If every school were magical, no child would ever complain about having to go. The idea of a school where aspiring mages can learn the ins and outs of magic is raw fuel for the imagination, and many fantasy series have taken a crack at it over the years.
I’ve read many fantasy books and watched a lot of fantasy shows that feature magical schools. From this experience, I’ve learned to judge a magic school by how well it incorporates its world’s magic system into its curriculum. There’s a magical school for every flavor of fantasy buff, but here are the ten that, in my opinion, stand above the rest.
10. Death Weapon Meister Academy (Soul Eater)
In Atsushi Ohkubo’s Soul Eater, certain people can transform into sentient weapons, while others can channel the power of their souls into those weapons. Recognizing these parings’ potential, the Grim Reaper stepped into the world of the living and built an academy to train so-called “Death Weapons” and “Meisters” to become witch-hunting warriors.
Death Weapon Meister Academy embodies the unhinged wackiness that defines Soul Eater; the headmaster is a cartoonish skeleton, the list of teachers includes a mad scientist and a zombie, and the students are all shades of crazy. Oh, and an ancient evil god is imprisoned in the basement.
9. The Little Palace (Shadow and Bone)
Unlike most other nations in the unnamed world that Leigh Bardugo’s “Grishaverse” is set in, the kingdom of Ravka does not persecute the element-manipulating Grisha. Instead, it forces them to serve as magical soldiers in the kingdom’s military, and their version of basic training goes down in a gothic castle known as the Little Palace.
Despite its name, the Little Palace is massive and lavish. The students live in luxurious dorms with round-the-clock access to an expansive library and an idyllic private lake. Of course, all of this luxury comes at the cost of becoming warriors expected to fight and die for the country that’s going against the world’s grain by tolerating their existence.
8. Beacon Academy (RWBY)
Nightmarish, emotion-smelling beasts known as “Grimm” have plagued the world of Remnant for most of its recorded history. Recognizing the danger that the Grimm pose to humanity, the world’s nations have all founded “Huntsman Academies,” which train young men and women to become Grimm-slaying Huntsman and Huntswomen.
Beacon Academy is the primary setting of RWBY’s first three seasons, and it’s an impressive establishment with an expansive campus, cozy dorms, and an arena where the students can practice their skills on captive Grimm. Unfortunately, its security is pretty shoddy, failing to stop a long string of infiltrations that pave the way for a Grimm invasion that reduces the school to rubble in the season three finale.
7. Strixhaven School of Magic (Magic: The Gathering)
Nestled within the Plane of Arcavios, Strixhaven School for Magic is the focal point for the eighty-seventh expansion of Magic: The Gathering. The school also became a campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons after the Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos module book hit store selves.
Strixhaven splits its curriculum into five colleges dedicated to studying different magic types. The school’s faculty is composed of powerful mages, with the headmaster of each college being a mighty dragon. Student life doesn’t slouch either, with the school hosting various magically enhanced extracurricular activities. Anyone who’s played A Curriculum of Chaos might also know that the school’s dating scene is equally robust.
6. The Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy, from Magicians
Like Harvard, Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy is older than the United States. The only officially accredited school for magic in Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, Brakesbill is one of the most grounded portrayals of a magical school you’ll find, for better or worse.
Brakebills has many of the standard amenities that define a magic school, but what sets it apart from others is how it’s plagued by many issues that impact secondary education in the real world. From unfair expulsions to tuition, Brakebills proves that not even magic can remove all of the humdrum of modern education.
5. Strange Academy (Strange Academy)
The Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters might be Marvel’s most famous school, but Strange Academy has it beat in quite a few ways. Founded by Dr. Strange and situated in beautiful New Orleans, Strange Academy is where the Marvel universe’s next generation of sorcerers and sorceresses learned the tricks of the arcane trade.
With many of the Marvel universe’s greatest mages serving as teachers and classes about astral projection and inter-dimensional summoning, Strange Academy is anything but standardized. The school’s student body is just as diverse as its curriculum, with humans, fairies, demons, and giants living in relative harmony in its dorms.
4. The Island of Roke (Earthsea)
Magic is a language in Earthsea that a lucky few are born with the ability to comprehend. But a basic understanding isn’t enough to complete the “conversations” that allow one to cast a spell. One of the few places a wizard of Earthsea can learn to speak the tongue of magic is the Island of Roke.
Situated near the heart of the archipelago, the Island of Roke is home to Earthsea’s only school for wizards. Archmages of every form of magic serve as the school’s instructors, and it even has a mysterious final exam that every student must pass before becoming a fully-fledged wizard.
3. Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson and the Olympians)
In Percy Jackson and the Olympians’s version of reality, the Greek gods are real and love to have kids with mortals. Once these demi-gods come of age, they’re whisked away to Camp Half-Blood, a secret training camp where the wise old centaur Chiron teaches them to fight monsters.
As its name implies, Camp Half-Blood is a summer camp, not a traditional school; the kids stay in cabins, do outdoor activities like archery, and roast marshmallows by campfire once the sun goes down. However, Camp Half-Blood is still an educational institution, and its magical, anti-monster barriers make it a far safer place for demigods than a regular school could ever be.
2. The Unseen University (Discworld)
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is one of the funniest fantasy series ever written, and that inherent light-heartedness rings loudest in the halls of Unseen University. Nestled in the heart of the great city of Anhk-Morpork, Unseen University is the living embodiment of arcane academia–or at least it would be if the professors weren’t a bunch of inept, out-of-touch boomers.
The unhinged antics of the Unseen University’s faculty and students are some of the Discworld saga’s major overarching plot points, and seeing these accomplished and aspiring wizards flounder about never stops being funny. With that said, whenever a great evil threatens the people of Discworld, Unseen University is always one of the first forces to rise against it.
1. Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry (Harry Potter)
I have many issues with Harry Potter, most of which I had long before J.K. Rowling made comments about sections of the LGBTQ+ community that I find appalling. However, I can’t deny that Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry is a fantastic magical school.
Hogwarts has just about everything a magical school needs: a staff of talented teachers overseeing classes on anything and everything mystical, transformable architecture, and outdoor areas where magical creatures roam free. What else can I say? There’s a reason why this misty, ocean-locked castle is the first thing most people think of when they hear the words “magic” and “school” back-to-back.
