To support her family, Kim Yoon Hee (Park Min Young) regularly dons male guise and makes money by writing essays and even erotic novels. She is smarter than all the wannabe scholars she ghostwrites for, but as a woman, there is no future for her other than arranged marriage. Yoon Hee is hired to take the Sungkyunkwan entrance exam for someone else, but because of Lee Sun Joon's (Micky Yoo Chun) meddling, she ends up getting accepted by decree of the king (Jo Sung Ha). Her lie is punishable by death, so she can only continue with it and enter Sungkyunkwan, where her roommate is none other than Sun Joon! Son of the prime minister (Kim Gab Soo), Sun Joon spurns partisan politics and holds strong to his idealistic principles, but still he has much to learn about how the world really runs. Everything he believes comes into question at Sungkyunkwan where he befriends rich playboy Goo Yong Ha (Song Joong Ki) and gentleman rogue Moon Jae Shin (Yu Ah In), and slowly falls for the cute and cynical Yoon Hee. Can love and friendship hold up when emotions spill over and secrets are revealed?

Sungkyunkwan Scandal also co-stars Ha Ji Won's younger brother Jun Tae Soo as the main campus rival, Song Joong Ki's Music Bank co-host Seo Hyo Rim (The World That They Live In), Ahn Nae Sang (Three Brothers), Kim Gab Soo (Cinderella's Sister), and Kim Min Seo (Bad Guy).