Help me choose! Discover University or High School Years?

When it comes to careers and skills, DU is definitely better. Your Sim teen will pick up minimal skills and have to attend class to gain them if you get HSY. On the other hand, I personally prefer Prom and the Amusement rides to ping-pong and keggers.

I would recommend getting both, however. If your teen gets an A in high school and level 4 in 2 skills (I think), they can graduate early and start university while still a teen. Both packs have good clothing for teens and YAs. HSY probably has the better Build/Buy catalog.

Hope this helps.

There are many possible criteria in my opinion. From my viewpoint...

If you plan to buy both of them over time and play long lifespan for teens and older, you may buy high school first and then University. So you can let your same sim have experience with both packs.

But if you want to play the family with the benefit of a good salary. Better get University first. University helps your sim jump start to levels 6-8 of each career related to the degree (faculty) you choose after your sims graduate. Then you will buy High School Years for the children of them.

Comparing each pack from my personal experience.

Discover University

• Pros
  • Broader variety of gameplay. There are 2 universities with totally different vibes and types of activities (art or science), while High School has only one. *You can't make extra university or high school.
  • Many things to do and replayable in different styles of gameplay.
  • Dorm roommates have personalities! Each of them acts differently by both basic traits and roommate archetypes. They may have annoying quirks such as having parties at midnight, being grumpy and sad all the time, doing mischief, etc. But if it's chaotic you want, go for it!
  • Britechester is a majestic and beautiful world. It's like Oxford or Euporean influence.
• Cons
  
  • Even though the world environment is beautiful, the building is not. Also bad in functional. But you can download a better one of your choice from the gallery.
  • As there are many functions in gameplay, there are many bugs too. Recently, there has been a bug with Uni club events. It may be trouble if you play university right now (like me)

High School Years

• Pros
  • If you want to play teens more seriously, this pack has most of the things it should have. Teen (in recent trends) outfits and objects are available for you. In terms of clothes and objects quality, High School Years is better too. You can see it in the trailer.
  • You can now see many more teens in the lot compared to the previous packs most of the spawned sims in the lot are adults (not even young adults)
  • There is an amusement park in the world! Even though it's mostly for visual without function. You can use it for teenage storytelling or more fancy vacations.
• Cons
  • The gameplay becomes repetitive after a few weeks. It's quite boring during teen sims to sit in the class because no special interaction. And there are some bugs and game-flow problems (but these cons are in every pack so you may not mind lol)
  • Beware that special events like proms and graduation ceremonies are still quite buggy until now. Not such great as the trailer shows. Better to check the community reports when you face something that feels wrong.

Extra advice, these EPs are quite big and affect your sims. And sometimes the game mechanics make sims go wrong. But both of them aren't the "save file ruining" like some pack. If you are not the micro-management player. I believe that you will have fun in any pack of them.

You may think it easy like "What do you want to play first?"😄

Game play wise, I have found High School Years to be quite boring. Beautiful little world comes with it and the hidden carnival is great. But with Discover University, you are playing constantly. There is something happening all the time. Depending on the class load you decide for your sim, it can be quite exciting. So if I had to pick, it would be DU.

I would also like to say that as packs are coming out and changes are made to the game, I am still exploring each of these and probably have more to discover in both. The above was just my opinion of the two game packs. 

All I can answer with is the fun I had when my young adult went to University.  She didn't live on campus, but I had her go to the University Research & Debate times, when they take their turns to debate with the teachers there, & other students.  Also as someone mentioned, the idea of Robots, which I haven't gone into yet. I play long live mode, so I want to send my sim to the learn about Robots. As for High School Years, I don't go into that much yet. sorry for not having lots of info on either. I do think High School has nice furniture & build items. I hope in some way that helps, and doesn't make you more confused. lol  Happy Simming Halisimmer ♥

University ties into the adult life more with skills training careers.  

High School Years feels like I'm still developing a teen sim for the future but the gameplay in this EP needs a lot of player imagination to feel fun, more than University. 

I like the university life for my sims more than high school years.

I personally like high school years better overall. It’s easier to play Rotationally, and I do like the mining town of Copperdale.  I also have a bit of fun sending my teens to school.  I really like the furniture better in High school years too..  it also comes with bubble tea and being able to build fashions to sell.  It also has the Photo Booth, and some new vending machines.

Discover university does have making Robots though and a few new careers that I liked

if you have both Discover University and High School years, your teens can go to college as a teen after graduating….

I would say get both of them if possible but if not , I would go with University because you can send a sim to uni even as an adult or elder. Also, you can sit on skill classes any time for a fee. That being said, none of my sims graduated uni. I like the pack for the other things, roommates, robots, ping pong, kegs, cafeteria and food stands that work nicely with the community space lots from Eco Lifestyle, the world. 

From  Highschool years I like the world with the amusement park, the different bedroom furniture, the EZ window, the ivy ladders, the photobooth, the cafeteria and bobba shop, clothes stand that again work nicely with the community space lots from Eco Lifestyle. Though I prefer the uni cafeteria cause it has nicer food options.  The highschool lot is huge but you can use it to create skilling spaces for the sims and all sims can hang out there outside of school hours. It also has lots of festive type furniture and decorations that can be used for weddings, parties and such.