Is this inspiration or plagiarism? Answer now and get two points! But wait. There's more?

I was also going to quote Earthsea, but magical schooling and adventures is actually a commonly used thing in fantasy. Lots of B sci fi movies have magical schools of some sort or another. So long as the story is different it's not plagiarism.

Stephen King wrote a book called "Under the Dome" without ever realizing it had the same basic elements as the Simpson's Movie, and it turned out quite well. Now if you started using lots of things from their universe it could be called plagarism.

So from your description I'd say your fine, go ahead and write away.

Have you read Wizard of Earthsea? That is another book about a wizard who goes off to a magic school and a boy there is very snotty and thinks he owns the place because he is from an all magic family while the main boy in the story is just a farm boy and this book was around years before Harry Potter was even thought of so whatever you do, it wont be a rip off of Harry Potter. It looks like Harry Potter ripped off the other book

I say go with your book, J.K.Rowling didn't invent magic nor boarding schools

No, it's not plagiarism. There is a book (though I can't remember the title) that was written before Harry potter and has the same basic plot (what you wrote with the school and adventures) but J.K. Rowling didn't steal it, and there will always be books written like that.

Just write it, there are a million different ways to go with it.

The concept of a school for wizards is rather common, and predates Harry Potter, so there's no plagiarism here.

Well, I managed to write a story set in a school for wizards without ripping off HP... If you were to write a story as you described, some people would scream "plagiarism!"... but they would be people who hadn't read any fantasy except HP, or no other fantasy where the main characters were all wizards.

It's inspiration.

You will be *compared* to Harry Potter (because of its popularity), but unless you copy it, it isn't plagiarism. There were plenty of magical school novels before HP, anyway.

JK Rowling was heavily influenced by Lord of the Rings, but she didn't steal it - she just inserted different aspects of the trilogy and put them in her novel.

Inspiration, dude :)

It would be considered plagiarism if your main character had green eyes and a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt, haha.

It's not plagiarism at all, but people will accuse you of copying Harry Potter since the series is so popular.

Of course not, but remember...this will always be compared to Harry Potter. You can write whatever you want, as long as you don't copy names, places, spells...that sord of thing.

I say go for it. I'm sure that there are books out there that are very similar but they still sell. Not every book is completely original and unique. Plus, some people may like thep similarity, not everyone will hate it.