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Hm, well, basically, it's about a group of friends attenting a posh all-boys boarding school in a small town?
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Come on Anja. It's about true love (and becoming "young" in order to love truly).
See the Steven Antin appreciation thread for Antin quotes about what YA is.
"But what does 'true love' do in YA?" one may ask? IT TRIUMPHS.
Just today on a re-watch, I for the first time understood why the closing narrative comments of YA episodes 1 & 8 contain words about "Finding our heroes" and "Triumph."
That's there to make us ask: "Who is the hero of Young Americans"? Who is the protagonist?
The answer, I think, is "love." It's a drama about true love. Of course, true love (like the school) is personified by Hamilton Fleming, the dean's son, who truly loves "Jake" Pratt and re-enacts an updated version of the old "test of true love" stories, like "The Frog Prince" or "Beauty and the Beast," -- a version in which cross-dressing replaces magical enchantment as the means of making the beloved physically repulsive to the lover.
-- I'll post a better documented version of this argument later on the episode 1 thread, since episodes 1 and 8 contain the narrative language about "finding our heroes" and "triumph."