Ups and Downs: YA Fiction About Transitioning To College

by Sarah Mai

Chronicles the constant angst, hilarity, and self-doubt enmeshed in the experience of going away to college—all through the eyes of an 18-year-old burgeoning comics artist.

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Rowan and Neil, in a committed long-distance relationship while attending different colleges in Boston and New York City, face the challenges of navigating the first months of college life and personal struggles as they strive to make their relationship last.

edited by Aashna Avachat

Told over the course of one academic year, this collection of interconnected stories, set on the same fictional campus, explores different parts of “the college experience” and features students from different cultures, genders and interests who learn more about who they are and who they want to be. 

by Tracy Badua

When she doesn’t get into Delmont University, the college of her (and her parents') dreams, 16-year-old Perla forges her own acceptance letter and arrives on campus with a plan, but soon her guilty conscience and campus security make her wonder if her plan will really succeed—and if this dream she’s worked for her entire life is something she even wants. 

by Ann Zhao

Aromantic and asexual students Sophie and Jo, engaged in an online feud as the creators of popular relationship advice accounts "Dear Wendy" and "Sincerely Wanda," unwittingly become real-life friends and navigate their shared aroace identities as they face the challenges of college life.

by Ngozi Ukazu; art by Mad Rupert; color by K Czap

Molly Bauer's first year of college is far from perfect, even more so when she discovers that her full-ride scholarship has vanished! But the ancient texts (dusty financial aid documents) reveal a loophole. If Molly and nine other art students win a single game of softball, they'll receive a massive athletic scholarship. Can Molly's crew of ragtag artists succeed in softball without dropping the ball?

by Emma Lord

When her arrival at Blue Ridge State doesn’t go as planned, aspiring self-help guru Andie Rose finds her voice as the anonymous Squire of the school’s legendary pirate radio station, discovering that not all the best laid plans are necessarily the right ones. 

by Echo Brown

There are many watchers and they are always white. That’s the first thing Echo notices as she settles into Dartmouth College. Despite graduating high school in Cleveland as valedictorian, Echo immediately struggles to keep up in demanding classes and finds out that campus is not a rainbow-colored utopia. But it might be a portal to different dimensions of time and space—only accessible if Echo accepts her calling as a Chosen One and takes charge of her future by healing her past.

by Sarvenaz Tash

Leading a double life, musical theater major Nasrin Mahdavi, an Iranian-American college freshman at NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, whose parents think she’s majoring in business, must find a way to step into the spotlight as her full self. 

by Candace Iloh

Ada has never been away from her family until she starts her freshman year at a Historically Black College and begins to shed her family's expectations and starts making choices for herself on her journey to find her place in the world.

by A.L. Graziadei

Determined to get a fresh start and make a name for himself during his first year at Hartland University, Nathaniel Conti finds his plans changing when a former friend reappears and Nathaniel must confront old habits and the trauma he has long avoided.

by Christina Li

College freshman Grace Tang never meant to rewrite the rules of love. Then, she comes up with an algorithm for her statistics class to pair students with their perfect romantic partners and take all the drama out of relationships. That’s why she keeps trying to make things work with her match, a guy named Jamie. But as the semester goes on and she grows closer to her prickly coworker Julia, Grace starts to question who she’s really attracted to.

by Nina Kenwood

A deliciously entertaining enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy finds 18-year-old Brooke sharing a house with her high school nemesis, Jesse, during their first year of college and soon discovers it’s not so easy follow the “no drama” house rules, especially the one forbidding romance between roommates. 

by Steven Salvatore

Chase Arthur is a hopeless romantic, but he's also struggling to figure out his gender identity and recover from an eating disorder. When Chase starts his freshman year of college, he has to navigate being away from home and missing his sister, finding his squad, and will have to learn to love—and be enough for—himself, while discovering what it means to truly live.

by Kiley Roache

Cassandra Davis wins a scholarship to the college of her dreams but acceptance requires a research project. Cassie pitches the idea to pledge a fraternity in order to expose sexist and misogynistic behavior.