powers, they can either join the Tower or be Eradicated (have their powers removed).
  • The wizard's school in Trudi Canavan's The Black Magician Trilogy, published 2001.
  • The Bard Schools in the Books of Pellinor. Though these are actually cities built around Schools.
  • In The Broken Crescent the College of Man is the exclusive source for magical training; if they think you can learn the Language of the Gods, they'll take you, and then you learn what they say.
  • Daybreak on Hyperion has the Königsfeld Academy of Magic, the most prestigious in the Kingdom of Weichsel, overlapping with Military Academy due to the Kingdom's strong military traditions for its nobility (all of whom can use magic).
  • Bloor's Academy in Children of the Red King is technically a prestigious school for artistically talented children, and also technically does not teach magic. However, it's an open secret that any (story-relevant, at least) child with magical talents will end up attending, as part of a slow cold war between schismatic branches of their Tangled Family Tree (which founded and runs Bloor's). This also means such children will be receiving any instruction in magic-aligned family members will give them.
  • Winding Circle in Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic quartet, published in 1997, the same year as Harry Potter. Also Lightsbridge University, which we haven't actually seen in any of the books (several of the characters are alumni), and which sounds like it follows the trope much more closely than the temple city of Winding Circle.
  • The Schola Sorceriae from The Circle Of Magic series by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald. Predates the above "Circle of Magic" series by 7 years.
  • The Collegia Serevain in Collegia Magica.
  • In the Craft Sequence, the mage-lawyers on whom the modern world depends are trained by the Hidden Schools, so called due to their origin as places of refuge for scholars of magic fleeing the wrath of jealous gods.
  • Constant Magic Academy in Demon King Daimao.
  • Discworld: The Unseen University, and Bugarup University in The Last Continent, comfortably predates Hogwarts by around fourteen years and are very much a parody of a certain perception of Oxford, Cambridge, and similar institutions. It DOES have students, notably the original versions of Rincewind and the Ponder Stibbons group, but the Faculty almost never teach or tutor them and their main career path seems to be to join the Faculty. Early-Installment Weirdness throws up figures like Igneous Cutwell, but they aren't usual.
    • And now Brazeneck College/University in Pseudopolis, which with the former Dean of UU as the head lends a competitive air to the relationship between it and UU. There's also Bugrup University in Fourecks, which is basically the same only made of corrugated iron and with wizards who wear shorts under their robes and corks on their pointy hats.
    • The Folklore of Discworld sees a forerunner of this trope in a first-century A.D. Roman account of the schooling of Celtic druids in remote groves and caves for twenty years on end, but notes that it only really flowered with the advent of universities proper during the middle ages. As soon as there were universities, rumors started about there being an evil counterpart, a "black school", where black magic was taught. Frequently actual institutions of learning — in foreign countries, and often associated with a different faith — were suspected of being "black schools". Some examples from legend can also be found under "Literature".
  • The Grevillian Institute in Doctrine of Labyrinths is one of the actual schools for wizards. Usually "school" refers to a school of thought.
  • Dragoneyes gives us the University of the Green Tower. The world contains seven magical towers that have existed longer than the human race. The most prestigious of them, Green, was deemed too valuable for any one sorcerer to inhabit, so it is shared among all the hundreds of staff and students. Also most of the plot revolves around the Sealed Evil in a Can lying around the basement.
  • The Wizards on Ansalon in the Dragonlance series of novels, first one published in 1984, have set up minor schools throughout the continent for people who want to try and learn High Sorcery. During the early Fifth Age Palin Majere set up the Academy of Sorcery to teach Primal Sorcery.
  • The Tristain Academy of Magic in The Familiar of Zero.
  • Horrifically subverted in The Fifth Season. The Fulcrum only looks like a school. Its actual purpose is to abuse young earthquake-controlling orogenes into perfect weapons for the corrupt Empire that runs it. "Grits" are beaten for the slightest infractions, and if they screw up too much they're lobotomized and worked to death.
  • The Glitterwings Academy series is about the adventures of a young fairy at the titular fairy school, which is situated in an oak tree.
  • The Greatest Magicmaster's Retirement Plan: The Second Institute of Alpha is one of many schools for training students to become Magicmasters, and happens to be the one the main character, Alus, is enrolled in.
  • Groosham Grange by Anthony Horowitz, published 1988.
  • Harry Potter:
    • Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is the Trope Codifier, and undoubtedly the most famous example. It has this as its Characteristic Trope (particularly in the first book), though the main plot eventually centers upon defeating Voldemort. Virtually all British wizards are Hogwarts alumni, students, or hopefuls, because it's the country's only wizarding school and it guarantees a place to attend for every magical people in Britain. However, British wizards may choose to study in a foreign school; Lucius Malfoy originally wanted to send Draco to Durmstrang (see below), but Narcissa objected because it's too far away from home. As the Gaunts show, a few distrustful or paranoid families may also prevent their children from attending Hogwarts. Due to Pop-Cultural Osmosis, many later examples of this trope either reference it or seem to.
    • Other Wizarding Schools from other countries are mentioned by name in the series, such as Durmstrang in northern Europe and Beauxbatons in France. Later material also adds Ilvermorny in Massachusetts, Castelobruxo in Brazil, Mahoutokoro in Japan, Uagadou in Uganda, and Koldovstoretz in Russia. Ilvermorny was founded by an Irish witch, who immigrated to the American colonies in the 17th century, adopted a pair of orphaned wizard brothers, and married a Muggle (or No-Maj to use the American term). Since her Evil Aunt forbade her to attend Hogwarts, her idealized view of the school eventually led her to open one in North America, naming it after her parents' destroyed cottage. Ilvermorny's four houses are named after each of the family members' favorite magical creatures. Eventually, the school grew from a small shack into a large stone castle (hidden from No-Maj eyes, of course) to rival the more ancient Hogwarts castle.
  • Hell's Gate by David Weber has the Union of Arcana, a federation of magic-using nations that have several. The two mentioned by name are Mythal Falls Academy, the oldest and most prestigious magical research and teaching Academy in Arcana, and the Garth Showma Institute, the second largest magical academy anywhere (and whose prestige is rapidly overtaking that of the Mythal Falls Academy).
  • The Heralds of Valdemar series:
    • There are several schools of magic, which have differing philosophies about how to gather and use Life Energy. The most mentioned one is White Winds, which has several branches due to the fact that graduating mages who reach Master or Adept level are supposed to start schools of their own. Tarma and Kethry (a White Winds mage) set up a combination mage/fighting school toward the end of the Vows and Honor trilogy.
    • In Valdemar itself, before The Magic Goes Away, Herald-Mages are taught their Gift one-on-one. Afterward, the three Collegia (Heralds', Bardic, and Healers') are founded. Students of each Collegium are sponsored by the Crown to come to the capital city and learn, respectively, Psychic Powers, Magic Music, and Healing Hands, in addition to the other skills of each profession. Herald-Mages learn actual magic at Heralds' Collegium once The Magic Comes Back. In the Owls trilogy, it's mentioned that Valdemar is considering setting up a Mages' Collegium so those mages that aren't also Heralds in Valdemar can be trained in, and taught the ethical use of, their powers.
  • Her Crown of Fire: Stanthor Academy - Hogwarts, this is not. The students are college-aged rather than young children, and a lot of the classes are geared towards preparing the students for combat. There is very little in the way of wonder or whimsy about the place.
  • Impractical Magic: The banner of the website says, "Welcome to Istima, the Six Court Academy, where reality is a suggestion, magic is king, and knowledge is currency. Study, survive, and hold your secrets close."
  • In The Iron Dragon's Daughter, both the high school and college have shades of this, due to the setting having a Dungeon Punk / Magitek streak.
  • The Iron Teeth web serial has mage guilds that operate magic schools. There they train mages and attempt to learn more about magic and producing new types of mana crystals.
  • The Irregular at Magic High School has 9 of them.
  • The Jeremiah School has a wizarding school with the Luciferian Academy, which is headed by Lucien Morgenstern, believed to be "the son of the Devil". The titular school itself is more of a "prophetic school" where young prophets of God are taught how to use their prophetic gifts, falling more into the realm of Religion is Magic.
  • The Royal Academy of Magical Study in Journey to Chaos.
  • Krabat, published 1971, combines apprenticeship as a miller with secret schooling in Black Magic. This is based on a Sorbic folk legend that had already been adapted into literature before.
  • The White Rock Academy of Illumination in Light And Dark The Awakening Of The Mageknight trains the next generation of knights who will join the war against the shadows.
  • The Clock Tower in Lord El-Melloi II Case Files, although very little teaching goes on in there, due to the common fear of diluting their magic by teaching others. The main character is notable for being one of the few professors who actually teaches his students and is incredibly efficient at nurturing a student's talents to the point where several of them have attained incredibly high ranks in magic society.
  • The Lost Redeemer subverts this trope. The Aeons (a supernatural race) have a secret academy that used to teach magic, but its use is outlawed during the course of the first book, and all mention of it is removed from the library.
  • Aoi Gakuen in Maburaho; while the series takes place in a world where everyone has magic, most people only have a limited number of spells they can use, and Aoi Gakuen is for those whose spell count is in the thousands.
  • A Mage's Power: The Royal Academy of Magical Study is like a prep school for mages. It's filled with the children of nobles and rich commoners learning magical theory, history, application, etc. Both the students and the teachers look down their noses at "trade schools" like the Dragon's Lair which only teach strictly practical magic.
  • Subaru Magic Academy in Magical Warfare.
  • Magic for Liars has the Osthorne Academy of Young Mages, as well as a school called "Headley." The school is less Hogwarts, however, and more like an average high school, but with magic added.
  • The Magicians by Lev Grossman and published in 2009, has multiple.
    • Brakebills is a wizarding university in upstate New York; it has an insanely difficult entrance exam and time there is out of sync with time in the rest of the world.
    • Brakebills also has a second campus in Antarctica, where students in their fourth year are sent for intensive magical education under Professor Mayakovsky.
    • The second book introduces hedge mages and their safe houses. In these otherwise normal houses, mostly adult mages who couldn't get into the Brakebills type schools learn magic illegally. They are linked by a worldwide Portal Network of Magic Mirrors.
  • The Magician's Academy, from the light novel of the same name.
  • Magic University: Veritas is the titular secret magic university, hidden inside of Harvard. Aside from teaching magic, it's very similar to a normal American university.
  • St Merlin's University from the Mediochre Q Seth Series is a university on the other side of the masquerade. Subjects include technomancy, dracology and zontanecrology.
  • Miss Ellicott's School for the Magically Minded: The titular school, situated at the top-most point of the town of Lightening Peak, is an all-girls school (there is a boy, Bowser, but he just scrubs pots) where girls learn to harness their magical abilities for the good of the town.
  • Holly Black and Cassandra Clare's collaboration, The Magisterium series is set in the titular underground school for mages. There's also a magical university called the Collegium.
  • Modern Healing Mage: The series is centred around a professor of healing magic, magic schools are a given. The School is the premier magic school that teaches all of the disciplines of magic. Like all good magic schools, it is old and in a small Irish town. It also does not have children, anymore. (Anton attended while children were still allowed) Students need to be at least sixteen.
  • The Anehara Cross School of Magic in Modern Magic Made Simple.
  • In Mother of Learning, the protagonist and many other characters attend the Cyorian Magical Academy. Feels like a Harry Potter-style boarding school, but seems more focused on practical things.
  • Most of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! takes place in an unnamed school that trains all magic users in the kingdom, as they are considered to be an incredibly valuable asset. Due to the fact that the ability to use magic is almost exclusively found among nobility and royalty, it also doubles as a Royal School.
  • The titular academy from the Mystwick School of Musicraft books takes place on an alternate Earth where all live music is a magic spell, the heroine being a Magical Flutist-in-training.
  • The University in Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind, published in 2007, fits into this trope. It is the only school where you can learn the world's particular brand of sympathetic magic and is a boarding school set in a town that is based entirely around The University.
    • Subverted with Naming, where the University is too domesticated and safe for most Namers to find all the names they might at the ends of civilization. "Chasing the Wind" has morphed into a term of derision speaking of futility, but it originally referred to someone going off on adventures to seek the ever-changing Name of the Wind.
    • The Adem mention that they have them.
  • A non-boarding school example in Night Watch (Series). Also different in that, since Others can be discovered and initiated at any age, the school is unlikely to have only children. There is only one teacher in the Moscow Night Watch. It's mentioned that, when the latest Moscow Night Watch HQ was built, they planned for 3 floors' worth of classrooms. However, since only a few Others are initiated and agree to join the Watch each year, they almost never use more than 1 floor. The Moscow Day Watch is also mentioned to have its own school, but it has never been described, although it's mentioned that, since there are proportionally about 16 Dark Other to 1 Light Other, the Day Watch school is usually packed. The spin-off novel School Supervision takes place at a special boarding school set up by the Inquisition to teach a group of Other (both Light and Dark) teens who are troubled for one reason or another. All teachers are either members of the Inquisition or are sworn to be unbiased to one side or the other. The authors frequently refer to Harry Potter, pointing out differences, such as students playing normal sports games and using laptops in class (justified, since they're trained to live amongst humans).
  • To some extent, Yale is this in Ninth House, but only for the wealthiest, best-connected students.
  • Wyverley College in the Old Kingdom series, first published in 1995, is mostly just a classic girl's boarding school that happens to offer a few magic classes on the side, not a dedicated school for magic.
  • The Bahruth Empire in Overlord boasts the Institute Of Magic that trains mages for the good of the empire.
  • Pale: A large part of the story takes place at the Blue Heron Institute, a school for Practitioners — mostly from established, powerful families and full of backstabbing and manipulation.
  • Edgewood Academy, Brightwood University, and Blackthorne College are the token schools of magic in The Princess 99. Though, Blackthorne is closer to a madhouse if anything. To be honest the entire book reads like Tim Burton Presents: Harry Potter.
  • The Queen of Ieflaria: Rhodia has universities which train mages. Esofi sets about setting up one for this purpose in Ieflaria as well for the same purpose. However, when a lot of Ieflarians start developing magic, she sets up a makeshift school in the temple dedicated to Talcia, Goddess of Magic, for them.
  • Rachel Griffin has Roanoke Academy, (A school of magic like no other); founded, as the name suggests, by Virginia Dare, the first American-born sorceress. Students enter at age fourteen unless given a special dispensation to enter a year early, and stay four years; and are sorted according to their specialties into one of seven houses named after various famous sorcerers (Dee, Drake, Dare, etc.) Roanoke is not the only magical school in the world, but it is the only one to offer instruction in all seven branches of magic.
  • Reign of the Seven Spellblades takes place almost entirely within the walls of Kimberly Magic Academy, where magically talented students enroll at age 15 for seven years of Training from Hell: Wizard Duels are the preferred way to resolve intramural disputes, and the Academy sits on top of an ancient labyrinth that tends to encroach upon the school building at night and the faculty tend to turn a blind eye to what goes on there. They proudly boast that one in five entrants will not survive to graduate, asking only that you leave some worthwhile research behind. All this is justified by the fact that Kimberly is essentially a vocational school for Gnostic Hunters, an order of Military Mages that fights to prevent invasions by Eldritch Abominations from other worlds and root out their cults in this one. Other wizarding schools exist in the setting (Kimberly is kind of the Thug Dojo to the more liberal Featherston Sorcery School in a nearby town), but Kimberly is by far the most prominent.
  • Caithnard in The Riddle Master Trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip, begun in 1976, was originally a wizarding school until the wizards all mysteriously disappeared. Now it is a school for those who study the mysterious and dangerous riddles left behind by the wizards.
    • Before that, Lungold. Unfortunately, its founder, Ghisteslwchlohm, turned out to be an Evil Sorcerer — he used the school to gather all the wizards together, steal important prophetic knowledge from them, and then destroyed it and them so they couldn't interfere with his plans.
  • In Raymond E. Feist's The Riftwar Cycle, begun in 1982, the magician Pug sets up an academy on the island of Stardock to streamline the teaching of magic as well as teaching a new form of magic that he learned on Kelewan. Essentially, Pug spearheads the transition from apprenticeships to large-scale schooling for magic, at least on his world.
  • The Rivers of London/DC Grant series reveals that England used to have a boarding school—Casterbrook—for British magicians to learn magic. Most of Britain's magicians died in World War II and The Magic Went Away as a result, and with an entire generation of magicians gone the school was abandoned.
  • There's a College of Magic in Salamander, published in 2001, where most of the story takes place. It's portrayed as a research center as much as a school, though.
  • The Scholomance: Named for the real-world legend used in other works in this section, the series takes place in a magical school within its own pocket dimension, with the twist that Everything Is Trying to Kill You.
  • Greenlaw College (for women) and Glasscastle University (for men) in the Scholarly Magics books by Caroline Stevermer, the first of which was published in 1994. Greenlaw has the limbs and outer flourishes of a French finishing school for young ladies, while Glasscastle is a traditional English university.
  • Schooled in Magic: The series of books involves Emily learning magic in school or from teachers outside of school, although the story is not entirely focused on school life like the Harry Potter books. In Graduation Day, Emily drops out and doesn't return to school, though she does get an apprenticeship with Void.
  • A School for Sorcery was published in 2002 and features the Simonton School for the Magically Gifted.
  • In Pamela Dean's The Secret Country trilogy, first published in 1985, different branches/philosophies of magic are identified as Red, Green, or Blue. Each has its School, with Ruth belonging to the Green School. We get tantalizing glimpses of the Green Caves in The Whim of the Dragon. Their magic is devoted to earth, water, and plants. Fence is described as a "white magician" but this refers to his doing good; he actually does blue magic.
  • Oakhurst Academy of the Shadow Grail series by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill.
  • Skin Hunger has an all-boys wizarding school, that is also a Boarding School of Horrors. The death of pupils is intended and they are actively discouraged from helping each other.
  • Sorcerer Stabber Orphen has the Tower of Fangs.
  • Spellster: The tower is the training facility for spellsters, who are raised there too.
  • In the Star Darlings franchise, the girls reside in Starling Academy where they learn to grant wishes to Earth.
  • Sweet & Bitter Magic: The Coven have an academy to train witches-Tamsin attended it but was expelled.
  • In the original 1939 version of T.H. White's The Sword in the Stone, which later became the first part of The Once and Future King it's mentioned that Madame Mim has a double first at Dom-Daniel, a college for witches and warlocks somewhere under the sea and both black and white magicians studied there (except Merlyn, he was privately tutored by his master Blaise).
  • The Palace of the Prophets from Sword of Truth, which was first published in 1994. Bonus points for being built as a spell-form, preventing the Sorceresses, Wizards, and especially the Prophets from aging, allowing them to accrue truly terrifying amounts of knowledge. Similarly, the Wizards' Keep used to be this but slowly ran out of Wizards.
  • Tales of Kolmar's The Lesser Kindred, published in 2001, has the healer/mage school at Verfaren. In that 'verse, only powerful healers can turn their magic to non-healing things and be mages. Some turn to demons to become more powerful.
  • The Thorn of Dentonhill: A Novel of Maradaine introduces the main character as a struggling magic student at the University of Maradaine. He's a vigilante by night, of course.
  • There are also various examples in the Tortall Universe. It seems to be generally agreed that the best one in the world is the university in Carthak that Numair went to.
  • Transylvanian superstitions by Emily Gerard depicts the Scholomance, a school based in Transylvania and run by the devil, meant to be a school for users of Black Magic. That depiction of the Scholomance shows up in the writings of British authors (and Bram Stoker, who was Irish) as well.
  • Parodied by Ros Asquith's Trixie Tempest And The Witches Academy. The protagonist, having grown up on Harry Potter, expects to be sent to a Hogwarts-esque school, but when she gets to the actual place, Conundrums Academy is a rundown building with rule books like dictionaries and the common punishment for misbehaving students is the stocks, or being drenched in frostbite-inducing water.
  • Tokyo Beatrice Academy in Venus to Mamoru!.
  • The 1953 short story "The Wall Around The World" by Theodore Cogswell is commonly accepted by the fantasy fiction community to be the progenitor of this trope in modern literature. It centers around a 13-year-old wizard studying at a school for wizards who tries to discover what lies beyond the wall which surrounds the known world. Many obvious parallels can be drawn between it and later, better-known examples of the Sub-Genre such as the Earthsea and Harry Potter novels.
  • Wistram, in The Wandering Inn, is the most prominent school for [Mages], but has been in decline for over a century, ever since a long-dead [Archmage] locked off the upper floors. It is rivaled by other magical schools, though none with the same power and independence that basically allows Wistram to be its own city-state.
  • Warlocks of the Sigil: Has magical schools where children who display aptitude for magic go. The one the main character Quinn attends is a Boarding School. They attend until they hit puberty and get apprenticed or turn 18 whichever happens first.
  • The White Tower in The Wheel of Time, beginning in 1990. Girls who can channel are brought to the Tower to learn to control it before they kill themselves or others. Similarly, the Black Tower, though that's more of a Wizarding boot camp.
  • The Witcher introduces the Island of Thanedd in The Time of Contempt, published in 1995. The setting actually has two separate schools, only the latter of which is relevant to the plot: Ban Ard for boys and Aretuza for girls.
  • Eleanor Estes' The Witch Family was published in 1960. Hannah's school, her classmates and teacher, and subject matter (including witchiplication) are covered in some detail.
  • The Witch of Knightcharm features two magic schools, one named Knightcharm Academy and the other called The Scholomance. They teach students magic for good and evil purposes, respectively.
  • Likewise the magic school on Roke in Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, published in 1968, pre-dates many other examples here. The native Muggles wouldn't bat an eye at seeing a youngster turn into a bird and fly away.
  • Wizard of Yurt: Daimbert attended and graduated from one in the City. It's said these are no older than forty years, with he being the first who graduated who is Royal Wizard of Yurt. His predecessor was apprenticed, like all wizards before its opening.
  • Wizard's Hall, published in 1991 by Jane Yolen is somewhat similar to Harry Potter, to the point that Yolen has specifically said she doesn't think J. K. Rowling ripped it off. The main character's name is Henry and he has a red-haired friend. However, the systems of magic aren't remotely similar and there are different naming conventions.
  • Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches, from The Worst Witch series of books, first published in 1974. The rival school Pentangle's Academy is first mentioned in The Worst Witch All at Sea and the boys' school Moonridge High appears in The Worst Witch and the Wishing Star (which says there are thirty wizarding schools in the UK).
  • The Young Ancients: The Lairdgren School is more like a larger academy with a small magic program, only about a dozen students. But it's still the only formal school around, as opposed to a traditional master-apprentice setup.
  • Zero Sight has Elliot College, the premiere mage academy in the United States, which only accepts 30 students a year, which is how many Tier 4+ mages the country produces every year.

    Live-Action TV 
  • One episode of Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures takes place at a wizarding school. The students all wear robes, but they only get their wizarding hats after they've completed the school.
  • The last few seasons of Charmed featured a magic school, which was inspired by Harry Potter. Earlier seasons never even hint at its existence and the young witches shown all had to learn how to use their powers without it.
  • The Legend of Dick and Dom: In the episode "Back to School", the Inept Mage Mannitol is forced to return to the wizarding school he flunked out of years ago in order to complete his training in a heavily lampshaded parody of Harry Potter.
  • Luna Nera has a class of young women learning magic from two older witches during the 1600s.
  • The Magicians (2016) is centered around Brakebills University, a hidden magical college in upstate New York which the main character Quentin Coldwater attends.
  • Motherland: Fort Salem: Fort Salem is where the witches learn how to use their powers. It is officially a training ground after their conscription into the US Army, but how much it resembles actual military training varies. After the initial year some cadets proceed to 'War College' which is even more this.
  • Sabrina the Teenage Witch:
    • A boy Sabrina knows from The Other Realm, sends a clone to his magic high school in his place so he can go on a date with Sabrina.
    • Aunt Zelda attended the Other Realm University and hoped Sabrina would follow in her footsteps.
    • There was a Poorly Disguised Pilot featuring Sabrina's cousin Amanda going to a delinquent witch school on Earth called Witchright Hall.
    • The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina reboot has a witch boarding school called The Academy of Unseen Arts.
  • A Wizarding School plays into the backstory of Shuriken Sentai Ninninger's Yakumo; in a clear Shout-Out to Harry Potter, the few images we get of the school and its uniforms are clearly inspired by Hogwarts. In one episode a pre-teen classmate with a Precocious Crush on Yakumo visits and causes trouble, and at the end of the episode she goes home with one of the teachers — who turns out to be Tsubasa Ozu, Mahou Sentai Magiranger's Yellow Ranger. In the Where Are They Now scene in the finale, we see that Yakumo has himself become a teacher at the school.
  • The Witcher (2019): Yennefer attends such a school, called Aretuza, under instruction from Tissaia along with many other young women who've been chosen to learn magic. We don't see much detail, though largely it seems to be a boarding school (albeit avoiding the common cliches). Its counterpart for boys, Ban Ard, is mentioned as the place where Istredd studies.
  • Wizards of Waverly Place had one of these in a Harry Potter parody, named 'Wiz Tech.'
  • In the Live-Action Adaptation of The Worst Witch, in addition to Miss Cackle's and Pentangle's, there's the boys' school Camelot College (because Moonridge was added to the books later) and in the spin-off Weirdsister College, the title institution is part of Cambridge University. There's also a reference in the series to Enid going to "day witch school" before arriving at Cackle's, meaning not all Wizarding Schools are Boarding Schools.
  • The Wheel of Time (2021): The White Tower has an academy to train Novice Aes Sedai in using the One Power.

    Manhwa 

    Podcast 

    Roleplay 
  • Grave Academy's eponymous academy is one of these, the students are monsters, but they also teach things like: Medieval Torture, Divination, and Mad Sciences.
  • The Bay12 Play By Post Game New Dawn Academy takes place in one.
  • Fire Emblem on Forums:
    • Chains of Horai: Mitakihara in the Kingdom of Ryukyu is an entire city devoted to this, while Hokuto boasts the Kobayakawa and Mizuno Pharmacies. Actual magic is less emphasised in the third Pharmacy, Yuuna, which focuses instead on alchemy.
    • Solrise Academy: The titular academy and others like it teach Arcane Crystallurgy, the local form of magic, as regular classes, with faculty members devoted to it. Professor Estelle in particular has a doctorate on the subject.
  • Magic Academy, fairly obviously.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Bard Games' Arcanum RPG, The Lexicon (Atlas of the Lost World of Atlantis)
    • The Magical Institute of Dardanaus and the Acheron Institute of Astrology both taught magic to students.
    • In the kingdom of Ys are several small institutes that are open to elves interested in the magical arts. They encompass almost every magical field.
    • The Institute for Occult Studies can be found in the city of Tartessos in the nation of Tharshesh. Instruction is available in all magical fields of study except divine magic. It has a respectable reputation throughout the magical community.
  • Champions Organization Book The Circle and M.E.T.E.. The Circle is a group of superheroes who are being trained by The Master in magical techniques. The Master is a sorcerer of great power who is rumored to have walked away from ground zero of the Hiroshima bombing.
  • Dungeons & Dragons
    • Castle Greyhawk's Tower Of Magic was this in the backstory. Having classrooms, libraries, workshops, and dormitories for the wizard Zagyg's apprentices.
    • The Known World setting (aka Mystara) has a few of those, notably the Great School of Magic set in the wizard-ruled nation of Glantri.
    • Eberron of course has plenty of those. Notable is the Library of Korranberg, as well as the Flying Towers of Aundair, who have a very Hogwarts-like feel, including monsters and constructs roaming the halls, as well as dungeons filled with magical hazards and Malevolent Architecture. Korranberg is downplayed in that it is a general-purpose university in a setting where magic is ubiquitous and important to society—magic may come up in most courses, but that's because (for instance) the architect has to take into account the possibility of incorporating magic into the construction, not because most of the students are mages of some kind.
    • Forgotten Realms
      • Thay is an Evil Empire with several academies to train their Red Wizards.
      • More than one sourcebook noted that the founding of academies for wizards is fairly common throughout Faerûn—it's just that, for one reason or the other, most of those academies don't last all that long.
      • The city of Waterdeep has multiple schools, the largest being the Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors which, as its name suggests, is also the Wizards' Guild and the Magic Police.
    • 2nd Edition supplement College of Wizardry. The castle of Mathghamgna holds the title school. in addition to teaching aspiring wizards, it searches for the Language Primeval, which is the language of magic.
    • The Dragon magazine #123 article "The Mystic College" had rules for creating and running a college of magic. #338 had "Schools of Magic", which featured several, all with a specialty that didn't fit D&D's traditional "schools", ranging from a Military Academy for war wizards to an arctic fortress that taught spells relating to cold and ice.
    • A supplement for 5th edition added a setting (and character classes for) the magical school of Strixhaven from Magic: The Gathering, below.
    • The Horde boxed set. The city of Dhaztenar in Semphar has a college of wizards supported by the treasury of the Caliph.
    • The Dragonlance setting had the Towers of High Sorcery. One of their functions was the training and testing of new magic users.
  • The Heptagram in Exalted, of course. Think of it as Hogwarts meets Gossip Girl with more than a few elements of the aforementioned Scholomance. There used to be a second school on the same island, but... something happened... and now the old site is sowed with salt and covered with mystical sigils.
    • Exalted actually has a lot of these. Lookshy has an academy for those wanting to study Magitek, the Sidereals have Department 137 of the Forbidding Manse of Ivy, and the Underworld has the Raiton Academy for the tutelage of necromancy.
  • In Gods of the Fall, the Bleak Cave is a subterranean complex where students learn foul magic from Manumet, the seraph of sin.
  • GURPS
    • The IOU supplement had Illuminati University, which covers more than just magic. Classes include hysteria and future history, the botany building is a tree, and destruction of any planetary bodies requires written permission from the Arch-Dean (who, according to rumor within the setting, is either a former angel, a former demon, or both—the art, done by Phil Foglio of Girl Genius fame, depicts her with both a halo and devil horns).
    • The Technomancer world is a Magitek setting where magic returned to the world with the first atomic explosion in 1945. Most schools in advanced magical countries have magical courses for basic spells, and doctorates in Thaumaturgy are available from most colleges and universities. The main one is the University of Texas at El Paso, because El Paso is the city closest to Los Alamos, and therefore near the centre of the Manafall.
    • In addition, a medieval school for wizards has been added as a setting in the Fourth Edition supplement GURPS Locations: Worminghall. Being a medieval university, it looks more like a hybrid of the apprenticeship model, the modern university, and a powerful street gang.
  • Humblewood has the Avium, located to the east of Alderheart, which acts as a school of the arcane built into a magically petrified tree. It acts as the seat of magical learning in the woods.
  • Dunwasser College in Ironclaw teaches Elementalism as well as more mundane areas of study.
  • The Shugenja Dojo in Legend of the Five Rings.
  • There are a few in Magic: The Gathering, including the Conclave of Mages and the School of the Unseen from the Ice Age cycle, but the most important (and the one with the most game-breaking card) is the Tolarian Academy. The most famous school in the multiverse is apparently Strixhaven, located on the plane of Arcavios and the focus of the set Strixhaven: School of Mages; this latter example is rather unique in that the actual topics are fairly mundane academic ones (history, mathematics, biology, arts and crafts, literature) but done through magic (e.g. the Lorehold college studies history by using White Magic to raise spirits from the dead).
  • Mutants & Masterminds: In the "Fantasy Freedom" setting based around a Sword and Sorcery counterpart of Freedom City, the Superhero School Claremont Academy is replaced by the Academy of the Art.
  • Pathfinder has several of these: the Arcanamirum in Absalom, the Acadamae in Varisia, the Ebon Mausoleum in Geb, and the various arcane colleges in the Magocracy of Nex. The oldest and arguably most prestigious is the Magaambya in the Mwangi Expanse, the setting of the Strength of Thousands adventure path.
    • In Starfinder, the Arcanamirum still exists on Abasalom Station even after the disappearance of Golarion.
  • Rolemaster Shadow World setting
    • Journey to the Magic Isle. The title island holds the University of Magic Arts, where students can learn a wide variety of magical techniques.
    • Star Crown Empire and the Seas of Fate. The nation of Fydon Fey is the home of the Great Colleges of Sorcery. They're rather important because the country's class system is based on magical and intellectual ability.
    • Nomads of the Nine Nations. In all the Jan, Balaan, and Shoneb Empire, the only place to study magic is the Academy of Dar-e'sen in Ghagian. The most powerful archmages, the Senjamade, live, study, and teach there.
  • Shadowrun:
    • MIT becomes MIT&T ("Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Thaumaturgy") post-Awakening and is a top research school in both fields.
    • Most major universities have a department of magical studies. Notable is Charles University, where the Great Dragon Schwartzkopf is a lecturer. Schwartzkopf apparently gives extra credit for any really creative pranks his students pull. One has to feel sorry for every other student and staff member at Charles come the end of the semester.
  • Warhammer:
    • The Empire has the Eight Colleges of Magic. They're a relatively new institution, only about two hundred years old, and were founded with the help of the High Elven archmage Teclis in the aftermath of the Great War against Chaos. Before this, the only mages in the Empire were "hedge wizards" who learned through independent experimentation, which led a good number of them to either get themselves killed or corrupted by The Dark Arts. In these modern, enlightened times, a potential wizard who isn't killed by superstitious peasants has the choice of joining a sanctioned college or being burned at the stake. Each college specializes in one of the eight Winds of Magic — Light, Metal, Life, Heavens, Shadow, Death, Fire, and Beasts — because unlike the High Elves, Puny Humans can only hope to grasp one aspect of magic. The Colleges work more like medieval guilds than modern schools, offering a system of apprenticeships for fledgling magic-users, specialized training for more advanced wizards, and the ability for full-fledged members to conduct their own personal research.
    • The High Elves in contrast study what they call High Magic, blending all the Winds of Magic at once, under the Loremasters of the famed White Tower of Hoeth in the kingdom of Saphery. The institution also teaches absurdly-skilled ascetic warrior-scholars the art of the sword, and these Swordmasters act as the Tower's emissaries, guardians, and agents in the outside world.
    • The Dark Elves have the Seven Convents of Sorceresses. They exclusively train females, as the Witch King Malekith wishes to avert a prophecy that he will be overthrown by a firstborn son wielding dark magic. Any Dark Elf Sorcerers are typically self-taught and have to keep a low profile if they want to keep their heads.

    Theatre 
  • In Wicked, Shiz University has sorcery as one of its many subjects that its students, such as Elphaba, her half-sister Nessarose, and Glinda, can pursue.
  • Malfoy in A Very Potter Musical keeps saying he's leaving Hogwarts to go to a school on Mars called Pigfarts staffed by animal parodies of the Hogwarts staff. The end reveals Dumbledore faked his death and flies off to Mars with the lion headmaster, Rumbleroar.

    Video Games 

Games where a wizarding school is the primary setting:

  • Academagia: The Making of Mages takes place in a complex non-Earth-based magical academy.
  • Ancient Magic: Bazoo! Mahou Sekai! is centered around studying to be a wizard at one of these while going off on regular adventures.
  • Avencast: Rise of the Mage has Avencast and some other never-named schools.
  • The Silver Star Tower in GrimGrimoire.
  • Mizuhosaka Academy from Happiness, although it also teaches muggles.
  • Unsurprisingly, some Harry Potter videogames (most notably Hogwarts Legacy).
  • Ikenfell largely takes place on and around the grounds of a magical school as the protagonist tries to find out what happened there.
  • Arcadia 5 from Magical Dears. It's more like a city than an actual school, and since male magicians are extremely rare (to the point where there's 10,000 female magicians for every 1 male), the only thing stopping it from being a One-Gender School is the presence of the male lead.
  • The Magical Diary series revolves around an American school for witches and wizards set in the forests of Vermont. It's largely a Dating Sim but you do learn and use spells and explore dungeons as well.
  • Magical Starsign has two wizarding schools, which are central to the game's plot.
  • Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times is also based on this concept.
  • Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis is completely based around this trope, specializing in alchemy.
  • Sable's Grimoire takes place in Amadronia Academy, a magical university and one of the few locations where humans and non-humans regularly interact peacefully.
  • Shall We Date?: Wizardess Heart is set at Gedonelune Royal Academy. The player character is a young woman who's been invited to the academy as a provisional student and has two weeks to earn acceptance as a full student there.
  • Spellcaster University [1] is a Space-Management Game where the player is tasked with building and maintaining a Magic school where instead of the usual building mechanics, the game relies on a deck of cards to build the necessary rooms and amenities.
  • Sorcerer University, for the first two games of The Spellcasting Series. There are competing schools, but SU is depicted as the Ivy League of spellcraft.
  • Twisted Wonderland takes place at the Night Raven College, an all-male academy where the students study and learn how to use their magic. All of the students and faculty residing in the college are twisted from Disney villains. The protagonist, Yuu, is the only student there incapable of using magic because they hail from a different world. There is also the Royal Sword Academy, a rival institution for the College.
  • The flash game Valthirian Arc and its sequels involve becoming the principal of a school for adventurers. Mages are one of the classes you can assign to your students, and even though warriors and rogues are also available, these classes have their own magical powers.
  • In Wizard101, the game starts out inside a university dedicated to teaching magic. The University is divided into six schools: Fire, Storm, Ice, Life, Death, and Myth. Players start out as newly admitted students, and while they do not actually attend any classes in the games, most of the spells a character learns come from the professors of those six schools. (Headmaster Ambrose also hands out a few spells as rewards for specific in-game achievements.)
    • Ravenwood also teaches a seventh school of magic, Balance, despite it not being given a classroom. Instead, its classroom is hidden in Krokotopia. Students of this school learn their first few spells from another person that studied the basics of the school.
    • The worlds of Dragonspyre and Celestia also had academies before they were destroyed by the Dragon and Storm Titans respectively. Fortunately enough of Celestia survived for the player to learn a few spells from the Sun, Moon, and Star schools.
    • There is also the rival school of Pigswick, which features the Expys of Ravenwood's seven schools but with different names and almost backwards philosophies. Also only half the teachers there show any competence in there teaching. One even admits he has no idea what he's doing and is just using the previous professor's notes.

Games where a wizarding school appears or is mentioned:

  • The academy and surrounding area in Angelique.
  • The Tower of the Magi in Avernum is essentially a magical university combining the instruction of magic with high-powered research.
  • Battle for Wesnoth: Wesnothian mages are thought at an academy on the isle of Alduin.
  • Breath of Fire II has a Magic School located in Hometown (they were really thinking outside the box with those names), which is where Nina is studying. Later on, you can also find the sorceress Deis/Bleu there, who claims learning through books is boring, and would rather go back out in the world to learn the good old-fashioned way.
  • The Dark Academy from Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin is one of these, and it also appears in parts of the Forest of Doom level. Fittingly, these are the levels where the various witch enemies (including student witches) are most numerous.
  • The Parfaedia Institute in Cookie Run: Kingdom, which is where Cream Puff Cookie studies. Two of the playable characters are professors there.
  • Dragon Age:
    • The Chantry-instituted Circles of Magi, with the twist that they also function as prisons to keep mages carefully supervised and away from the general population. As such the academic politics are even more fierce than normal, with the ever-present idea of 'fireballing the guards' proving an attractive idea for many. As mentioned in The Calling, the living arrangements and the rigorous schedules in the Circles tend to get the students to adopt cavalier attitudes towards sex. Young Duncan discovers this, to his delight, when an attractive female mage propositions him. He's not about to say no.
    • The rebel mages eventually reform the College of Enchanters as a more traditional example, either at the end of Dragon Age: Inquisition or its last piece of story DLC.
  • In Crush Crush, you can date a witch called Vellatrix who teaches at a school called Snogwarts. She implies the actual Hogwarts exists as a rival magic school.
  • Dragon Quest IX has Swinedimples Academy. Amusingly one of the students is a troublemaker named Fred.
  • Elden Ring features the Academy of Raya Lucaria, located in Liurnia of the Lakes and presided over by Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon.
  • The Elder Scrolls
    • Throughout the series and in the backstory, many such institutions are present. Many are dedicated to Julianos, the Aedric Divine of Wisdom and Logic, who also has an association with magic. These are unsurprisingly popular in the homelands of Mage Species races, such as the Summerset Isles (home of the Altmer (High Elves) and High Rock (home of the Bretons). Even in places home to races who have a cultural dislike of magic, such as Skyrim (home of the Nords) and Hammerfell (home of the Redguards), some sort of establishment of magical learning is still present.
    • An especially notable one is run by the Psijic Order on the isle of Artaeum in the Summerset Isles. The oldest monastic group in Tamriel, the Psijic Order is a secretive magical society founded during the ancient times by an Aldmeri sect who rejected the transition to Aedra worship from ancestor worship, known to them as the "Old Way" or "Elder Way." Throughout history, they have variously served as advisors to royalty or have withdrawn completely from outside affairs, depending on the political climate at the time. Both the Mages Guild and the Order of the Black Worm were founded by former Psijics. While primarily made up of Altmer, they have been known to include magically adept members of other races as well, though their selection process is "complex" and "ritualized", and "not understood by the common man".
    • The Imperial Battlespire was a magical training ground for the Imperial Battlemages. It was located in the "Slipstream", an area separating Mundus (the mortal plane) from Oblivion. During the events of the eponymous Dungeon Crawl spin-off game, it is invaded by the forces of Mehrunes Dagon, Daedric Prince of Destruction. During the events of Battlespire, while the Hero of the Battlespire is able to repel the invasion and banish Dagon back to Oblivion, the Battlespire is destroyed.
    • The Arcane University in Cyrodiil's Imperial City was another notable example. It served as the headquarters of the Mages Guild until the Guild's collapse in the early 4th Era. The university grounds were guarded by Imperial Battlemages of the Shadow Legion, a magic-using legion who were once trained in the Battlespire. In the center of the district is the Arch-Mage's Tower. The tower contained the Council Chamber, the Arch-Mage's living quarters, and a ground floor open to the public. The chambers were linked by magical teleportation pads. Accessible from the tower was the Imperial Orrery, a reconstructed Dwemer machine used to chart the heavens. The university contained a Chironasium for enchanting, a Lustratorium for alchemy, a Praxographical Center for spell making, and quarters and practice rooms for permanent residents. The Mystic Archives had a large collection of books and notes. The grounds also contained an alchemical garden, an outdoors lecture area, and an Imperial watchtower for the Battlemages. The University itself can be visited in Oblivion Mages Guild quest line.
    • Skyrim has the College of Winterhold, the only place in the game where you can learn master-level magical spells. The College's relationship with the rest of Skyrim is strained, first because the Nords are a Proud Warrior Race that Does Not Like Magic, and second because the College is one of the few structures in Winterhold that was not damaged when most of the city fell into the sea in the Great Collapse, which the locals blame on the mages' experiments. It doesn't help that the College has no ban on things like necromancy or conjuring atronachs, and beneath its dorms and lecture halls lies a veritable dungeon containing monsters and the aftermath of dangerous rituals - the College questline even involves uncovering a potent magical artifact that summons a flood of arcane monsters to menace Winterhold and nearly destroys the world. But Nords do appreciate the Restoration school and enchanted weapons, so they'll always have a use for the College, if nothing else.
  • The Heroes' Guild in Fable teaches magic as one of three disciplines that students must learn before graduating.
  • Final Fantasy VIII: Magic use is one of the things taught at the Gardens, although they are more of an analogue for military academies.
  • The Aurastery in Windurst in Final Fantasy XI. Unfortunately, mage PCs don't get to attend.
  • Similar to FFVIII above, Fire Emblem: Three Houses has the Officer's Academy, where students can learn faith-based and reason-based magic, although they are but two of the many things relating to warfare that students can learn in what is chiefly a Military Academy. There is also a dedicated magic school in the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus that two students from the Blue Lion house previously attended.
  • Final Fantasy Type-0 has Akademia, a combination wizarding school and military academy for Rubrum, where Class Zero resides.
  • New Shapers in Geneforge start at small academies to learn the basics. After that, they get apprenticed. Becoming a Shaper sucks.
  • The "Lonesome Dragoness" event of Granblue Fantasy takes place in the Mysteria School of Magic.
  • Knights of the Old Republic and the sequel take the player to the Sith Academy on Korriban. Star Wars: The Old Republic starts the Sith campaigns there, and also adds a Jedi academy for Jedi players.
  • Vane in Lunar: The Silver Star and its remakes. And of course the magic school in Magic School Lunar and the earlier version Lunar: Walking School.
  • Madou Monogatari: Hanamaru Daiyōchienji starts off in what is basically Magic Kindergarten.
  • Played with in various Nasuverse VNs. The Mage's Association headquarters at the Clock Tower functions as both a wizarding university and as a governing board over Magical Society. Two other academies are mentioned, the Atlas Academy in Egypt, and the Wandering Sea which moves around Scandinavian waters, all under the umbrella of the Mage's Association. Mages are expected to take care of their children's magical education themselves, and to self-study when they're not at one of the academies. The Association has its own paramilitary force, the Enforcers, whose job it is to keep the various mages of the world in line with the Association's rules, as well as do some vampire hunting on the side.
  • The Red Wizard Academy in Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer.
  • In the Puyo Puyo series, Primp Town has a Magic School the characters attend. One of the series protagonists, Amitie, works hard to become a powerful mage here.
  • WIT from Quest for Glory II (WIT = Wizards Institute of Technocery), possibly a wink to the real-life MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
  • The academy in Castle Galava in Nox.
  • Innsmouth Academy in The Secret World. On the surface, it's merely an elite East Coast prep school. In actuality, it is an Illuminati-run academy that teaches such things as applied necromancy, arcane geometry, parapsychology, and cryptozoology, with most of its students being either gifted psychics, the children of Illuminati members, or both. Lore entries reveal that a good chunk of the faculty's work is dedicated to covering up all the supernatural activity that seeps into the nearby town of Kingsmouth, Maine. Of course, by the time you get there the place is overrun with insane familiars and pissed-off spectral faculty and alumni, with only the headmaster, one teacher, and one student still holding out, having placed protective wards around the administrative office.
  • In Shining Force, Princess (later Queen) Anri of Guardiana studies at the Arcane College in Manarina. Arthur also studies there and can learn basic Blaze, Freeze, and Bolt spells, making him a rarity among knights.
  • Verena and Zinnia opened one in the backstory of Super Lesbian Animal RPG. The local gods destroyed it because they didn't want the general public learning magic.
  • One of the worlds visited in Ultima Underworld II contains the ruins of Scintillus Academy. Before its destruction, students trained in the academy for nine years and could then volunteer for a final exam, requiring them to navigate a dangerous labyrinth full of traps and illusions. The premature death of the aspiring mage was a not uncommon result.
  • In Valkyrie Profile, Flenceburg houses a magic academy. Unfortunately, its top student attempted to bring about The End of the World as We Know It in order to get laid.
  • Princess Ceceilia of Wild ARMs's introduction begins with her taking leave from the local magical academy, and once the party is formed, you go back there to unlock the game's Summon Magic and kick off the plot.
  • World of Warcraft:
    • Stormwind has the Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences, housed in the Mage Tower, the centerpiece of the Mage Quarter in the human capital of Stormwind. It has little significance in the actual game, however, except providing a few mage trainers and mage-specific quests.
    • The Scholomance (note the Shout-Out to the older version, see under Literature) instance is a Wizarding School in the Western Plaguelands catering entirely to necromancers.
      • Hearthstone created a Lighter and Softer version of it for the expansion Scholomance Academy, a Wizarding School for aspiring adventurers (with majors for non-magic subjects), taking place in a time before the faculty started practicing necromancy.
    • Both Dalaran, a magocracy and Silvermoon (not a magocracy though heavily influenced by the Magisters) are mentioned to have these too in background materials.
  • GUE Tech from The Lurking Horror and Zork: Grand Inquisitor fits this.

    Webcomics 
  • Bardsworth university of the webcomic of the same name. Actually, it began as a college for bards, hence the name, but also teaches magic.
  • The Astorian Mage Academy from Code Name: Hunter.
  • In Crimson Knights has Frothwater's a Mage Academy, which also has several artifacts that strengthen and weaken magic spells.
  • Succubus and Incubus Academy in Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures. Exactly What It Says on the Tin—a Wizarding School for Succubi and Incubi.
  • Orthorbbae in Drowtales is a prime example, having classes for every school of magic. Math and history are also mentioned as being areas of study, and comics on other parts of the site indicate that there are many other subjects taught at higher levels.
  • Magus, the alternate-universe equivalent of Ellen Dunkel comes from one in El Goonish Shive. Averted thus far in the main universe, as there doesn't seem to be any formal schooling for those with magical potential.
  • The Far Side Of Utopia has Levinworth Academy; it seems more of a Magitek side of mage school the traditional sense, but all the courses named so far have to do with magic (Magic Use and Engineering, Magic Theory and Technology, etc).
  • The boarding school in Gunnerkrigg Court is a subversion. Due to their strained relations with Gillitie Wood, they prefer to consider their studies (even magical ones) as scientific, even though plenty of magic occurs within the school grounds and the few gifted students regularly practice their abilities away from the teachers.
  • Toivo of Ingress Adventuring Company works at a wizarding university as a professor.
  • Webcomic/Lone has Soul Academy.
  • Magiversity, the College of Mages, obviously.
  • The premise of morphE. Though the school only has five students and one teacher.
  • The Elven Magic Academy from Murphy's Law.
  • Wonderella accidentally volunteers to substitute at such a school in this page of The Non-Adventures of Wonderella.
  • Warthogs, an obvious Hogwarts parody in The Order of the Stick.
  • The Everwood Magical University in Our Little Adventure.
  • North Academy for the Supernatural and Technologically Gifted in Royal, well, at least half of the school is for magical beings.
  • Used as part of a Harry Potter parody in the "Torg Potter" stories from Sluggy Freelance.
  • Stand Still, Stay Silent has one in Iceland. Reynir is seen attending it in early Adventure II. It's heavily implied to be the only one in the Known World, as it's training mages from Norway as well and Finnish mages have a The Apprentice system.
  • Thornsaddle, yet another Harry Potter parody. The titular school is in the middle of a desert in Texas.
  • Witchy's characters attend one. A slight subversion, in that it isn't a boarding school, but otherwise played straight.
  • Wizard School has Bumblebane's Magical Academy of the Wizarding Arts.

    Web Original 
  • Ascension Academy: Ascension Academy is a Magical Military Academy that aims to produce the finest Officers for the Cross-Allied Forces' Specialist Units. The Cadets of this Academy are trained in combat, survival skills, diplomacy and negotiation, and in the use of various magics. By the end of their four years of education and training, the Cadets should be capable of moving into the Specialist Units of the CAF, or to take on other roles within the Forces or within their home nations. While at Ascension Academy the Cadets learn how to utilize their own innate racial abilities and cast various forms of magic from the Nine Schools of Magic; Aburation, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation, and Universal.
  • Memorial Academy in the Arcana Magi Universe, featured prominently in Arcana Magi Memorial.
  • Critical Role: The Dwendalian Empire has its own magic school called the Soltryce Academy, were students can learn wizardry.
  • In Elcenia, The Binaaralav Academy of Wizardry is one of the few schools of any type in Elcenia. Most skills are taught by the family; magic-use is one of the few anyone bothers to make an academy for.
  • Magisterius University in Tales of MU is one of the best in the country, set in a DnD-like universe.
  • In Impractical Magic the banner of the website says, "Welcome to Istima, the Six Court Academy, where reality is a suggestion, magic is king, and knowledge is currency. Study, survive, and hold your secrets close."
  • SCP Foundation has the International Center for the Study of Unified Thaumatology: the largest "Magical College" in the modern world and a member organization of the Foundation's rival, the Global Occult Coalition. Little is known about them save that they're headquartered in London and have campuses in all GOC member countries, including Japan, the United States, South Africa, and India.
    • Subverted with Deer college, a university locating in the extra-dimensional city of Three Portlands. While it does boast classes in subjects like Necromancy, divination, and alchemy, it's not primarily focused on these subjects, and actually includes a whole separate section for mundane studies.
  • Brakket Magical Academy serves as one of these in Void Domain. Unfortunately for the main characters, it doesn't have much of a reputation. There are four more Wizarding Schools in the United States and several outside the country.
  • Wearing Power Armor To A Magic School is a sci-fi deconstruction. The school uses its monopoly on magic to control the galaxy, and promotes racism and elitism to extreme degrees.
  • Whateley Universe: The Mystic Arts Department of Whateley Academy is an example as a school-within-a-school. It shares a building with the Psychic Arts Department, but even the Psychic Arts teachers can't find the Mystic Arts offices.

    Western Animation 
  • The Darkwing Duck episode "Hot Spells" takes place at Morgana's old alma mater, "The Eldritch Academy of Enchantment". The plot involved The Devil (disguised as a janitor) trying to trick Gosalyn into taking a shortcut with a forbidden spellbook. Because the episode involved highly around witchcraft and The Devil, it was removed from syndication.
  • The Milkweed Academy for Wizards (a parody of Hogwarts), Kyle's former school in Fanboy and Chum Chum.
  • Filly Funtasia takes place in the Royal Magic Academy.
  • Toadblatt's School of Sorcery in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, which is a parody of Hogwarts.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic briefly mentions Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, whose name is a Shout-Out to Professor Xavier's School. There's also a reference to "magic kindergarten," which if real is likely Exactly What It Says on the Tin: a school of magic for young unicorns.
  • The Owl House gives us Hexside Academy of Magic and Demonics. Two other schools, Glandis High and St. Epiderm, are mentioned as well. Like the rest of the Boiling Isles, personal safety is not a priority, with yearly events where students have to fight monsters that feed on their fear, or literal monsters as hall monitors. The principal does draw the line at actually harming the students, however.
  • Despite the name, Regal Academy qualifies as this better than it does Royal School.
  • The Simpsons briefly turned Springfield Elementary into Springwarts School of Magicry during a Halloween special short as part of yet another Harry Potter parody.
  • Wizarding schools exist in The Smurfs (1981). Gargamel failed it, for his mother's disappointment. In another episode, "The Littlest Witch", an all-female witch school is shown.
  • Hexley Hall from Sofia the First is one, where some of the wizard/sorcerer/etc. characters such as Cedric went. It ranges from prep school years to college/university level.
  • Ultimate Book of Spells concerns three kids who are best friends and go to a magic school and who fight against an evil Wizard. One of them is a red-haired boy who is the least magically apt, and one of their teachers can turn herself into a cat... sound familiar?
  • In Winx Club, much of the action revolves around the three schools in Magix, including Alfea College for Fairies and Cloudtower School for Witches, all-girl magical schools.
    • The third, Redfountain School for Specialists, is (depending on the translation and season) called a school for 'heroes', 'wizards', and 'magicians'. However, no Redfountain student seems to have magical powers, and when an actual wizard character is introduced, the Specialists are not referenced to be wizards as well. Redfountain appears to be a school for Badass Normals.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Magical Academy, Magic School

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"Freedom, and Results"

"Ceremony". Kimberly Magic Academy Headmistress Esmeralda matter-of-factly informs the new class of first-years that one in five matriculating students will not survive to graduation -- describing the phenomenon of being "consumed by the spell" when magic goes awry -- and they will have to "become tigers" to make it here.

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