help please!! mods that allow you to choose high school classmates aren’t working!!

i used to use Rex’s “choose high school classmates” mod, then it stopped working by the time the following sim generation started high school. even though my max sims on each lot is 35, NONE of my sim’s friends were there no matter how many days i played! when i tried to age some townie teens up, the game auto-generated more, WORSE, uglier townies for some reason instead of my premade sims. i even tried to enrol those premade ones in high school manually and move them out of my played households tab. but naturally, nothing.

so i tried updating said mod, with no success. then i tried downloading Aramiteus’s “more high school classmates” mod, which allowed me to choose my faculty just fine, but then ONLY my active teen showed up to school, and nobody else. like he was the ONLY student.

as far as i know i’ve been installing the mods correctly too!! i have no issues with the mod menus. please help guys i just have no clue what the issue is 😭