The most Beautiful college campuses you have seen...

College Search & Selection
61

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Miraculously, Middlebury seems to have run out of money to build anything new during the 3 or 4 decades of bad architecture after WWII.

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<p>Quite the contrary. Middlebury built several ugly buildings in the last 40 years, but had enough money to tear them down or reface them. Here is a photo of the old science building:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.middlebury.edu/NR/rdonlyres/57FFB5C1-A263-4D14-BBD8-80EB5F7AB727/0/old_science_center.jpg%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.middlebury.edu/NR/rdonlyres/57FFB5C1-A263-4D14-BBD8-80EB5F7AB727/0/old_science_center.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>And the new one: <a href="http://keith-dc.smugmug.com/photos/394935561_6vHnu-L.jpg%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://keith-dc.smugmug.com/photos/394935561_6vHnu-L.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The old library: <a href="http://puka.cs.waikato.ac.nz/custom/cic/collect/cic-hcap/index/assoc/p1121.dir/Starr%20Library%20(addition),%20Middlebury%20College-small.jpg%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://puka.cs.waikato.ac.nz/custom/cic/collect/cic-hcap/index/assoc/p1121.dir/Starr%20Library%20(addition),%20Middlebury%20College-small.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>And the new one: <a href="http://www.albanyaerialphotos.com/Middlebury-4.jpg%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.albanyaerialphotos.com/Middlebury-4.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>They also refaced several ugly dorms.</p>

62

<p>I have to agree that I don't like Stanford at all. I do think Cambridge is gorgeous though. It's my number one choice (Christ's College, specifically) but I'll never get in there.</p>

<p>I was at Dartmouth yesterday and, perhaps it was the weather, the fact that gray snow-sludge is still laying around everywhere, but it wasn't very beautiful. Harvard was very pretty though. I would have seen Yale but my lazy sister refused to get out of bed since she already goes to college and doesn't want to visit any (she goes to a very pretty college too, Northwestern) so we missed the plane. Ah well.</p>

<p>My mother's been telling me how beautiful Cornell, her alma mater, is all my life. I can't wait to go.</p>

63

<p>"My mother's been telling me how beautiful Cornell, her alma mater, is all my life. I can't wait to go. "</p>

<p>No need to wait for that:</p>

<p>File:Ithaca</a> Hemlock Gorge.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Around</a> Ithaca, New York Photo Gallery by Unexplained Bacon at pbase.com
Explore</a> Cornell - Natural Beauty - Introduction</p>

64

<p>St. Mary's college of Maryland is on St. Mary's river. It is highly rated in the Princeton review for its beautiful campus. This school is less know than the other schools mentioned in this tread but for shear natural beauty SMCM is impressive.</p>

65

<p>I saw Georgetown from the bottom of the hill while I was riding between GWU campuses last weekend and it looked ungodly beautiful. At least, it was quite impressive.</p>

66

<p>Georgetown is ok. Visit some of the decrepit science labs and you might change your mind about their facilities. I like georgetown as in the college town. the university could use some patching up here and there.</p>

<p>also, i can't picture myself studying in that behemoth they call a library.</p>

67

<p>University of the Pacific is a gorgeous campus. An East coast ivy look in the West. Brick buildings and beautiful grounds. Lots of trees and green lawns.</p>

<p>UC Davis also has a pretty campus. Trees galore. And a nice arboretuem and lake. Lots of squirrels running around, too! The buildings are kind of a mish-mash of different styles, but it works fine with the landscaping.</p>

68

<p>I don’t have too much experience in the “rolling vista” type campus. I’ve seen more city campuses. But I will say, in trying to convince my D to attend Indiana University over a more expensive college, we ran down to Bloomington to shop yesterday. I’d only been there once but, looking at it with renewed eyes…it is indeed gorgeous. I kept reading it was one of the prettiest, and thought…what? But…I got to see it in its Fall glory. The drive down from Indy through hills with trees changing, then the campus itself, it was truly lovely. The stadium is astounding. The Greek houses are unbelievable. And an entire row of old houses south of the campus are restaurants…mostly Thai! That was fun. The music center…gorgeous.</p>

69

<p>We have visited Furman and dd is applying there partly because it is so beautiful. ANother one she wants to visit because of its looks is Sewanee. (No she isn’t choosing by looks alone but when you are looking for smaller colleges and universities in warmer climates that have good academics, those two qualify)</p>

70

<p>University of Richmond! It is even more beautiful than Furman and Wake…complete with 350 acres, a lake, trees, and gorgeous old buildings that have been renovated (inside) to state of the art 21st century! Every time we visit we marvel at the beauty of the campus. I want to go back to college :)</p>

71

<p>Fall is the Best time for New England Colleges- especially when the leaves are at their peak !</p>

72

<p>University of San Diego, Loyola Marymount, Pepperdine, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, and believe it or not, Cal. I love all the trees at Cal and the creek that runs through the campus. Not to mention the view of the SF Bay is awesome too. I was surprised at how pretty it was.</p>

73

<p>wandachka wrote " UC Santa Barbara
the only university with its own private beach</p>

<p>Pepperdine University "</p>

<p>My daughter and I were at UCSB for a surfing competition for her high school. She came away thinking the buildings were ugly and kind of run down. Last I checked they don’t offer classes while sitting on your suffboard, so you’re going to have to actually enter the actual buildings at some point, which I agree are completely devoid of inspiration.</p>

<p>I’ve been on the Pepperdine campus many, many times. Again, like UCSB, you don’t take classes IN the ocean, and the campus itself (architecture, hardscape, softscape) is funtional and clean, but not inspiring in the least (except for the chapel and large lawn on the highway).</p>

74

<p>I second both Rhodes and Sewanee, University of The South.</p>

75

<p>IU is both my parents’ alma mater. They keep talking about how beautiful it is, so I’m going for a visit in conjunction with my visit to UofM. I live in NJ :p</p>

<p>TCNJ has a gorgeous campus. Didn’t like Gettysburg much. JHU is really pretty in some areas.</p>

<p>I’ve seen pictures of Pepperdine, and while the area is beautiful the buildings themselves are unimpressive.</p>

76

<p>some random responses to various posts regarding colleges I’ve spend some time at or visiting:</p>

<p>Cornell: one poster wrote it’s “gorges”. Well, it does have one large gorge. Famous for all the wrong reasons. If you could take away most of the very cold snowy months, it would be an incredibly beautiful campus. However, google “Lake Effect Snow” and then think of Buffalo with a nice town in it for five months of the year. No thanks.
Colgate: Cornell, but smaller. Again, the snow is the problem.
Yale: biggest problem is the surrounding area…
Harvard: Too congested.
Stanford: Agree with the Taco Bell analogy. Suburban sprawl feel.
Berkeley: Nice campus, not so nice surrounding streets
UCLA: #1 in my book, so long as you completely avoid the hyper congested south end of the campus that is composed of about a half square mile of medical complex.
U of San Diego: Seems like the University that would have been in the Truman Show. Clean, nicely spaced, some really cool spanish architecture… lots of white.
UC Irvine – much nicer than I would have thought… attractive but a little boring.
Pomona/Claremont/Pitzer/Scripps/Mudd – Nice, clean, lots of lawn and trees, a little hot and smoggy Sept/Oct/May. Very safe.<br>
Caltech: Lots of uninspiring two story buildings, well spaced. Good, not great</p>

<p>Seems to me the “prettiest campus” question is a little like asking a person for their favorite food, or favorite movie. I don’t like long, snowy winters, no out goes Colgate, Cornell, Dartmouth, and to a lesser extend, Northwestern, Michigan, Notre Dame, etc. I don’t like congestion, so out goes Penn, Columbia, UCLA (south campus only). I don’t like arid, dry climates, so no Arizona, Arizona St, or any college from Texas on through to Arizona.</p>

77

<p>^^^ The comment about USD and the Truman Show - hahahaha… Totally! That’s a good one. The just built a brand new student center which is really awesome. I still love the campus even if it could be in the Truman Show. :-)</p>

78

<p>UCLA:</p>

<p>Depends on what part of campus where one is situated:</p>

<p>North campus to mid campus, the former around the Sculpture Garden (James Spader’s favorite spot) and the latter around the original quadrangle, gorgeous. Looking down Janss steps toward the lower part of campus, and looking across from the steps to Bel Air, amazing. I remember walking up Bruin Walk on those hot days when the coeds turned it into a catwalk… priceless.</p>

<p>South campus, where all the future doctors, dentists, pharmacists, engineers, mathematicians, physicists are … bu, and I don’t mean Boston University. But this is fitting as the students there should like teh utilitarian structures because they are future scientitsts, and should make them feel at home.</p>

<p>Stanford:</p>

<p>The word that comes to my mind is, “sterile.” I don’t know if it’s the influence of the students that seem to encompass the university, but the buildings there, though pretty uniform in architecture, and nice from overhead shots that have made the rounds here, don’t really inspire. Maybe they had coeds that looked like ASU’s, I might feel differently, lol.</p>

<p>UCSB:</p>

<p>Agree with Dunn, a lot of the buildings there are quinitessential “utilitarian.” Nice lagoon… location, location, right on the bluffs.</p>

<p>USC:</p>

<p>Amost a square block of flat campus bordered by four streets… On the outside, you see a lot of ugly parking structures, etc… but inside it’s not bad, a lot of newer utilitarian stuctures, and the older are mixtures of falling-aprart older, with some beautiful traditional structures like the main(?) library - Mudd?, and philosophy(?) building. Incredibly cramped, though, only about 200 acres…</p>

<p>Cal:</p>

<p>I liked it more than Stanford. Sather Gate is the Bruin Walk of Cal. Not as nice a visual feast as at UCLA walking through the gate, and UCLA doesn’t have the transient problem that Cal has. But nice and hilly like UCLA.</p>

79

<p>Re #76: when you do google “lake effect snow” you will find that Ithaca is south of the snow belt, not in it, and as such it gets far less snow than the cities like Buffalo & Syracuse that are respectively on or close enough to the Great Lakes and are the primary recipients of lake effect snow. </p>

<p>Average snowfall in Ithaca is 67 inches, vs. 116 inches in Syracuse and 94 inches in Buffalo.</p>

<p>There are several gorges in and around the area, not just one: Cascadilla Creek, Fall Creek, Six mile Creek, Treman, Buttermilk, Taughannock, I’m sure I’m leaving some out. They are famous among local residents and students alike for contributing mightily to the area’s considerable natural beauty, which is inspiring to all on a daily basis, magnificent waterfalls and vistas, the sites of several great state parks ringing the area, as well as several popular swimming holes and hiking trails. I see I posted some pictures in #63 previous.</p>

80

<p>Re: Post #78. I agree with you about Cal and Stanford. My son and I both didn’t like Stanford like we thought we would. Everyone told us it was beautiful, but we both found it cold. My son wouldn’t even apply there based on the vibe he got during his visit. He’s going to Cal and loves the campus. I find it much more hilly than UCLA, but I agree with you about Sather Gate. He just loves the diversity, interesting architecture, trees - basically everything about it. I thought I would hate it but I was surprised to find that I really thought it was beautiful. I know that’s not the normal view of Cal, but it’s how I felt. :slight_smile: Glad to know we weren’t the only two to not like Stanford’s campus. We thought we were nuts.</p>