Best campuses
Just did a 21-college tour of the NE with my daughter and have to say, I came away convinced Michigan has one of the best campuses in America. The diag is an ideal centerpiece, the buildings are distinctive and the campus blends into the town. Cornell might be more picturesque, but campustown is like a mile down a steep hill.
Haven't been everywhere, but I haven't seen a better campus when it comes to character and functionality. What do people think?
Side note -- Rutgers is much nicer than I expected.
Ann Arbor is the best.
Malik McDowell wasn't feeling it.
Not enough supervisors
Not enough "free" trucks.
Ann Arbor is great, but I would add both Madison and Bloomington as quintessential, top-notch college towns, in some ways superior to A2, TBH.
Never been to Madison or Bloomington. What are some of the reasons that may make them better than Ann Arbor? Thanks.
Never been to Bloomington. On Madison: In isolation the campus doesn't have much, if anything, on Michigan, but it's on a lake (which is somewhat picturesque and not too stagnant) and the surrounding area feels more "collegy" and less corporate than Ann Arbor (where you see mostly establishments that can afford really high rents). Madison has the capitol and is a more interesting place in some ways (not all).
I've heard people complain that Michigan's buildings don't fit together well and that the campus boundaries are murky. I think those are fair points.
A few I really like: Stanford, U Chicago, and (a bit of a dark horse here) South Carolina.
Wisconsin also has what has to be one of, if not the best student union in the country (actually, they have two, but one is more famous and popular). Their Memorial Union has an outdoor terrace that sits right on the lake, with great food, beer and paddlboards/kayaks for rent, as well as an indoor German Rathskeller that's an awesome place to hang out. Madison might be one of the best places imaginable to spend a summer and fall. Winter is definitely a different story, though.
My grandfather went to Wisconsin, and in 2002 when he heard I was visiting there to watch hockey (back in the old Showcase days) he told me about how he used to hang out in the Rathskeller a lot. So I went and hung out there and gave him a phone call.
Took my daughter when we went for the Michigan-Wisconsin football game in 17, too. Multiple generations. They've updated parts of it to look more modern, but there's still a lot of the old character there.
Pepperdine. Un-fucking-believable. Perched on a hillside overlooking Malibu and the Pacific Ocean.
I worked next door to Pepperdine for 9 years. The views are extraordinary, but the place really lacks the feel of a college setting. There’s really nothing to do there except go to the beach.
"There’s really nothing to do there except go to the beach."
I take it that that's a bad thing?
UCSB is pretty similar, and has a more laid back vibe. It's well worth checking out.
I guess if there is a knock against the Michigan campus, it might be that it does not always meld very cleanly into the surrounding sections of Ann Arbor, and has outposts in sections where you might not expect them in other setups. It does create a situation where you truly get to see the city, but I can see where this might be confusing / frustrating to some people.
Living here in Columbia, yes, I can say that S Carolina is a very cool campus. The horseshoe area is a lot like the diag I’m A2. I like the campus a lot. It’s also intertwined with the city a lot like UM is.
Been to Columbia a couple of times, and have to say it isn’t the nicest city in the world. Also, been to a game at South Carolina and they are hands down the worst college football fans I have ever been around c.
Bloomington is a beautiful campus, Lake Monroe also a fine lake for summer time fun. But the town itself isn’t ideal outside the campus IMO. Very rural, coming from someone that lives in that environment it’s nice to be in the metro area. Born in Ann Arbor living in Pendleton IN. I’d still say UofM campus is better a lot more diverse eating as well.
I have a friend who goes to Indiana and I had a blast visiting and Bloomington is really nice, but the biggest issue is how large and sprawling the campus and city are. You basically need to bus or drive a car everywhere or else its a pretty far walk
Can't ignore the town in which the college sits, and you can't even say Bloomington is like a poor man's Ann Arbor. It's more like a homeless man's Ann Arbor. People can disagree about Ann Arbor/UM vs Wisconsin/Madison, but arguing for IU/Bloomington is tough.
I live in Bloomington. Have worked for IU. I enjoy B-Town, but it’s not even half as nice as Ann Arbor and the neighboring towns are worse than they neighboring towns to Ann Arbor. Bloomington has a lot to offer, but if my family wasn’t from the area I would never have considered Bloomington over Ann Arbor.
The IU campus is very nice. I can’t say much about Bloomington.
Based on personal bias UM and Ann Arbor will always be by far the best for me.
I have a son that goes to Miami (Ohio). Beautiful campus with a decent and adjacent small downtown. For a mid sized school in a smaller town it has a very nice campus and feel.
Thanks. We think that my daughter might do better at a small liberal arts college, and always have an ear to the ground for suggestions. Going googling to see how their women's soccer team is. . .
Hope's womens soccer team is full of a bunch of great girls
Calvin has just a gorgeous and exceptionally well maintained campus as well as a truly exceptional athletic building. On the downside it is in a suburban and fairly nondescript part of town.
Hope has the great soccer stadium. Downtown Holland is a nice walk. The bars are ok; the food is mediocre with the exception of the Windmill for an expensive breakfast.
The Calvin men's soccer team are perennial conference champions and have three, maybe four losses in the national championship game over the past 10 or 12 years. Five or so final fours. Women's soccer is not as good. D3 ... they'll have to finagle your money.
Calvin’s campus is monochromatically dull. There’s not one interesting or beautiful building on that campus. It’s also isolated.
Downtown Holland has many good bar and food options, all within a short walk of the dorms. Interestingly, The Windmill has about the worst food there.
I know holland very well. I was just going to say, I’m not sure I can take this man’s opinion seriously, at least his culinary opinion.
Spent a lot of time in Holland, sent a kid there. Go to GR for dinner. The food in Holland is mediocre and not worth the money from one end of 8th Street to the other.
Curragh has an adequate steak and an ok shepherd's pie, along with a nice kind of chamber-ish Irish jam band mostly made up of professor types, occasionally on a random afternoon. Beyond that, they could roll up the sidewalks most nights by 10 ... 11 on a big event night were they not now cement. Sidewalks are heated though. After that it looks a lot better than it tastes.
Great guitar store, more pedals than you've ever seen in your life.
And should you want some pug ugly architecture, check out the building housing Hope's school of architecture. The rest of the campus is a thrown together mess with the exception of Graves Hall which is gorgeous.
Nice school full of real good kids, reasonably priced by comparison to other liberal arts colleges, pretty strong in science and the arts, but not real pretty and in a seriously overrated town.
Hope doesn’t have a school of architecture.
Hope has some ugly buildings, but also some beautiful ones. Calvin’s buildings all look alike, and they’re all about the equivalent of the ugly buildings on Hope’s campus
You can get an excellent steak at either Butch’s or 76 in downtown Holland. Hops prepares some good food as well, as does Waverly Stone. The beer scene is outstanding.
Oddly, roanman identifies downtown Holland’s two weakest restaurants as his favorites, while overlooking the two best.
Roanman don’t know shit. No mention of Butch’s or pereddies. Also tho not technically holland, west olive, beach house is a cool spot.
No one is saying holland is New York or Chicago culinary but for a sleepy beach town on Lake Michigan, it’s more than adequate
Don't knock Holland, because it's 10x better than it was 10-15 years ago. BTW, Calvin blows. Zero atmosphere.
I'll toss a big vote in for University of Washington. Say what you will about Seattle, but the campus is amazing in every way.
Kenyon has a beautiful campus. Hope's campus is a very nice one in the middle of a beautiful MI town. Bryn Mawr's campus is beautiful. Princeton's is great, as is Penn's. The rest of the Ivy's don't impress me much. UVA, of course.
Gambier OH is pretty much non-existent, but Kenyon's campus is picturesque.
Hope has beautiful campus, nice town, and is just a couple blocks from Lake Michigan.
I fell in love with Kenyon's campus when I visited and wound up going there for undergrad.
Look at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Forbes Magazine ranked it #1 in the world when it released its rankings in 2010. I did my undergraduate work at Kenyon, and then I went on to grad school at Michigan. Kenyon's campus would remind you of Princeton. Lots of collegiate Gothic architecture and green space.
Small liberal arts college, beautiful campus? Check out Colgate. The town it is in - Hamilton - is tiny however. Also, Lehigh.
I grew up in Holland, went to Calvin, and live in Chicago now but am still back in the Holland area fairly often to visit family. Both Hope & Calvin are great liberal arts colleges in my opinion.
Hope has better architecture and the better town. I wouldn't cite the Curragh (like the poster above) when talking about the food - New Holland Brewery, Hops, Butch's, Boatwerks, Captain Sundae (for dessert)...for a town that size I think there food options are respectable at minimum, depending on your taste. Downtown Holland has a nice feel to it, plus there are multiple nice beaches very close (Holland State Park, Tunnel Park).
Calvin's architecture is fairly boring, but they do have some state of the art facilities now and there is a lot of beautiful green area throughout the campus. It is much more isolated than Hope, as it is not intermingled with the town. As others have noted, it is located in a fairly boring part of town, but it is a short drive away from Eastown and a reasonable drive from downtown GR, so there is plenty to do.
When I hear "small liberal arts school", I think of a 2000 to 3000 student body, like an Otterbein. Miami of Ohio is not that.
Miami is very nice, but that state route that goes right through part of campus and carries a lot of truck traffic is weird, unless that has been rerouted in 20 years since I was last theee.
I thought Wake Forest was really nice. My alma mater is beautiful, but it's a small school in PA that no one has heard of... Susquehanna University. It more well know school down the road, Bucknell is also very pretty.
I have heard of the Abbott and Costello Susquehanna Hat factory bit though.
Don't ask me if I know where Bagel Street is. Embed for Board
Wake Forest is a beautiful campus and a very manageable size, but my biggest issue with it is you need a car to get anywhere off campus to buy groceries, go out to eat, etc. But besides that it feels like a country club private school with great weather
It is a great campus indeed. The diag is one of the great cornerstones of any campus.
A few others I love. UVA, Maryland, Ohio University, Arkansas, Texas Tech. UVA and Maryland both have beautiful green areas surrounding their campus centerpieces. Ohio is situated in as pretty of an environment as one could pick for a rural university. Arkansas has the Senior Walk which is among the greatest university traditions anywhere. And Texas Tech with the Spanish roofing.
Ohio University had an amazingly beautiful campus.
I was going to post something nice about Ohio U as well. Ohio U/Athens is like a mini UM/Ann Arbor. Downtown is adjacent to campus. Beautiful area too. 1st public university in the Midwest, so there's a bit of history as well.
UVA is beautiful especially in the fall. You can just feel the history there
Having lived in Charlottesville for six years, I can say their campus is the only one I've seen that compares to Michigan's. Definitely a different feel to it though, and I can see someone preferring one over the other. #1 and 2 in my book. Closely behind are UNC, Duke, Wisconsin. Dartmouth is pretty but small and it was frigid there when I visited.
Duke and UNC are nice but neither hold a candle to Michigan. Between Duke and UNC I give the edge to Duke. Durham is a small town that has really come a long way. It was a run down city just a short number of years ago but a ton of money is being invested in the city to build up the infrastructure. There are so many good restaurants, bars and shops now. It has become a foodie town. The Durham Bulls stadium looks like a MLB facility. Durham is a really cool place.