So High School

Taylor Swift announced her eleventh original studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards on February 4, 2024.

[15] Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield said that the track's light-hearted power-pop guitar jangle" evokes "Hits Different" from Midnights,[13] and People's Jack Irvin labelled "So High School" a sonic throwback to Swift's 2008 album Fearless.

[16] Other critics likened the track to the music of other artists from the past; Beats Per Minute's John Wohlmacher called the song a "throwback at millennial soft rock" reminiscent of Third Eye Blind and Avril Lavigne,[17] The Hollywood Reporter's Ryan Fish compared the song's feel to that of 1980s and 1990s dream pop tracks like Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)" and Tears for Fears' "Head over Heels",[18] and The Wall Street Journal's Mark Richardson named the Primitives and the Sundays as reference points.

[16] Swift sings about youth experiences in the lines: "I'm watching American Pie with you on a Saturday night", "Truth, dare, spin bottles", and "Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto".

In Billboard's ranking of all 31 tracks, "So High School" was placed seventh, with Jason Lipshutz writing: "obvious back-half highlight, simply by flexing a little muscle amidst the nostalgia trip.

"[12] Fish ranked it tenth out of the 31 tracks, regarding it as one of the album's "bright spots" and complimenting its "sweeping feeling" akin to 1980s and 1990s dream pop songs.

Club dubbed "So High School" a "fun, poppy number" that prevents the album from being monotonous,[22] and Jonathan Keefe of Slant Magazine thought that the track had potentials of becoming a radio hit.

's Alex Hudson lauded the sound as "vibrantly nostalgic" but said that some lyrics are "cringe-inducing", citing the lines that rhyme "Aristotle" with "Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto".