XO, Kitty: Is the Korean Independent School of Seoul (KISS) a real school?

Tons of people are watching XO, Kitty now that it’s available to stream on Netflix, and we’re starting to see many questions regarding the teen series circulate on the internet. One of the questions people want an answer to concerns the main setting in the show. People want to know if KISS is a real school. No worries! We shared whether or not KISS is a real school right below.

In XO, Kitty, Kitty Song Covey leaves her home in Portland, Oregon, to travel across the globe to Seoul, South Korea, to reunite and reconnect with her long-distance boyfriend, Dae, and to find out more about her late mother’s life.

Dae attends a prestigious boarding school called the Korean Independent School of Seoul, also known as KISS. Kitty’s mother attended this school as well when she was Kitty’s age. So with this in mind, Kitty applies to KISS and gets accepted on a scholarship. While attending the boarding school, Kitty hopes that she can spend quality time with Dae and learn more about her culture and mom. However, once she arrives at KISS, nothing goes as planned.

So, is KISS an actual school you can visit and/or attend? Here’s what we know.

XO, Kitty: Is the Korean Independent School of Seoul (KISS) a real school?

No, KISS is not a real boarding school you can visit in South Korea. It is a made-up school created by Jenny Han and her writing team. However, there is an actual international school with a similar name located in Seoul, South Korea. It’s called the Korean International School, aka KIS. But it is in no way related to the fictional Korean Independent School of Seoul in XO, Kitty.

There isn’t a specific location where the KISS scenes were shot because they were filmed in various places throughout Seoul. However, the exterior shots of KISS that we see in the show were filmed at the real art school, Kaywon University of Art & Design, in Uiwang, South Korea. You can visit and/or attend this school if you wanted to. You can also visit the location where the end-of-the-year talent show was shot (episode 9), which is the Independence Hall of Korea in Cheonan, South Korea.

XO, Kitty is streaming on Netflix right now.