@katliamom @Capecodder2014 Our dorm had a beautiful view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the base of Strawberry Canyon. Probably took it way too much for granted at the time.
@youcee Yesterday, I saw a picture on instagram of a full strawberry creek running down through campus. It really is a gorgeous campus set in an unbelievable location.
the law quad at Michigan is very, very cool. the library is stunning. the rest, not so much.
the University of Washington has a stunning campus, especially when you factor in the natural surroundings … Lake Washington, views of the Olympics and Cascades, and the unrivaled anywhere Rainier Vista. Very, very pretty place.
Very few colleges hold up completely when scrutinized top to bottom. The large research universities in particular have had to add so much building space that they start to appear overbuilt and/or sprawling. A number of reputations for beauty are based on a particular element, like the view to the Pacific from Pepperdine, or the view toward Mount Rainier and the Cherry blossoms at Washington, but the schools fall down in other regards. Other colleges, like Harvard have some extraordinary buildings, but it never quite comes together.
The nicest I’ve seen is Cambridge University in the UK, which is really a collection of colleges. They have had centuries to refine their grounds and buildings. They also, unlike U.S. universities, have competition between the colleges for pride and bragging rights that is perhaps a major contributor.
@Thankyou, While this hair splitting is an entertaining pastime for those of us with apparently too much time on our hands, we should always be aware that there are people who actually take this nonsense seriously. In recent weeks, I’ve read on CC about someone whose parents want to force-feed a high-ranking university on her despite her preference for LACs. I’ve read that ivy students are MORE special than students at a comparable non-Ivy. There is the usual stratifying of the Ivies (poor, poor Brown & Cornell). All of which is fine nonsensical chatter, but there really are people who think they are failure if they don’t get in a top 20, who transfer from non-Ivy top 20s to Ivies just for the name, who pick Chicago over Northwestern because it’s a whopping 6 places ahead (or whatever). My kids even went to high school with a girl who was disappointed that she didn’t get in Harvard (poor kid had to settle for a place called Princeton…Yuck!).
A premise of this discussion is that there really is a difference between #20 & #21. So I was just trying to point out that all these divisions people make (top 20/non-top 20, Ivy/non-Ivy, HYPMS/other elite, upper Ivy/Lower Ivy, etc) are artificial distinctions, and should not be assumed to have actual significance in the real world.