The Sims 4 High School Years is the franchise’s first-ever foray into the teenage high school experience, where you get to tag along with your Sims to experience the highs and lows of the most awkward, but also occasionally the most memorable, moments of their lives. Let’s be honest though, high school can kind of suck, and boy, I could have used some life-altering cheat codes or mods in IRL when I was a very shy teen. But hey, at least I can make the whole thing better in The Sims 4.
This pack has been highly requested by fans for years upon years, and it’s exciting that it’s finally here (even though it launched with a heck of a lot of bugs — some still persist, but EA has patched others).
Below are some of the best mods to smooth out the high school experience and mold it to your liking, including the ability to ensure the same rotation of classmates each day, automatically changing up a Sim’s wants (The Sims 4‘s new system of wants/fears recently replaced whims) more frequently, and the ability to have a bit more fun in the classroom.
School Furniture and Decor
High School Years comes with a bunch of new items, as well as some cool debug items (A ferris wheel and a haunted house? Yes please), but there’s always room for more when you’re building the ultimate high school. And sticking with only the official pack items can be limiting if you’re really into decorating and building.
Luckily, modders have been making school-themed stuff for some time, even before this pack released (that’s especially thanks to the popularity of the Go to School Mod). Severinka’s school sets are among some of the best for just how stylish and modern the pieces of furniture look, with light brown wooden desks, cabinets, and a world map that can be placed on a wall.
Click here and here to go to some of her mods’ download pages.
Classroom Interactions
One of the most disappointing parts of High School Years is how little your Sims can actually do in class. Mostly, they just sit there until class is over, and you’re given some free time to meet other students or grab a bite in the cafeteria. But within the class’ four walls, there is very little to actually do other than patiently listen with time sped up. But who wants to do that?
ChippedSim has a small mod that allows for more in-class interactions, such as checking your phone, chatting with other students, or simply not paying attention. Use your phone in class is pretty great, because you can play games, surf the web, text other Sims, or post on the Social Bunny app to keep boredom at bay. Be careful, though, because the teacher can catch you goofing off, and your phone might get confiscated. If you continue and they notice three times, you get detention. You might want to grab a seat in the far back so you’re out of the teacher’s line of sight.
Click here to go to the mod’s download page.
More Locker Interactions
Also created by ChippedSim is a mod that introduces more in-depth locker interactions. This is awesome because, uh, you can’t even put things into the lockers with the high school pack alone. With this mod, your Sim’s locker is given an inventory where you can store or swap things out by interacting with it, as well as change your outfit. You can also assign specific NPCs to different lockers so everything feels a little more personalized instead of random (because students change every day, these assignments are limited to the students currently on the lot).
Click here to go to the mod’s download page.
Re-roll Sim Wants Every Morning
I like the new Wants/Fears system introduced in new Sims 4 update a lot, but they could use some improvements, especially when I’m tired of seeing the same wants over and over. There are Wants that stick around long-term, and they can be tricky to get rid of if the circumstances aren’t easy to set up. Lumpinou’s mini mod provides an answer, by instantly randomizing Wants every morning when your Sim wakes up, so that you’re given new goals to work towards each day.
Click here to go to the mod’s download page.
Less Music Wants
Like I said, there are some frustrations with the Wants system — some of them just don’t randomize enough, leaving you with similar Wants even as you complete prior ones. If you’re receiving too many music-related Wants (particularly the ‘Listen to Liked Music’ Want), then this small mod will fix that problem instantly.
Click here to go to the mod’s download page.
Choose Your Own Classmates
Every day your Sim attends school, other students randomize, meaning that if you’re developing a bond or friendship with someone, they may not reappear consistently. This is far from ideal, because it made one of my ideas completely fall apart — I wanted to make iconic characters from films (like, Carrie, Mean Girls, Heathers, and so on) all re-created in The Sims and see what kind of strange mishaps happen if they attended school together. But this just isn’t possible with how the pack currently is, and that really sucks.
However, there are workarounds, with mods that let you choose your own classmates. Some are still a little broken, but the best ones I found include a Choose Your High School Classmates mod and another mod that increases the amount of classmates you can have at once. The former requires some pretty specific steps such as making sure you have some core NPCs, but at least it works well enough.
Click here and here to download these mods.
Faster Eating and Drinking
So this mod wasn’t created specifically for High School Years, but it’s incredibly helpful within the new expansion pack nonetheless. That’s because, during your lunch period at school, way too much time ends up being lost from grabbing food in the cafeteria. With this mod installed, you can speed up that process and focus more on other activities around school, such as meeting new friends and building relationships. Evidently, this mod is pretty helpful regardless of whether you own High School Years or not, since Sims eat meals at a snail’s pace.
Click here to go to the mod’s download page.
Make Students Wear Uniforms
This mod is pretty neat — rather than Sims showing up in whatever clothing they want, you can restrict what clothes can be worn or give Sims specific outfits to wear within school walls. Teachers and custodians, too, can be given a certain outfit for each day. I never liked wearing a uniform (and thankfully, I only had to do it for a very short time as a teenager before switching schools), but you can impose this rule on your Sims as you please.
Click here to go to the mod’s download page.
For more on The Sims 4 High School Years, read our guide on how to build with curved walls and the best cheat codes to modify your experience further.
