<p>Worst: Columbia, Georgetown</p>
<p>....um, excuse me? Columbia as WORST?
You, sir, need to have visited more colleges. Columbia is gorgeous, albeit a bit small.</p>
<p>Favorites:
Yale - beautiful. no two ways about it.
Washington U. in St. Louis - i expected it to be hideous (because, as a californian, i'm horribly biased against anything not from either the west or east coast), but it was stunning! i think they need to take the acid-aging lesson from yale though. a lot of stuff looked really too new. but brookings hall is amazing!
UCLA - everything is green. all year round. and the architecture is amazing in most of the buildings. but the new art building does look like a prison, which is one of the reasons why I'm not going there.
UW: absolutely gorgeous. really love it.</p>
<p>mixed:
UCSB: Gorgeous location, pretty bad buildings. the CCS building was a former barracks, and that's where i'd have my studio, so that was out.
UC Berkeley: Campus is nice, but dorms are hideous. Beyond hideous. and the surrounding area: disgusting.
Harvard: has this "we are too good for you, peon" vibe. not very homelike. Harvard Yard is beautiful, but aside from that... not outstanding.
Brown: OK. Kind of mismatched and random, and the campus was not well-maintained at all.
BU: I know it doesn't really have a campus, but it was somewhat charming. I liked the location near the river, but aside from that...
uglies:
NYU - ew. sure there's no campus, but when they install suicide barriers on the dorms and on the library, you know it's gotta be pretty bad. although washingtons square park is nice...
AND FOR ART SCHOOLS:
best: RISD. by far. by leaps and bounds. It's very stairy, though, but the admissions building was very nice and the whole area outside the dorms was pretty cool, because students had done really psycho mosaics on a lot of the walls and stairs and stuff. the actual facilities are nice but very industrial, because they have to be functional, and you don't want to spend money making something pretty when someone's gonna come along with paint or molten glass and ruin it. the foundation building is AWESOME, and the nature library or giant room full of dead animals to draw is pretty amazing.
CalArts: The most naturally-inspired art school i've seen. I don't care much for the buildings (nasty 70's postmodern stuff) or the dorms (which look like barracks) but the campus is beautiful.
Otis: Eh. It's a big concrete box. and another big concrete box. and it's right by LAX, and the neighborhood is kinda... eh. not my favorite. but the fashion department in downtown LA is pretty sweet, because it's in the middle of the fashion district, and housed in the California Mart, so if you're bored between classes, you can wander around and see what's going to be in for next season.</p>
<p>nerdnirvana, I've been to all the places you've described and agree with your assessments.</p>
<p>I haven't visited as many as some of you...but here's what I would say about all I have visited:</p>
<p>UVa - Amazing. Especially Jefferson's lawn. Even the football stadium is nice, and that's hard to do.
UNC - Not much open space, but the buildings are relatively nice. The landscape is great. Pretty overall.
Duke - West Campus is amazing. East Campus is nothing special at all.
Mississippi State - just drove through campus one day. Not my cup of tea at all.
Tennessee/Knoxville - The setting along the Tennessee River is nice. And that's about it.
Rice - I didn't like it too much. Perhaps it's just because I hate Houston. It did have nice landscaping, though.
Trinity of Texas - Think the 60s & early 70s. Utilitarian. Murchison Tower, however, is a distinctive landmark.
Texas-Austin - Not enough green space. The older buildings are nice. The Architecture library in Battle Hall is gorgeous. The fountains add to the campus, which is as a whole, average to pretty.
Baylor - I've driven through the campus. I like how the newer buildings look old. Quite a unique campus and very pretty.
Texas A&M/College Station - Beige. Ugh.
Texas Tech/Lubbock - Flat. No grass. Plant life seems to be non-existant. The buildings are yellow brick. Not pretty at all.
Southern Methodist - I loved this campus. Lots of red brick.<br>
University of New Mexico - Adobe. If you're into that, it's great. Unfortunately, I'm not.
College of Santa Fe - I didn't know Adobe and the utilitarian style of the 60s could be combined. They figured out a way to do it at CSF. Disastrous results.
Colorado College - Pretty campus overall. Not the prettiest, but they had some nice buildings with open lawns and great views of Pikes Peak.<br>
University of Colorado - Amazing views of the Flatirons. The buildings look terrible in pictures, but amazing in person. Visit and be amazed.
Colorado State University - Pretty scenery, ugly campus. Not one building at CSU impressed me, except for the old Ft. Collins High School building. </p>
<p>And now for a couple of schools within 50 miles of my house...</p>
<p>Texas A&M/Corpus Christi - The only campus in the nation contained on it's own island. Some of the more modern buildings are nice, but most are from the 60s and therefore are not very flattering. The location on Ocean Drive at the point where Corpus Christi Bay and Cayo Del Oso meet is very pretty, but not conducive to college activity (exit the island to one direction and you are on a military base, to the other and you are in an exclusive residential neighborhood)
Texas A&M/Kingsville - good engineering school, or so I've heard, but it better be good because the campus is rather ugly and won't draw students by itself. That is, unless, you really like Spanish architecture (like Stanford). In which case you would love this campus.</p>
<p>Best: Washington University in St. Louis, and Cornell University</p>
<p>Nice: Georgetown (has that old feel to it and it's in any area on it's own in D.C.) I like how you can go from being in Georgetown then go to the city.
UCLA it's also nice but nothing special
Not so nice: USC well it's ok and you can definatly feel the sense of trojan pride :D but the its surroundings are horrible. It's in the middle of the ghetto and it's very dangerous to walk around in the middle of the night.
UNLV (university of nevada las vegas)= it's not a very nice campus just all buildings and it's grey it's also the biggest commuter school in Las Vegas</p>
<p>
[quote]
UC Berkeley: Campus is nice, but dorms are hideous. Beyond hideous. and the surrounding area: disgusting.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You're referring to the dorms built in the 1960s. Nine big square buildings. They don't look great, but the views from the rooms are spectacular, either on the bay or on the hills.</p>
<p>The rest of the dorm system is as nice as there is on any other campus. Clark Ker is a mission-style campus of its own, with its own swimming pool and hilltop track with bay views, International House is a gorgeous mediterranean-style building built at great cost with Rockefeller's money, Bowles Hall is a classic old building and greek row and the the Coops include many landmark buildings by the best American architects from the early 20th century (Greene&Greene, Morgan, Maybeck.) </p>
<p>view from dorms
<a href="http://www.posicorp.com/pictures/2004-11-20%20UC%20Berkeley%20-%20The%20Big%20Game/IMG_0001.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://www.posicorp.com/pictures/2004-11-20%20UC%20Berkeley%20-%20The%20Big%20Game/IMG_0001.jpg</a> </p>
<p>And the new dorms are quite nice too.
<a href="http://static.flickr.com/30/42072238_d7169f9954.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://static.flickr.com/30/42072238_d7169f9954.jpg</a></p>
<p>Clark Kerr dorm campus
<a href="http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap/2002_images/Queue/qclark_kerr04.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap/2002_images/Queue/qclark_kerr04.jpg</a>
<a href="http://www.celestetabriz.com/seminar/images/CKC.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://www.celestetabriz.com/seminar/images/CKC.jpg</a>
<a href="http://www.math.mcmaster.ca/peter/ibs/ibc0019.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://www.math.mcmaster.ca/peter/ibs/ibc0019.jpg</a>
<a href="http://www-als.lbl.gov/icess/ClarkKerr2.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://www-als.lbl.gov/icess/ClarkKerr2.jpg</a></p>
<p>Bowles Hall
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/17/Bowles.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/17/Bowles.jpg</a></p>
<p>Cloyne Court co-op
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tsackett/8675004/%5B/url%5D">http://www.flickr.com/photos/tsackett/8675004/</a></p>
<p>International House
<a href="http://www.emjr.org/cal/football/2002/wsuGame/336.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://www.emjr.org/cal/football/2002/wsuGame/336.jpg</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=94579321&context=set-72057594058106732&size=l%5B/url%5D">http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=94579321&context=set-72057594058106732&size=l</a></p>
<p>campus stadium:
<a href="http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/uchistory/archives_exhibits/campus_planning/atkinson_archive/ucb/photos/UCB_74_rf.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/uchistory/archives_exhibits/campus_planning/atkinson_archive/ucb/photos/UCB_74_rf.jpg</a></p>
<p>Fraternity houses
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jiathwee/95166571/in/pool-37718676511@N01/%5B/url%5D">http://www.flickr.com/photos/jiathwee/95166571/in/pool-37718676511@N01/</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jiathwee/95166559/in/pool-37718676511@N01/%5B/url%5D">http://www.flickr.com/photos/jiathwee/95166559/in/pool-37718676511@N01/</a>
<a href="http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=54116660&size=m%5B/url%5D">http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=54116660&size=m</a></p>
<p>ok, i <em>was</em> referring specifically to the big nasty square-ish buildings. i so would have joined the vegetarian coop if i had gone there. berkeley is gorgeous, or at least the hill part, but the giant ugly buildings made me want to puke.
the library was SWEET though.
i just remembered that.
now i wish i was going there.
but whatever, i like washu better and that's where i'm going. but berkeley's still awesome. it was my first choice for maybe ten years.</p>
<p>Lehigh, hands down one of the prettiest.</p>
<p>I can't resist putting my two cents in on this.
And I've seen a lot of campuses because of my job. </p>
<p>Among the best:
Yale, Cornell, Duke, Pepperdine, Wash U, Boston College, Princeton, Air Force Academy, William & Mary, Colorado and Miami of Ohio. </p>
<p>The worst I've personally seen:
Any urban campus - NYU, Columbia, Boston U, Marquette, Emerson, U of Houston, anything in Philadelphia.
Ohio State is awful, Purdue, Mississippi State, Nebraska, U of New Orleans (even before Katrina), U of Texas (too many buildings ruined this campus), Texas A&M (looks like a military post), Southern Cal, San Jose State and Arizona State (buy some trees, people).</p>
<p>UChicago one of the worst? Are you kidding me? ***?! /stare!!!</p>
<p>It is overwhelmingly grey and flat. The gothic thing can look very cold when there is nothing to soften it up.</p>
<p>Okay. I'd like people to explain why they think Columbia is bad.
The campus is really not that urban--once you step in, it takes a WHOLE different feel.</p>
<p>How about the best looking and ugliest student bodies?</p>
<p>Best females: USC, UCLA</p>
<p>Ugliest females: anywhere in the South (too much make up) and the 7 Sisters</p>
<p>Best Guys: Army and Navy</p>
<p>Worst Guys: Air Force -- they all look like bus drivers</p>
<p>UChicago is the most beautiful campus I have ever seen.</p>
<p>I am appalled !!!!!!!!</p>
<p>Lauddie Lo your post is most insensitive.</p>
<p>It is highly insulting to bus drivers.</p>
<p>I agree with neverborn. Shoe - Let me guess...you saw Chicago in the winter. f you like Yale (and it seems to be at the top of your list), then UChicago is at least 10 steps above that. Yale has the gray gothic architecture and doesn't have the open quads and beautiful gardens that UChicago has. Heck, Chicago, the city has more gardens and flowers than New Haven does. A young lady that I met at UChicago who hails from Boston said to me that she thought Uchicago was much prettier than Yale and Harvard because of all the ivy, flowers and openess of the urban campus. As far as I'm concerned, Yale gives you the feeling of "Go away" with its gated quads. I have seen it many, many times since I go to New Haven for theater regularly. When I walked around Harvard, I was wondering where are the flowers? Lots of green quads but no flowers. </p>
<p>I just recently visited Lehigh and Lafayette this Spring. They are stunning with flowering trees and open lay-outs. We came across many other campuses (mostly Catholic bu not all) in Pennsylvania that were beautiful in a drive through.</p>
<p>Shoe - I hate to break it to you but Yale is in an urban setting and not a great urban setting.
UChicago is in a great urban setting!</p>
<p>Here are two with awesome surroundings/scenery:</p>
<p>U of Nevada - Reno -- Surrounded by mountains and Lake Tahoe is nearby</p>
<p>U of Arizona -- Also surrounded by mountains and the campus looks like a resort</p>
<p>When I first saw a post saying Air Force had one of the prettiest campuses, I took at double-take because I think those buildings are awful, they were built during the Cold War to protect against the Russians. THEN I thought back to the SETTING, which is beautiful, with the mountains and all of that. Kinda funny that USAFA and Miami of Ohio were put on the same list because that is where my boyfriend and I go, respectively.
PS: lol AF is definitely not the worst! It's just that some of them are just a bunch of geeks... :)</p>