#wizard school

Wynstan, the student wizard, and his brother Wally, having a magical picnic in the clouds! Wynstan has conjured a wonderful spread of food for them to eat and Wally is having the time of his life, being waited on by his brother. well, it is his birthday!

The Invisible College, from Diana Wynne Jones' The Tough Guide to Fantasy Land, one year before Harry Potter - AND which forms a parody/reference to most of the schools listed below.

Wizard's Hall, from the titular Wizard's Hall book by Jane Yolen - six years before Harry Potter.

Groosham Grange, from the novel of the same name by Anthony Horowitz, nine years before Harry Potter.

The Unseen University, from Terry Pratchett's Discworld - 14 years before Harry Potter.

Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches, from Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch, 23 years before Harry Potter

The island of Roke, from the Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin - 29 years before Harry Potter.

We can even go back to Dom Daniel, from T.H. White's original version of The Once and Future King, 58 years before Harry Potter.

And I am not even counting the various "magic colleges" and "sorcery academies" that appeared in role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons long before Harry Potter came out...

Children of the Red King series by Jenny Nimmo

Trans Wizard Harriet Porber series by Dr. Chuck Tingle

Earthsea Cycle series by Ursula K. Le Guin

Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce

The Numair Chronicles by Tamora Pierce

The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss

The Scholomance Trilogy by Naomi Novik

Babel by R.F. Kuang

The Poppy War series by R.F. Kuang

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan

Mother of Learning series by Domagoj Kurmaić

Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto (I'm counting it and you can't stop me)

Simon Snow Trilogy by Rainbow Rowell

The Atlas Series by Olivia Blake

The Legendborn Cycle series by Tracy Deonn

The School for Good and Evil series by Soman Chainani

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune

Supernatural Investigations series by B.B. Alston

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

Book of the Ancestor Trilogy by Mark Lawrence

Magic for Liars by Sarah Grey

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

The Empyrean series by Rebecca Yarros

The Medoran Chronicles by Lynette Noni

Heir Chronicles by Cinda Williams Chima

Summoner Series by Taran Matharu

Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead

The Black Witch Chronicles by Laurie Forest

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko

Supernatural Beasts and Bullies series by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti

The Culling Trials series by K.F. Breene and Shannon Mayer

Zero Sight series by Justin Shier

Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

Roses and Rot by Kat Howard

House of Night series by P.C. and Kristin Cast

The Worst Witch series by Jill Murphy

School for Unusual Magic series by Liz Montague

Alex Stern series by Leigh Bardugo

Note that this is not a full list. If you have other magic school books to recommend, feel free!

I'm not even kidding, we had to go on a magick lockdown.

The headmaster asked him how he did it and he replied "I simply did as the spirts instructed me" and refused to elaborate any further

The school sent a message to the grand wizard council to see if they had any idea what had happened but they just sent back a steak 'n' shake gift card and some of those little chocolates that you get from olive garden.

The separate houses are treated as little more than an aesthetic difference by the students. While there might be rivalries and prank wars between the houses, it never gets to the levels of near discrimination that it gets to at Hogwarts. The students all just consider themselves students of the same school and members of the houses intermingle and hang out with each other all the time. They're even allowed to be in each other's dorms for limited amounts of time each day. The teachers encourage it as they often say that each house represents a part of what every great wizard needs, and coming together helps bring them all together towards the ideal wizard.

It's not uncommon for there to be students from other countries who don't speak English perfectly. Thankfully, there are charms to help translate their speech for the teacher, and the only part of their work that needs to be spoken English are their incantations. Though some might still ask for help in getting the pronunciation correct.

The dining hall students eat in is vastly different from Hogwarts's Great Hall, being a large room with mahogany walls filled with multiple circular tables covered in red tablecloths with gold trim and set with silver untensils, fine blue China plates, and crystal glasses. In the center of the room is a vast roaring fireplace with a picture of the Sayre family overtop of it. During feasts, the Pukwudgies bring out platters and pitchers of food and drink that stay magically hot and cold until the students serve themselves from them. Students are allowed to sit at whatever table they please, and the staff eat at a massive table in the middle of all the others.

The dorms are just different buildings of the castle that have five floors of T-shaped hallways with long red and gold rugs bearing the houses symbol. Along the walls of each hallways are dorm rooms for each years students. Students are assigned two each to a dorm, with their roommates's names being included with the letters they receive at the start of each new year. Roommates can't be changed unless two students agree to trade with each other. The dorms all have two large half poster beds with red and gold sheets and blankets, the blankets also carrying their houses symbol and pillows with blue pillow cases. There's also two desks, half dressers, wardrobes, and a set of three shelves above the dressers on both sides (the rooms are enhanced with expansion charms to give them extra space). The halls for younger students all have a dorm manager in them, an older student who was chosen to sleep on their floor to act as a chaperone and disciplinary figure to the students.

The students get to the school by way of multiple magical single decker busses that all arrive at Rockfeller Center in New York. They drive for around an hour before making a stop at a magically hidden pit stop where the students can get snacks, drinks and use the bathroom before the rest of the journey.

Thanksgivings at Ilvermony are always huge. The decorations include fall leaves that flutter and blow themselves through the halls, realistic turkey figures that jump around and gobble, and in the center of each dining room table is a red and gold hat that plays music. Each table gets its own turkey to carve (any leftovers are served over the next few days as sandwiches) along with boats of gravy and cranberry sauce, bowls of corn, mashed potatoes and carrots. And for dessert, a veritable buffet of pies, including Ilvermony's famous cranberry pie, the recipe said to have been invented by Isolt Sayre herself.

Any students without a wand before coming to school is allowed to select one from the hall of wands just past the sorting room. The hall holds hundreds of wands stacked inside their case along the walls. The room holds both wands so new they were just ordered yesterday and so old they were created at the very start of the school. After each sorting ceremony, the head of the school helps each first year's find a wand that "chooses" them, a process that can take up to an hour at most. It's also heavily guarded at all times by both a pair of heavily armed, muscular Pukwudgies and a rotating member of the staff as it's a prime target for thievery either by students or dark wizards.

Ilvermorny boasts a massive roaster of international magical studies electives. In each one, students can study the government, magical creatures, and magical history of the country of their choosing. Some even go on summer trips to those countries to further their studies.

Rather than O.W.L.s, Ilvermorny students takes the W.I.T. or Wizarding Intuition Tests, something similar to an SAT tests. The tests are taken twice, once during sixth year and once during seventh year for each class the students take, and the combined scores of each year are added together, and that average becomes their score. The better the score in certain subjects, the more job opportunities the students have.