<p>Recently, there seem to have been a lot of posts asking “What college in the US is the prettiest?” Here are the results (according to the responses of CC members on 8 different threads):</p>
<li>Stanford University (102)</li>
<li>Princeton University (102)</li>
<li>Yale University (76)</li>
<li>University of Virginia (74)</li>
<li>Cornell University (55)</li>
<li>Duke University (51)</li>
<li>Dartmouth College (49)</li>
<li>Pepperdine University (48)</li>
<li>Colgate University (41)</li>
<li>Middlebury College (40)</li>
<li>Williams College (35) </li>
<li>University of California-Los Angeles (34)</li>
<li>College of William & Mary (31)</li>
<li>Wake Forest University (29)</li>
<li>University of Chicago (28)</li>
<li>Wellesley College (26)</li>
<li>Rice University (26)</li>
<li>Vassar College (25)</li>
<li>Boston College (24)</li>
<li>University of California-Santa Barbara (23)</li>
<li>Vanderbilt University (22)</li>
<li>Swarthmore College (21)</li>
<li>University of North Carolina (21)</li>
<li>Columbia University (20)</li>
<li>Indiana University (20)</li>
<li>United States Military Academy-West Point (20)</li>
<li>University of Richmond (20)</li>
<li>University of California - Berkeley (18)</li>
<li>Washington & Lee University (18)</li>
<li>College of the Holy Cross (17)</li>
<li>Colby College (17)</li>
<li>Sewanee University of the South (17)</li>
<li>University of Notre Dame (17)</li>
<li>Amherst College (16)</li>
<li>Bowdoin College (16)</li>
<li>Bucknell University (16)</li>
<li>Georgetown University (16)</li>
<li>University of California - Santa Cruz (16)</li>
<li>Elon University (15)</li>
<li>Kenyon College (15)</li>
<li>University of California-San Diego (15)</li>
<li>University of San Diego (15)</li>
<li>University of Southern California (15)</li>
<li>Harvard University (13)</li>
<li>Miami University (13)</li>
<li>University of Colorado-Boulder (13)</li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania (13)</li>
<li>University of Washington (13)</li>
<li>Davidson College (12)</li>
<li>Connecticut College (11)</li>
<li>Washington University in St. Louis (11)</li>
</ol>
<p>Just to clarify... my above post does not reflect my own personal opinion of which colleges are most physically attractive... it's simply a compilation of the posts of CC members who've addressed this question in the past.</p>
<p>berkeley is pretty? eww. the surrounding area is nice, sure, but I found the campus pretty drab. the weather wasn't too great though, so that may have contributed to the effect.</p>
<p>I live like 20 minutes away from Columbia and it isn't that great looking. I'd say Amherst is better looking, but that is IMO. Columbia's in a pretty bad neighborhood too. Sure, it's cleaned up quite a bit in the past decade, but I still wouldn't feel safe walking around there in the dark. </p>
<p>
[quote]
The fifty prettiest seem to correspond to the US News top 50 universities and LACs. Pure coincidence, I'm sure.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree, some people may be voting based solely by rankings. Then again, I've noticed many people on CC know the top 20 by heart and only apply to top 20 schools. So if this list came straight off of threads, some of the people who voted for some of these schools have never visited a capus for a school that isn't in the top 20 or 25.</p>
<p>It's all pretty subjective. For example, from what I have seen, the Cornell campus is amazing and I would love the weather there, since I am a rain person. However, for somebody who wants to be near a city with all the commodities and likes sunny weather, Cornell would not be on their top list.</p>
<p>It is pretty subjective. I think Princeton is oppressive -- both in the uniformity of its architecture and all the stones and leaded glass that make up that uniformity.</p>
<p>And Berkeley is the opposite which I find attractive -- a great variety of architecture.</p>