A poster in another thread mentioned they had been assigning Hogwarts Scores to colleges they visited:
That is off topic in that thread, so I am starting a thread where it will be on topic.
Based on what I have seen, I think Yale and particularly its more Gothic residential colleges would merit a high Hogwarts score. Obviously not a coincidence since there is a common DNA in English collegiate universities and the boarding schools in England that Hogwarts was meant to resemble.
I’d also suggest the University of Richmond is sort of like what if Slytherin had its own liberal arts college. I don’t mean that as insulting, but there is very much an ambitious, goal-oriented, resourceful, preppy vibe at Richmond, and then a really stunning Gothic campus. And I mean, come on, their mascot is a spider, and it is like everywhere.
Rhodes College in Memphis is gorgeous, very high Hogwarts scale.
U Chicago also high Hogwarts scale.
St. Olaf surprisingly high Hogwarts scale (the old historic building on all of their advertisements is not nearly as Hogswarty as much of the rest of campus).
I have not been to either campus in a long time (l lasted visited when I was in college), but I very much remember loving those campuses as a big fan of collegiate Gothic.
The only one of those campuses I have seen in person is Chicago, and I again completely agree. I’d specifically nominate Chicago as very much a Ravenclaw college.
Rhodes I knew looked amazing online. I’ll have to see if I can get a more comprehensive look at St. Olaf.
By the way, another one that looks very promising online is Washington University in St Louis. We might be visiting there and if so I will be interested to see how it comes across in person.
I realize we are talking primarily about US universities, but for fun I will mention Chernivtsi National University, which is often called the Ukrainian Hogwarts.
No geographic limits, as far as I am concerned. I mean, it would be boring to name Oxford, where they literally shot scenes for the movies. But if it is not that obvious, I say go for it.
And I just looked up Chernivtsi National University online, and those are some amazing campus photos! Very cool.
Not at all from the outside, but Purdue’s honors college has a “great hall” and their dorm has house cup tournaments ala Harry Potter. And of course almost every school these days has their own quidditch team ; )
Nothing says Hogwarts like an actual ancient cemetery right in the middle of campus (at the top of Foss Hill). Amazingly, nobody seems to bother it. I have yet to see anyone walk through it, and it is in fact in the way for many attempting to get from point A to point B. It’s almost like people don’t see it or something.
The Wesleyan Patricelli Theater on a foggy night counts for Howarts too, I think:
The walls tend to be thicker and the towers rounded. It’s a style of architecture that was popular in America immediately after the Civil War as it suggested military fortresses. Many big city armories retain the style to this day. Ironically, with the advent of the 20th Century, many eastern colleges demolished their old Civil War era campuses to make room for the more modern Gothic style, especially since the invention of steel beams obviated the need for flying buttresses to distribute the weight of masonry walls.
But if you look hard, you can still spot a few examples of the old Romanesque style,sometimes referred to as “Richardsonian” after Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-1886), a skilled practitioner of the style:
Oh, yeah. This is where Romanesque and Richardsonian sort of dance around each other. I would include #2 because of the big arched doorway and rough masonry.
