At 1st level, a school savant chooses a school of magic. The arcanist gains the abilities granted by that school, as the arcane school class feature of the wizard, treating her arcanist level as her wizard level for these abilities. She can also further specialize by selecting one of the subschools found in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Player's Guide. In addition, the arcanist can prepare one additional spell per day of each level she can cast, but this spell must be chosen from the selected school.
Finally, the arcanist must select two additional schools of magic as her opposition schools. Whenever she prepares spells from one of her opposition schools, the spell takes up two of her prepared spell slots. In addition, a school savant takes a –4 penalty on any skill checks when crafting a magic item that has a spell from one of her opposition schools as a prerequisite. A school savant cannot select the school understanding arcanist exploit. This ability replaces the arcanist exploits gained at 1st, 3rd, and 7th levels.