Any other books you like, like Solomance, which is conversation with is in conversation with Harry Potter like Solomance?
I was asked this question nearly a year ago after my Scholomance post, and since then it's just sat in my inbox, because my answer was "no, not really!" and that seemed like a nothing burger. But, that has changed! If the asker is still around, I would like to point them in the direction of Curse Words: Spell Casting for Fun and Prophet by Derin Edala.
Since he was a kid, Kayden has been terrified of the curse in his heart finally activating and causing untold suffering. At age 14, it finally does, flinging a bully off the school roof, landing Kayden in legal trouble, and mages step in to offer him legal counsel, on the condition he attend at least six months of magic school to learn how to master his curse. How could he possibly refuse?
Before moving forward, I'll add a couple of caveats. One: I've only thus far read the first book in this series ("The Cursed Heart"), so I don't necessarily know the direction it'll go. Two: unlike Novik and the Scholomance, I have no idea of Edala wrote this series as a response to Harry Potter, beyond the fact that it's kind of become the background radiation for this type of fantasy.
But still... regardless of author's intentions, there's quite a few number of world-building and plot elements that address things people might have found disappointing in Rowling's work. This includes:
Wizard politics is more complicated than 'there are the good Established Families, and the Evil Established Families, and they fight." Rather, it's the more realistic 'powerful families will jostle for power with other powerful families', and that politicking can be hard to escape.
Why would wizards be genuinely afraid of non-magical people, if they're inherently more powerful than them? Without getting too deep in the weeds, Curse Words offers a much more limited magic system, where the average mage will only ever get a single spell, and they have limited control over what that spell does. This limits the powers mages have, and intersects in interesting ways with historical systemic oppression magic users face.
How is magic practiced internationally, and how do different language systems play into it? We learn how spells are essentially "trained" by their mage hosts over the years, which means some spells might need/benefit from specific languages. Intriguingly, the main language used at the magical school is the real-world conlang Ido, which was designed with the intention to be easily used and understood internationally.
"Magical School" stories have a bit of an inherent contradiction in its premise, where you want your protagonists getting getting into cool awesome adventures, cuz that's the whole point. But also if they get into dangerous adventures, that suggests a major failing in the school in... well, keeping their kids safe. This tension is deliberately pointed out; the protagonist sues the school fairly early on due to negligence!
Without spoilers, some interesting subversion on stock characters in the genre, like the 'obviously evil teacher' or the 'bully' character.
Queer representation! Kayden, the protagonist, is a trans man. (Trans guy? Weird to say 'man' for a 14 year old.) Him having been open about his gender identity but hiding his curse in his home town, but then flipping that at the magical school, makes for a really interesting dynamic. Kayden's gender identity isn't a major focus of the story, but it informs the narrative throughout, from navigating his first romantic relationship with a local gym buff, to the Australian legal system's casually dead-naming.
Earlier this year, I was rewatching the Overly Sarcastic Production's video Welcome to Super School. One of Red's points in that video is how these stories have a really standard formula that's rarely deviated from. Something that occurred to me while reading The Cursed Heart was how both it and Scholomance very much do not follow that formula, and that's why I think interested folks might enjoy comparing them.
