#mod recommendations

More Students at High School (Ksuihuh) OR High School More Class Mates (Aramiteus)

Use one or the other here and read the descriptions because if you use Aramiteus’ version, you need to change MCCC Maximum Sims on Lot Value to about 40. 

The main draw is that more students will be on the High School lot. Aramiteus’ mod also adds 2 other teachers and an extra lunch person dependent on how many whiteboards/cafeterias you have on lot. It also requires you to choose your classmates before going to school.

Ksuihuh’s version comes with a script mod to increase the numbers of sims on the lot, as well an extra mod for an extra lunch person. It does not make you pick the sims going to class--you will need Rex’s Choose High School Classmates mod to ensure the sims you want are going to show up to school!

ChippedSim’s High School Tweaks

ChippedSim calls these “tweaks” but a full Active Class experience overhaul is a bit more than that in my opinion! 

Please note that updates are coming to this mod ACTIVELY - just today I saw that there were more in class interactions for the Active Classes! So keep an eye out on tumblr or twitter.

ChippedSim also overhauled the lockers so that you can keep more thing in there, as well as buy some stuff! Take a look at the full breakdown here, but I can’t recommend this enough.

ADeepIndigo’s Small High School Years Tweaks

Yes, I’m saying just download the whole lot.

More Discipline adds Parenthood compatibility--you can now discipline your kids for misbehaving/sneaking out/getting expelled. Why wasn’t that included by default? Ask EA, and thank ADeepIndigo in the meantime.

More Fun Pier Rides does what it says: raises the fun meter more!

Less Random Crushes makes it so that crushes are determined by Sims’ personalities instead of just randomly occurring.

Shop for Prom Outfit is just a really cute idea! It costs $100 to buy a prom outfit, and that can only be done once prom is announced.

My favorite has to be More Locker Notes. Don’t just let your sims cyberbully on Social Bunny. Let them passive-aggressively do it in person too.

ADeepIndigo’s Dynamic Teen Life

As of writing this, the mod is still in testing but I’ve been playing with it in my game for a few days and I’m still playing around with it, but it already adds sooo much more to my teen’s lives. More afterschool activities, popularity and cliques, new journal entries (for the Parenthood journals).... Gossip, rumors and having to actually try out to join the cheerleading squad.

Oh yes, I think this’ll become not just an essential mod for HSY users, but for most legacy players as well.

MissyHissy’s Form Groups in School

I won’t be surprised if MissyHissy comes out with some more mods but this is the one from their tweaks I’m currently using. EA didn’t let groups form in school which... you know, you’d think they’d want some cross-compatibility with previous packs to allow for literal cliquey behaviors but.

Anyway, this fixes that!

Lot51.cc’s Fashion Authority

I haven’t played much with this yet for high school but have it in my game for other reasons. This mod lets you take control of townie outfits... Including situation ones, and can restrict by regions. This is excellent if you want to have your sims wear a uniform to Copperdale, for instance, or you have a specific cheerleading uniform in mind, etc.

LittleMsSam’s HSY Bug Fixes

Hopefully we will not need these forever. Until they are patched though...

Take Exam Fix - stops sims from just getting up five minutes after the exam.

NPC Relationship Autonomy Fix - are you tired of random sims barging in, asking you to be BFFs after you added them on Social Bunny? fear not, because this should curb NPCs’ stalking you.

High School Promote Fix - helps the game promote sims from Cs to Bs if they’ve been going to school actively the whole time...

Stop Phone Change Color Obsession - I needed this one bad. Stops sims from changing their phone color every time they visited a new lot, and removed the camera focus as well

Ilkavelle’s Check Events & Sneak Out

A tiny little mod by Ilkavelle to help your sims sneak out, if they haven’t been getting invited out by their classmates!

Ilkavelle’s Teen Aspiration Bundle

I didn’t link this before as the teen aspirations hadn’t been updated to work with high school years... But now they have! This adds a few more teen-only aspirations for your sims (Prom Royalty, Overachiever, Towards Independence and Teenage Rebellion). 

ADeepIndigo’s Summer Camps

We’re moving away from High School Years fixes and enhancements straight over to the joys of gameplay. This mod adds Summer Camps to the game which is... actually really super fun? Summer Camp is for children and teen sims; there are a variety of different camps to send your kids off to. This isn’t an active experience; it’s a rabbit hole “job” that replaces school, and there are both day camps and away camps. It’s also ONLY available during the summer, and camp automatically ends when summer does.

Simston Private School [originally by SHEnanigans, adopted by ADeepIndigo]

ADeepIndigo adopted this mod by SHEnanigans after she was hired by EA, and updated it for the most recent patch. There’s not a current write-up about this mod available from a modding source, but there is a review by SnootySims that you can read, or you can read this capture from the Wayback Machine.

This mod recreates the TS2 Headmaster Visit event - if you pass, your child/teen is then enrolled in Private School. No more basic public school for your snooty rich sims!

Homework Tweaks & Subject Homework [originally by Scarlet, adopted by LittleMsSam]

I’ve had this so long, I genuinely forgot how long sims take to do homework. This mod comes in a few different flavors, but it makes sims do their homework... faster! Time is money, right?

Subject Homework also allows sims to raise skill while doing their homework. There’s a couple different options for what homework they can do, and I personally like to try to match it to what class my sims had in High School that day [maybe they write a persuasive essay after Social Studies, etc].

Zero’s University Custom Degrees & Tweaks/Fixes

Maybe you’re like me. Maybe you’ve played TS4 a lot, and you’re tired of all those regular degrees. Maybe you’re a little annoyed that completing university plays into the lie we American millennials were told that going to college is the fast track to riches. Well fear not, because not only does this mod add 15 custom degrees, it also overhauls how degrees play into careers if you want it to.

This is very modular so read the post carefully. I personally play with Zero’s tunings, because I also use University Costs More, Higher Scholarships and  Harder Distinguished Degree Acceptance, as well as the Required Degree for Promotion that’s in optional folder. I know TS4 is a fantasy where I can have vampires and werewolves and also secret agents but I also like to make life hard on myself.

If you just want the Custom Degrees, good news: there’s also a file that goes by EA’s tunings so you don’t need to have everything cost an arm, leg and house or require degrees for jobs or anything. 

There are other tweaks available, mostly to adjust the autonomy from roommates in dorms.

Revy’s Get Back your Presentation Board

I don’t want to talk about all the times I’ve lost my presentation board. This mod provides a way to get it back. You just have to email your professor.

LittleMsSam’s Choose your Roommate

Lets you pick your dormmates or roommates :’) Great if you have a specific storyline in mind and already have the classmates picked out. This is another mod that has steps so read the post carefully. You can also pair it with LittleMsSam’s Chores mod to set up cleaning rotations :)

Zerbu’s Go to School V5 [Builder’s Tools]

Did you think I’d leave out the child stage? I’m not EA. I’m including this one here as while its actively in development, builders can get started building elementary schools now. You can also read Zerbu’s plans for elementary school here. I would not recommend using the old mod for now, as its considered unsupported and will be replaced by the new version requiring HSY.

But until then, I’m keeping it here as I know Go to School is a long running mod. V4 is here.

Ilkavelle’s Children Aspiration Bundle

Tired of the same 4 aspirations for each kid? Me too!! This mod adds four new aspirations for your kids to complete: Little Entrepreneur, School Star, Little Explorer and Voidcritters Master. 

Ilkavelle’s After School Activities Bundles

You’ve got more aspirations so get more things to do after school too! Bundle 1 adds 5 after school activites focused on creative skills, Bundle 2 is on mental skills. The second bundle also requires a few of her events mods...

Ilkavelle Event Mods

The three that are required for the after school bundles [& also usable with the children aspirations!]...

School Trip: take a trip with your class to a museum or park!

Science Fair: yes, HSY has a science fair too, but this is an active event for kids as well! Compete in a science fair against your peers, and perhaps be judged as the best

Debate Event: let your future lawyers compete against each other, starting from grade school. These events can also be attended by teens, in case you want them to go to debate club as well

Talent Contest: well if there’s a science fair, your artsy students should also get a chance to show off, right? This one isn’t required but it is a really cute idea.

Ilkavelle’s One Time Jobs for Teens & Kids

One of the childhood aspiration add-ons is about making some money as a kid. This allows kids to take up some jobs around the neighborhood (pet sitting, dog walking, lemonade stand, etc). Just a nice little add-on for your kids to do something extra.