Ugliest Campuses and Prettiest Campuses

<p>I’ll just list a few of the campuses I visited, they’re ones most people on here wouldn’t visit, so it may be informative.</p>

<p>Appalachian State - Obviously I love this campus since I chose this school. I love the mountains and a lot of the newer architecture. The dorms and some of the older academic buildings are very mundane. But the landscaping and surroundings are unbeatable.</p>

<p>Wake Forest - Great architecture. Very beautiful and secluded despite being in a busy area of town. If someone wanted a good example of what a typical college campus looks like, I’d hold up Wake. </p>

<p>Western Carolina - Once again surrounded by mountains. But in this case the architecture and overall feel of the campus is soul-crushingly boring. They have a brand new “quad” that’s just an open field and some brick. </p>

<p>UNC - Mixed on this one. The main undergrad part of campus is lovely. But the whole area south of South Rd, surrounding the hospital and football stadium, has gone to hell in a handbasket. </p>

<p>UNC-Greensboro - UNCG has the most well done “urban” campuses I’ve ever seen. Walking down College Avenue, you would never know that your university was in the downtown area of a city of 300,000 people. My only gripe is the skyscraper thing that serves as the library. It sticks out like a sore thumb and totally distracts from a beautiful area of campus.</p>

<p>I think the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities has an overall terrible campus. I’m a student there myself and have loved my time there, but it’s not a very “pretty” place. It’s just a massive construction zone in the middle of the city and has a lot of really ugly and ridiculous buildings. (with the exception of the mall area) If I drove through campus before I became a student here, I probably wouldn’t know I was on a college campus.</p>

<p>Despite what is being said about Georgia Tech, Emory is a nice campus. Several movies have filmed their exteriors there. Haven’t visited Harvard, but back on the movie trivia, the ariel views of Harvard have been used in quite a few movies. Harvard has not allowed filming of motion pictures on their campuses since the late 70s. Social Network (40% of it set in “Harvard” was filmed on various other campuses)</p>

<p>To give a little southern flavor to these:</p>

<p>FSU- I have a biased, since I grew up in Tallahassee and have seen the campus inside and out over the years. The architecture is quite classic European. One review I read on it described it as “Sometimes you will feel like your walking on the streets of London.” Nice new buildings are going up every year. Many of the interior of these are state of the art.</p>

<p>Florida International- Very attractive entrance. Haven’t really been around the campus.</p>

<p>UGA- Very pretty, has a real “on its own pavilion feel”</p>

<p>UNF- Going green and nature people will fall in love with UNF campus. On a nature preserve, a wooded trail that takes you another point on campus. For my personal taste, the campus was too spread out for me. </p>

<p>University of Tampa–Small but very impressive! its architectural is russian like. The whole campus is brick layer out. You feel like your stepping into the early century.</p>

<p>USF-- Has the Tampa,FL feel to it. Has nicely balanced out keeping ample amount of green around and enough buildings to hold everyone. The student union (Marshall Center) front exterior design reminds me of the Universal theme park. A very pretty walk through terrence.</p>

<p>Any university that provides a quality education looks good to me.</p>

<p>That said, Pepperdine is beautiful. I’ve never been to Cornell, but hear it is lovely.</p>

<p>

Oh it’s GORGEous (ha ha, get it?)</p>

<p>I haven’t seen a ton, but as far as colleges in Washington state go, UW Seattle takes the cake. The quad is amazing in spring, and its easy to forget you’re smack in the middle of a huge city! The worst is debatable (most are ok, but with crappy dorms) but I think I’ll have to go with WSU or Eastern. That might just be because I hate the Spokane area though. It’s too desert-y for me.</p>

<p>OK, here’s my list of schools I’ve seen.</p>

<p>Best:
USMA & USNA (I’ve got a thing for the military academies)
Wake Forest</p>

<p>Very nice:
UNC - Chapel Hill
Michigan State
Clemson</p>

<p>Nice: Georgetown
Notre Dame
Michigan
John Hopkins</p>

<p>Didn’t like: Penn State
American U
George Washington
Maryland
Drexel</p>

<p>I may be giving higher marks to Clemson based on the fun we had, rather than the actual beauty of the campus, but my recollection was we had a lot of fun and it was nice. Michigan has lots to do, because it’s right in town, but I’ve never been that impressed with the campus as a whole. Good school, but not that pretty.</p>

<p>Just visited my Nephew at U Penn yesterday. I really liked that campus. Drexel right down the street has an ugly campus. Also Loyola in MD has a nice campus.</p>

<p>Prettiest: easily UCSB or UCSD, in the fall though the University of Oregon is amazing.</p>

<p>Ugliest: hmm, it might just be the way I was raised but I HATE Washington’s campus.</p>

<p>For California
5-stars: Pomona, Scripps, USD, UCLA, Pepperdine, Stanford, Santa Clara University
4-stars: UC Berkeley, USC, UCSC, USF, San Diego State, Loyola Marymount, Occidental
3-stars: UCSB, UC Davis
2-stars: UCI, Harvey Mudd, Claremont McKenna
1-star: UCSD, A bunch of the CSUs, Pitzer</p>