Pop culture's top 5 coolest schools

Guess it's time for this week's Five For Friday feature from Wizard Universe:

FIVE FOR FRIDAY: BACK TO SCHOOL
With Labor Day behind us and classes in session, it’s time to count down pop culture’s top 5 coolest schools—don’t be tardy!

By Sean T. Collins

Posted September 7, 2007 10:40 AM

5. FABER COLLEGE (“Animal House”)
Okay, Dean Wormer sucks. And so do the straight-laced, sadistic Omega House frat boys. And we sure as hell don’t wanna end up on Double Secret Probation. But on the other hand, this prestigious institution of higher learning is a haven for lingerie-clad sorority-girl pillow fights, pot-smoking professors, the undergraduate career of Karen Allen (sexiest Indiana Jones love interest ever), and John Belushi’s Bluto Blutarsky, the greatest man ever to wear a shirt that reads “COLLEGE,” chug a fifth of Jack Daniels, smash some folk singer’s acoustic guitar, and imitate a zit. Add it all up, and you’ve got to agree with Faber’s school motto: “Knowledge Is Good”!

4. SHIROIWA JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL (Battle Royale)
Admit it: When you were getting stuffed into a locker by some kid on the lacrosse team or found yourself exiled from your lunch table and labeled a skank by your supposed BFF, the thought of getting medieval on their asses with automatic weapons and katana blades on a deserted island crossed your mind at least once. Well, thanks to their psychotic teacher and their murderous dystopian-future Japanese government rulers, the kids of Shiroiwa Junior High in the novel, manga and film versions of the ultraviolent neo-Lord of the Flies thriller Battle Royale get to live the dream!


3. SUNNYDALE HIGH SCHOOL (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”)
Whether you love school or hate it, Sunnydale High is the school for you. Got tons of school spirit? Then you’ll love flipping through the card catalog with school librarian Rupert “Watcher” Giles, attending school dances with lovely ladies like Sarah Michelle Gellar, Charisma Carpenter and Alyson Hannigan, and battling the occasional vampire and demon. Can’t wait for summer? Then you’ll love Sunnydale High’s propensity for getting blown up or sucked into the Hellmouth located beneath the principal’s office. School’s out forever, indeed!

2. THE XAVIER SCHOOL (X-Men)
A swanky Westchester County mansion for a campus, a gym class that involves dodging motion-activated lasers and ceiling-mounted saw blades in the Danger Room, the angsty superhero badasses of the X-Men for your teachers—including frequently shirtless Wolverine and perpetually cleavage-bearing Emma Frost, depending on which way your budding hormones swing—and a student body consisting solely of mutants who are at least as hideously freakish as you? Hey Professor X, when does fall semester start?

1. HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY (Harry Potter)
Grab your wand, ace your Ordinary Wizarding Level and hightail it on your broomstick to the hands-down coolest place to get your learn on in the entire fictional universe: Harry Potter’s alma mater, Hogwarts. This school has it all: snappy uniforms, friendly and not-so-friendly ghosts, hidden chambers, a faculty consisting of the finest character actors in the U.K., a school sport (Quidditch) that kicks the crap out of field hockey, and classes like Defense Against the Dark Arts that are about 12 billion times more useful than calculus. Hell, Hogwarts even had an educational impact outside its own fictional world, getting millions of kids worldwide to read something other than text messages and MySpace pages. We’d enroll faster than you can say “Dumbledore”!


I've watched Animal House and Faber College seems pretty cool! That is, if you don't mind drinking beer all day (and night) and have lots of unprotected wanton sex with as many girls as you can get into your sorority house. Did I say "pretty cool"? Make that "sign me up now".

I certainly wouldn't want to be a part of the school in Battle Royale. I'd rather not have to look over my shoulder every few seconds or so to see if there's anyone trying to sneak up on me and plunge a dagger deep into my back.

I'd stay away from Sunnydale High School. While it'd be pretty cool having Charisma Carpenter and Michelle Trachtenberg as eye candy, I'd rather not be in a place where the Hellmouth is located.

Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters is alright I suppose. If you can discount the whatever-ism that one would be subjected to as a mutant, outcast and hated by the rest of society. But having your own powers is cool! Unless, of course, your only power is that you resemble a giant bird, with beak and wings and all that. See Beak, from Grant Morrison's New X-Men run.

And I'd rather kill myself than be part of Harry Potter's school. Considering I don't read Harry Potter or even LIKE the series to begin with. Blah.