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The main focus of Where the Boys Are is the "coming of age" of four girl students at a midwestern university during spring vacation. Merritt Andrews (Dolores Hart), the smart and assertive leader of the quartet, expresses the opinion in class that premarital sex might be something young women should experience. Her speech eventually inspires the insecure Melanie Tolman (Yvette Mimieux) to lose her virginity soon after the young women arrive in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Tuggle Carpenter (Paula Prentiss) seeks to be a "baby-making machine", lacking only a man to join her in marriage. Angie (Connie Francis) rounds out the group as an athletic girl who is clueless when it comes to romance.

The girls find their attitudes challenged. Merritt, a freshman, meets the suave rich-boy Ivy Leaguer Ryder Smith (George Hamilton), a senior at Brown University, and realizes she's not ready for sex. Melanie discovers that Franklin (Rory Harrity), a boy from Yale University who she thought loved her, was only using her for sex. Tuggle quickly fixes her attention on the goofy "TV" Thompson (Jim Hutton), a junior at Michigan State University, but becomes disillusioned when he becomes enamored of the older woman Lola Fandango (Barbara Nichols), who works as a "mermaid" swimmer/dancer in a local bar. Angie stumbles into love with the eccentric jazz musician Basil (Frank Gorshin).

The post-adolescent relationship angst of Merritt, Tuggle, and Angie evaporates when they discover Melanie is in distress after going to meet Franklin at a motel and instead finding there another of the "Yalies", Dill, who had raped her. Franklin had moved on to another girl, but told Dill that Melanie was "easy" and set up the ambush. Melanie, with her dress torn, ends up walking into the busy road nearby looking distraught and wanting to die. Just as her friends arrive, she is sideswiped by a car and goes to the hospital.

Ultimately, it seems the girls have learned the potentially serious consequences of their actions, and they resolve to act in a more mature and responsible manner. The film ends on a melancholy note, with Melanie's recovering in the hospital while Merritt looks after her, and with Merritt's promises to Ryder to continue a long-distance relationship. He then offers to drive them back to their college.

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