funny, 4 schools in all in our family and all in the top 15. Guess that’s what we value 
So Bloomington, Indiana doesn’t meet the rural definition, whatever. Drive in from I-65 on State Route 46, especially after you’ve made the turn away from Nashville (Indiana), observe the scenery, resist the temptation to pass slow-moving farm vehicles, and then we can have the discussion.
IUB had me at “when we built the new stadium, we transformed the footprint of the old one into the arboretum we’re standing in right now.” That’s one very large arboretum. Also the Wells dictum that for any tree cut down, 2 must be planted in its place. Many places on campus you feel like you’re in an Olmsted-designed park. And many of the buildings are breathtaking.
Interestingly we thought our D would be lukewarm about it because it wasn’t in a large city like Chicago, Boston, or Philly. Turns out the campus has enough critical mass to offer lots of those resources right there, including their own theater and opera companies, art museum, and quite the cosmopolitan little downtown area. It’s one of her top few preferred schools for next year.
@compmom said “Surprised Bennington is only #38…”
Agreed. Only thing I can think of is that Bennington’s favorite son (Robert Frost) gave his vote to #22.
Title of the article would have been better as “50 of the most beautiful” without attempting to rank them. In matters of taste, there can be no argument.
Mt. Holyoke, D’s alma mater–#2 on one list, #7 on the other—Go Lyons!!
I notice that it’s primarily liberal arts colleges. There are no universities on the list. If it included universities, I would nominate UC Santa Cruz with its builings among redwood forests and rolling hills.
Miami University is on that list.
Whoops, missed that. Thanks for pointing it out. THere’s actually a lot, including Penn State!
YSR!
Odd they rated Amherst over Williams. But it’s always odd when that happens.
"It would be no small advantage if every college were thus located at the base of a mountain.” — Henry David Thoreau, writing of Williams in 1844.
Call me a snob, but I think living on a beautiful campus is an essential part of the college experience. By this I mean old buildings made of brick and limestone, Georgian columns, Gothic arches, and an abundance of trees that shed leaves in a true fall season.
I don’t mean to denigrate different tastes; that’s just mine, and thankfully DD’s, since she attends such a place – though it’s too urban to be on the list.
While it’s certainly nice to study on a beautiful campus, I hardly think it’s essential. My alma mater was a building in a nice blue-collar neighborhood of a factory town in the midwest. I loved my college experience.
I do have to admit that I use the “beautiful campus” hook when talking to students about the drop-dead-gorgeous campus of the college where I work, though. 
@ohiovalley16, I just went back to Bloomington for the first time this past summer, since graduating from IU 20+ years ago. Wanted to show my daughter where I attended, while we were on the way to other campuses in IN and OH for her to visit.
IU’s campus is even prettier and more wooded than I remember - and Bloomington has been - gentrified? Not sure if that’s the word I want, but it’s definitely been gussied up - parts of town were really dumpy when I was there in the late 80s.
D said she thought the campus looked like a forest and village in a fairy tale…
Alas, their OOS tuition is way more than I’m willing to pay for her to attend… I told her before visiting, Look, but don’t touch…
Thankfully, the other campuses we visited were also very attractive - albeit in a different way than IU-B - and we’re actually letting her apply to those, :).
I do understand the appeal, though of IU-B, to east and west-coasters. I was in-state, and the first time I saw the campus was when I moved into my dorm room during Welcome Week.
I’ve seen some list of the ugliest campuses in the U.S. Drexel in Phila used to regularly show up on those lists, but they have been working hard to remake their campus. A couple campuses with 1960s and 1970s concrete brutalist architecture also usually are on those lists. A community college in PA. was built in that style, but they covered everything up with brickface.
Here’s one of those lists. I don’t think Carnegie Mellon deserves to be on it.
http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/02/19-ugliest-college-campuses-in-america/2/
Here’s another list. The campuses that were built in a short period of time often do not earn as much respect. They often had one architectural firm design the buildings in one style, which can quickly go out of style.
http://www.complex.com/style/2013/09/ugly-college-campuses/ithaca-college
definitely lovely colleges, but not sure I’d consider a couple of them in “rural” areas.
That ugly list is a little strange. A couple of the photos of U. Illinois are for the wrong campus. Some of the photos used actually look really nice. Their choice for the ugliest college is the newest - Ava Maria U. in Florida. That is what happens when you let a pizza delivery mogul choose your architecture.
The SUNYs are wel-represented on the ugly lists. Part of the blame lies with Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who had strong architectural tastes while these campuses were being designed.
Just came back to this thread and I see we’re talking ugly campuses now! Cool. Some regrettable mistakes were made architecturally in the 60’s and 70’s on college campuses (and elsewhere) and many have NOT aged well.
If you perform a Google Images search on “Manzanita Hall” - you don’t really even have to include the school name - you can see what was considered daring and creative architecture in 1967 - all 14 floors of it. I had a view of that from the 7th floor of a neighboring dorm for 3 years. They called it the “Superman” building due to the way the windows are shaped. Also it was co-ed in the mid-80’s, which was a little ahead of the curve although that’s become common today.
“The SUNYs are wel-represented on the ugly lists. Part of the blame lies with Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who had strong architectural tastes while these campuses were being designed.”
There was a concerted effort to ensure that the SUNY schools would not compete with the already established north east private schools. I think that, rather than the taste of Rockefeller, is responsible for the SUNY aesthetics.
The most beautiful campuses I’ve ever seen were Swarthmore and Princeton. Not on this list.
UMass Amherst has some ugly brutalist style buildings constructed in the 70s. Problem is, they are some of the best examples of this awful style of architecture and some want them saved for that reason.One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, I guess.
@DonnaL, I think Princeton is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been with buildings. It is suburban rather than rural (but so is Wellesley). I also think that Stanford has a lovely campus and have heard that Pepperdine does as well.