Back to school: 7 top hook-up institutions

From Grease, to Revenge of the Nerds, to Euphoria, there’s no education without  lessons in love. We’ve studied the orientation material, visited the campuses, and observed students and teachers. And we’ve compiled a list of seven top institutions to suit your needs. Whether you’d like to find your high school sweetheart with a simple song and a kiss, or you’d prefer to meet cute as you raise funds to save the environment at a sex-positive strip show, here’s where you should apply for the 2025 school year. We’ve saved the filthiest for last.

1. North Shore High School: Mean Girls (2024)

(Also watch Mean Girls 2, the 2011 sequel to the original Mean Girls film)

Report card: Welcome to the jungle! When a 16-year-old homeschooled student enrolls at North Shore High after growing up in Kenya, she gets a crash-course in American high school movie cliques. She’ll find at least 22 of them active at North Shore. The one clique to rule them all is a gang of female bullies known as The Plastics, headed by the school’s apex predator, Regina George (played in the 2024 version by Reneé Rapp). Despite the largely apathetic student body, North Shore’s teaching staff aren’t all hopeless burnouts, with maths teacher Mrs Norbury working to prepare her AP Maths classes for successful college applications. As a note of warning, the entire school will break out into song at odd moments, then fake amnesia about it.

Dating and social life: If you’re into exploring your sexuality while you’re still in the festering hormonal pit of high school, the clique you’re looking to join is the “Corny, Horny Band Freaks”. But it seems no matter how hopeless, nearly every student at North Shore is keen to hook up, or at least put on obnoxious public displays of affection that leave no room for Jesus. If, however, you enjoy social ostracism and being untouchable, we’d recommend joining the Mathletes (the school’s one and only academically oriented extracurricular club). Given the school’s abstinence-oriented sex education curriculum, it’s probably your best shot at dodging teen pregnancy.

Which animal are we cheering? Go Lions!

2. Millwood High: Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin and Pretty Little Liars: Summer School

Report card: Founded in 1951 in Millwood, Pennsylvania, this underfunded public high school has a number of maintenance issues. The town’s economic downturn has led to challenges including teen pregnancy, the need for daily drug testing and more effective anti-bullying programmes. But the school’s sports, cheerleading and arts programmes are still active, with ballet students staging Swan Lake, independent after-dark film projects, and an intriguing exhibition of school memorabilia in the derelict boiler room. School community efforts include a generous blood donation drive. And even unpopular former students and their families maintain a strong presence on the grounds in the form of masked lurkers and lunatics. 

Dating and social life: Close friendships are formed in Millwood’s after-school club, aka detention. On the dating scene, though, you wouldn’t need to go to college to forget your Millwood High sweetheart; you could move on over a three-day weekend. In fact, you’re far more likely to find the sweet embrace of death than true romance. At the epicentre of the notorious Millwood Massacre, which claimed at least 10 lives, Millwood High is a subject of fascination on true-crime conspiracy site SpookySpaghetti.com. So if you’re looking for a date with the Grim Reaper, maybe Bloody Rose will play matchmaker for you. 

Which animal are we cheering? Go Steppenwolves!

3. Bel-Air Academy: Bel-Air Seasons 1-3

Report card: In case being an American school with a full uniform didn’t clue you in, the insufferably snooty Bel-Air Academy is a stomping ground for problematic rich kids. The handful of Black students and scholarship hopefuls are expected to turn the other cheek to bullying and bigotry, to know their place, and to be grateful. On the positive side, it’s one of the top five schools in the US. And whether you’re an aspiring Olympic swimmer, a lacrosse snob or a B-ball boy, Bel-Air Academy emphasises a balance between the athletic and academic tracks. But be warned, staff have been fired for encouraging students to be independent thinkers who question authority, while Ivy league recruitment has been used as a carrot to urge students to toe the line and abandon protest activities. 

Dating and social life: The kids are hot, young, rich and ambitious so the parties are no-budget, no-limits blowouts of extravagance and decadence even by Hollywood’s (their poor neighbour) standards. This is your opportunity to lock down that trust fund baby, or to create that high school sweethearts-to-millionaires storyline that’ll look great on your political resume. The nerd quotient is high, but if all you expect is hand-holding and kisses, you’re going to fail Hookup High 101! It’s basic maths: more money equals fewer consequences equals more sex. Not even those bland grey uniform slacks can hold these kids back!

Which animal are we cheering? Go Bulldogs!

4. Barden University: Pitch Perfect, Pitch Perfect 2 and Pitch Perfect 3 (and the spin-off series Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin)

Report card: Founded in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1907, Barden University’s other claims to fame have been eclipsed by the drama created by its four rival acapella groups: The Barden Bellas, The Treblemakers, The High Notes and the BU Harmonics, who dominate the University’s Schnee Performing Arts Center. Members of rival a capella teams are considered off-limits for hook-ups. but you might rack up one or two disappointing and confusing make-out sessions per year with non-singing students – as long as you don’t let anyone see you in your little Barden Bellas uniform, which has astutely been assessed as “refreshing, yet displeasing to the eye”.

Dating and social life: These students are away from home for the first time in their lives, and ready to explore a lot of new freedoms, so Barden is an all-you-can-bonk buffet. Orientation for female students, however, includes receiving a rape whistle, complete with a warning not to blow the whistle unless the rape is actually in progress. And if that isn’t enough to put you off, there’s an ingrained-sexism-in-the-campus radio station and other supposedly public spaces that might. But not to fear, joining the candlelit, blood-drinking a capella cult means you’ll actually spend most of your time talent scouting while naked in the showers, or practising and performing in preparation for the International Championship of Collegiate a cappella. And don’t think you can work out any of your weird sexual confusion in song – that’s for high school kids and Gleeks.

Which animal are we cheering: Go Fat Amy! (It’s the Knights, but who cares about sports?)

5. Bringston University: All American: Homecoming Season 1-3 (and for the high school experience, binge All American Season 6)

Report card: Established in 1894, this historically Black college in Atlanta, Georgia, is the training ground for America’s next great sports stars. Bringston attracts sporting prodigies from around the US to its elite baseball, football and tennis teams thanks to a coaching staff of former professional players, and significant alumni investment. The university also boasts journalism, pre-med, law, recording arts, literature, photography, dance and engineering departments. Bringston University President Dr Amara Patterson is a former student who’s now leading the journalism programme, and coaches include high-performing former students like former pro baseball player Coach Marcus Turner. Bringston pride is high, and some students come from the third generation in their families to attend the university. 

Dating and social life: With the heavy emphasis on sports at Bringston the student body is, in a word, snatched! It’s like socialising in an Olympic village. Bringston is where you can snap up the other half of your power couple before the rest of the world can catch on. Avoid dating seriously in your first year, though. Some people have a lot of baggage to get rid of and you don’t want them throwing it in your face.

Which animal are we cheering? Go Lions!

6. Essex College: The Sex Lives of College Girls Season 1-2

Binge Season 3 from Monday, 27 January.

Report card: Essex College is a prestigious liberal arts institution based in Vermont. While the academic standards are high, students have highlighted multiple areas of inequality including racist and sexist TAs, and facilities for male and female athletes that highlight the unequal use of the fees that all students contribute. Along with this, Essex is set to halve funding for the campus women’s centre. The on-campus sororities and fraternities exclude queer and trans students, and have been the subject of so many controversies that many students are calling for them to be disbanded. And racism and misogyny are firmly entrenched in the all-male, all-white editorship of the college’s comedy magazine, The Cattulun, which barred female students from contributing until 1994.

Dating and social life: All of the above said, at Essex you can go forth and explore your sexuality confidently, respectfully and joyfully! Discovering what floats your boat is the most rigorous part of the unofficial Essex College curriculum. Prepare to fly your freak flag high at the college’s naked parties or sex-positive strip shows in aid of climate change. Just a word of advice, though: if you’ve gone to apply for extra credit to overcome a low grade, do not then go hook up with some guy in your professor’s office the moment they leave the room.  

A student’s first year as Essex is a chance for reinvention, whether you were a sweaty teen with cystic acne, a poor, uptight scholarship kid, a snooty senator’s daughter and soccer star, TikTok famous, or a rich legacy student and closeted lesbian. So take advantage of all those opportunities, because you can do better than your crusty, dusty married soccer coach. 

Which animal are we cheering: Go Foxes!

7. East Highland High School: Euphoria Season 1-2

Also watch special episodes Euphoria: Trouble Don’t Last Always and Euphoria: F*ck Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob

Report card: While the academic programme at East Highland High is nothing to write home about, the school offers a superb training ground for any students wanting to go into psychology or social services. East Highland offers a first-hand study of the causes and effects of child abuse, drug abuse, toxic relationships, toxic positivity, hook-up culture, revenge porn, blackmail, codependency, abortion, infidelity, relapsing, gender transition, repressed homosexuality, sobriety, human trafficking, domestic violence, rape, self-harm, toxic masculinity, drug dealing, dating violence, mental illness, mental health, anger issues, temper tantrum, hallucination, theft, attempted murder, alcoholism and grief. On the (rare) positive side, the school offers an environment that prioritises self-expression, from it’s meme-worthy, nonexistent uniform codes, to tolerance for a wide variety of gender expressions. Would anybody actually admit to attending this school? Probably not. You don’t so much graduate from East Highland High School, as you survive it. 

Dating and social life: Oof. This dating pool should get a biohazard warning. The school year starts at the deep end, with a wild hook-up party hosted by a student from a nearby college, and it only gets wilder from there. For some students, sex education starts at home at age 11 when they find their dad’s massive stash of homemade gay and transgender adult movies. An 18-year-old student is monetising their sexual exploits as a camgirl. And the school’s football star is blackmailing a 17-year-old transgender student by soliciting nudes, then accusing her of sending him child pornography … of herself. 

Which animal are we cheering? Go Blackhawks!