Reading room in the Mount Holyoke College library–check it out.
Pfft… Who cares if a building looks like a movie set designer’s interpretation of Oxford or Cambridge or some other British boarding school?
I proport that Rowling’s houses mimic the actual rivalry and camaraderie of Yale’s residential college system. Yalies live it.
Yale alumni don’t introduce themselves by major or class year – they say “I’m Maria, Davenport College '94”, the response would be “I’m Marcus, Jonathan Edwards '89”
Rowling houses mimic the British boarding schools house system (I know because I have attended one), but the fact that Yale has colleges is great! How many are there? And do you have to apply to a specific college? I applied to Oxford and applications are actually dealt with by individual colleges! @T26E4
@T26E4, I sure hope you are aware that a school established in the Middle Ages in the British isles (anyone else always wonder how come Salazar Slytherin built the entrance to the chamber of secrets using modern plumbing 
is not mimicking anything about Yale. After all, Yale is the copy, and Oxford and Cambridge are the original. Of course, there are a lot of very un-medieval neogothic buildings in Oxford - Oxford copying itself, as it were.
While some of the interior sets for Hogwarts are either Oxford for real or a perfect copy, Hogwarts from the outside could probably be called a neogothic fantasy of a screen set designer, copying the copy…
Google imaging Sewanee, I have to say it appears to come close!
@Livvy97 Incoming freshmen are randomized and spread among 12 (soon to be 14) residential colleges. Most stay loyal members of their college throughout the undergrad years and afterward. @Tigerle the OP asked about US equivalents. Of course Yale mimicked Oxford and Cambridge and then put its own twist on things. I also presumed that besides the physical, it might interest the OP that an actual US university operates the house-rivalry storyline so wonderfully portrayed by Rowling.
But you’re right to correct me: I shouldn’t have implied that Rowling mimicked Yale. They both drew from the same sources – but it’s amazingly easy to describe Yale’s residential college system as “howart’s like” and every head in the room nods in unison.
Notre Dame’s dorms have great rivalry and are a great source of social cohesion – but the communal intimacy with Yale’s live-in Deans and Masters and their families, the colleges’ own dining halls and quads – sets Yale apart, IMHO. Harvard’s house system differs slightly in that assignments are made 2nd year. By grabbing incoming freshmen, Yale’s residential colleges indoctrinate them early and profoundly!
Wonder what Durmstrang and Beauxbatons would look like?
Science library at Wooster is actually quite gorgeous and Harry Potteresque. As is the dining hall at Kenyon. Bryn Mawr College is largely Gothic architecture, so has strong resemblance (Thomas Great Hall, anyone?).
And where is the Salem Witches’ Institute?
For Durmstrang, you may want to google Eilean Donan castle (it’s in Scotland, too, just transport it mentally to the Norwegian/Russian border). For Beauxbatons, try Ecole Normale Superieure or Sciences Po in Paris. Yes, of course it would be in Paris!
We toured CalTech which only has ~ 1,000 undergrads – that’s only ~250 per class size. Their dorms are based on a theme and the incoming freshmen students rotate dorms the 1st few weeks to see what is the best fit. They then write down their 1st three choices of dorms and await the selection process to take its course. I guess it’s a pretty cool process if your IQ is 8 billion but I found the concept to be very Harry Potterish.
@DarkStar904 I’m super enthusiastic about Caltech’s house system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_System_at_the_California_Institute_of_Technology). Only thing I can’t figure out is what the students do with all their stuff while the Sorting Hat is thinking for a week. Moving in twice seems kind of difficult – and students won’t have their parents there to help the second time around.
@foosondaughter - Perhaps that’s one of the reasons Caltech makes the 1st semester Pass/Fail only. This allows the students time to adapt to the culture and bond with the other intellects. Perhaps moving day is just another way for the incoming freshman a way to establish cohesiveness amongst one another. Kids are much more self-sufficient when mom & dad aren’t around. Thanks for posting the Wiki link – there’s a lot of Caltech housing info that I wasn’t aware of until now. Very interesting.
Stuff? Have you seen the size of the dorm rooms at Caltech? There’s not much room for stuff.
Princeton.
Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL. The dining hall, in the old Ponce De Leon Hotel, is even transformed into Hogwarts Great Hall during “Harry Potter Month” in November.
http://www.flagler.edu/news-events/news/flagler-college-celebrates-harry-potter-month
City College of New York neo-gothic architecture (about 6 or 7 Buildings).
The Great Hall in Shepard Hall of City College of the City University of New York
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:City_College_of_New_York_01.JPG
I have been to the Flagler dining room and it is very impressive. As mentioned above, the Berry College in GA has a 27,000 acre campus in the North Georgia mountains which also resembles Hogwarts. The exterior shots of Hogwarts and Berry look very similar.
Nothing is as close to Harry Potter’s dining hall as Michigan’s Law Library.
Compare HP [url=<a href=“http://www.youbioit.com/files/newimages/6958/381/harry_potter_great_hall.jpg%5Dhere%5B/url”>http://www.youbioit.com/files/newimages/6958/381/harry_potter_great_hall.jpg]here[/url] and U of M [url=<a href=“https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4079/4800131095_c39cc656bf_b.jpg%5Dhere%5B/url”>https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4079/4800131095_c39cc656bf_b.jpg]here[/url].
I hear that UChicago is very similar to Hogwarts in both architecture and housing style.
Not a college–a prep school. The Refectory at Avon Old Farms School in CT looks quite like Hogwarts.