Heads of colleges independently finding youths embracing girl group (8)
I believe the answer is:
classify
'group' is the definition.
(I know that group is a kind of classify)
'heads of colleges independently finding youths embracing girl' is the wordplay.
'heads of' says to take the initial letters.
'embracing' indicates putting letters inside.
'girl' becomes 'lass' (lass can informally mean a girl).
The first letters of 'colleges independently finding youths' is 'cify'.
'cify' going around 'lass' is 'CLASSIFY'.
(Other definitions for classify that I've seen before include "Sort by category" , "Arrange in categories" , "catalogue?" , "Arrange by category" , "Arrange systematically by group (8)" .)