Wizarding Universities

Wizarding Universities have been around for thousands of years. In today's masquerade they often run alongside famous universities, especially those that concur with Ley Lines, rich histories and large supernatural communities.

Today wizards maintain their status in mortal academia, in order to admit students both into the mortal institution and the hidden wizarding university, this is done to slowly acclimate a young wizard to life outside of the mortal world. This is split up into smaller steps or to cull the population of those delving into the arcane arts.
 * 1) College - any individual that discovers wizardry singly, will likely run across a wizard college. Sorcerers often discover them, only to be expelled. most would be wizards are expelled. these recruits come directly from highschools.
 * 2) University - official acceptance into the wizard community. admission to an undergraduate program is only a dozen or so per year. a university is a lifelong commitment, and one never truly leaves. though upon graduation they are considered a mage.
 * 3) Apprenticeships - only 2 or 3 wizards a year will be accepted into the upper sanctums. typically done at the Antarctic Wizarding School or University of Oxford. these wizards are trained to succeed the high mages that run the entire system. many will die before even getting the chance. they have access to all the magical texts and knowledge that wizard-kind has collected. the pope is always in on this, its a requirement.
 * 4) Homeschool - wizards that either never stumble into magical academia, or drop out, or get expelled. outcasts.

Each Wizarding University has a pedagogy - some are more war-like, some teach healing, and very few are larger than a dozen or so wizards at any one time.

Old World

 * University of Bologna
 * University of Oxford
 * University of Salamanca
 * Sphinx Academy - yeah, its in the sphinx.

New World

 * Harvard University
 * Massachusetts Institute of Technology - known to be an Alchemists College.
 * UC Berkeley - super big, wizards, alchemists, ambassadors from neighboring supernatural communities. has become more than a school for metaphysics, it has become a bonafide magic school. entry is more an apprenticeship. even the catholic church teaches theological topics in conjunction with the Wizarding University of Berkeley, allowing
 * The Catholic University of America - there's hot debate over whether this is a wizarding university. magic meets religion types.

Other

 * North Pole Wizarding School
 * Antarctic Wizarding School: built around a temporal anomaly.

Role in Supernatural Community
They are the holders of histories and magic. They have all the knowledge of the world sequestered away in pocket dimensions of their own fashioning, maybe 4 schools have one. They can bend space and move across the world in the blink of an eye, but only maybe 3 people can do that. And everybody knows it. Mostly they ignore everybody and everything, but every wizarding university doubles as a mad man's laboratory - and every wizard worth mentioning is a bit of a madman.

Nobody likes wizards, especially not other wizards. Because wizardry is a hard learn art, every wizard's magic is always expressed entirely unique. The exact mechanisms of metaphysical forces must be studies, and mastered for a wizard to be successful in their spellcasting. And because of this wizards don't share their findings easily. Wizarding Universities are both a way for the elite wizards at the top to monitor all of the other wizards of promise and steal their research, basically. And eventually choose an apprentice.

A wizard's truly learns in one-on-one instruction over the course of 3 or 4 decades. All wizards live longer than humans, none of them want to admit that its necromancy that keeps them younger longer.

The Wizard Olympics
Big competitions, often to the death, of the worlds leading wizard showoffs. Often 20 somethings with something to prove. heavy emphasis on showy, flashy, battle magic. famous sorcerers may actually be allowed to compete, as well as the occasional elf or something. once a lich competed.