These 5 Colleges are the Best for Learning Dark Powers! Number 1 Will SHOCK You!


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Ever since the SCP Foundation royally screwed the pooch, the world has learned the truth about dark magic and evil memes! And if you're anything like us, you're just itching to study some of the awesome new things that humankind just doesn't understand yet. We scoured the interwebz (even the magickal Dark Web) to put together these reviews of the 5 best colleges for studying Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.

Honorable Mention: Mages Academy!

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Okay, we're cheating a little on that one. Mages Academy isn't just one school but rather a whole network of them. Most of their member schools are in Germany and Austria, so you'd better practice your German!

As you might've guessed from their name, Mages Academy is one of the foremost magical universities in Europe. Don't let yourself be fooled, though – they're not just that. Most schools in Mages Academy offer full degree programs in a variety of STEM subjects. If you go to Mages Academy, you won't just graduate a wizard – you'll graduate a full-on engineer. That's gotta be a lot more satisfying than playing DnD at a regular engineering school!

5: Institute of WAN!

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The Institute of WAN is a fairly new organization, and a purely online school. This is no DeVry or University of Phoenix, however – The Institute of WAN is perhaps the foremost cyberparatech (that's cyber paranormal technology for all you normies) school in the world—though honestly, that's because they made up the word.

The Institute's big benefit is that you can take all your classes from home, but after your 101 intro classes, you'll know more than enough to jerry-rig your own VR setup that's so real you won't be able to tell the difference. That's right – the Institute of WAN is singlehandedly revolutionizing online education. No more shitty Zooms or terrible online portals, the Institute of WAN offers a full-fledged virtual reality locale that's arguably a better college experience than most physical schools. There's no real campus, but they've got a virtual campus that's far more realistic than Second Life or Fortnite or the latest craze! Best of all, they don't turn down anyone, so they're the safest of all safety schools.

The one big downside is that they're all really religious, but that's a small price to pay for the best online education possible. But hey – maybe now that it's no longer literally a secret, you're interested in hearing what WAN can do for you!

They say our generation is too online. The Institute of WAN says there's no such thing.

4: Deer College!

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Located in the Nexus Dimension of Three Portlands, Deer College is your bog-standard liberal arts school… but they're a bit more liberal with their definition of liberal arts! (See what we did there?)

That's right – at Deer you can study English, Economics, or Theatre, but you'll also be studying Memetics (I can haz cheezburger?), Demonology (almost as evil as Econ!), or Ritual Studies (so really, just theatre). You'll come out of college with the best of both worlds!

Since it's in the Three Portlands, it's already established as a hugely popular recruiting site for anomalous agencies and corporations. The campus is famous for wacky hijinks, and on weekends you can always pop over for a trip to Oregon, Maine, or Great Britain 🤮.

And if you wanna meet a cute elf dude, lady, or other, then woo-wee! Deer is 100% the place for you!

3: ICSUT!

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(literally a picture of the UN, but you try taking a good picture of an international university.)

ICSUT is the "International Center for the Study of Unified Thaumaturgy". You know what that means? That's right, they're another magic school. But unlike Deer or Mages Academy, they're backed by the GOC and all that sweet, sweet UN funding.

ICSUT's got campuses all across the globe. They've got locations in Boston, New York, London, Eurtech, Jerusalem, Beijing, Three Portlands – if the country's a member of the UN, chances are good ICSUT's got something there, though of course the best ICSUTs are in the Nexuses and the big cities.

Every ICSUT campus has a slightly different specialization, but all of them are great magic and paratech schools. They've got a long history of dealing with global weird shit, so no matter what you want to learn there's bound to be something for you. Weird languages? Weird religion? Cryptids? ICSUT almost definitely has a campus that specializes in just that, and if you end up changing your mind, you can transfer anywhere across the globe.

And of course, ICSUT is a voting member of the GOC! That means if you join student government, you can start influencing global policy while you're still in college! Take that, Ivy Leagues! And if you want to work for New World Order straight out of college, this is the place for you!

2: Foundation Site-43!

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Let's be real here. The SCP Foundation is one forked-up organization. They've single-handedly forced the world to redefine 'human rights violations'. That said, they're still one of the foremost scientific institutions in the world and even rival the GOC, which is saying something, though maybe a little less if you consider that they're one of the organizations responsible for keeping the rest of us in the dark. Which makes it all the more impressive that they've opened up Site-43 to undergrads. You'd think the most secretive organization in the world would have a little more hesitance about that, but maybe they need the test subjects.

What ICSUT has in breadth, Site-43 makes up for in depth. The professors here are some of the best in the world, and all of them, except for William Wettle, deserve to be paid a lot more! Dr. Ilse Reynders has a thousand papers in literally every subject on earth, but she also has time to each most 101 classes, which you should definitely take. Dr. Wettle also teaches 101 Classes, which you should definitely avoid.

Site-43 is proud of its highly inclusive community! Although it's only had its doors open to undergrads for less than 5 years, Site-43 already has a vibrant LGBTQ+ student life. It has a long history of respecting and embracing social justice, even back when it was a locked door Foundation facility. The faculty of Site-43 really do care, except for Dr. Wettle, and they're at the forefront of science. And of course, Dr. Okorie's magic classes and Dr. Ngo's parapsychology classes teach things you won't get anywhere else.

1: Harvard!

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We all know what Harvard is… it's one of the best universities in the world. It's everyone's stretch goal. Nobody reading this list has a chance of getting in, but we just had to include it.

Believe it or not, Harvard has quickly become one of the world's best anomalous universities. After the fall of the Veil, they threw all that juicy endowment money at getting the best professors money could buy. They've poached former ICSUT, Deer, and even Foundation scientists to teach, and they've signed a whole bunch of others up for guest lectures!

Last semester, you could get your Phys Ed credits in by taking Dr. Alto Clef of the Foundation's "Surviving Reality Benders" course. They even have the lectures on EdX, but I hear the effect isn't the same without the hallucinogens.

Harvard's always been at the cutting edge of research, and though they're starting from behind, all that money is giving them a huge leg up over most other schools. And besides, it's Harvard. They were already one of best in the world for dark arts like economics, law, and political science, and so much of that stuff transfers to the high strangeness.

Still, it's not like getting into Harvard for magic will be any easier than getting into Harvard for pre-law or engineering.


So what college for learning dark powers is your favorite? Let us know in the comments below, or in the forums!

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