Inspiration

The 56 Prettiest College Campuses in America

From ivy-covered brick buildings on the East Coast to Spanish colonial quads out west.
University of Michigan one of the prettiest college campuses in America
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From the late 19th-century stone cottages of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania to the myriad Spanish-style buildings at the California Institute of Technology, some of the prettiest college campuses in America boast some of the world’s best architectural masterpieces. And whether the collection of stylish structures are centuries-old or brand new, they offer more than a simple place to study and sleep. In fact, many of them—especially those whose design was conceived by famous architects—were built to inspire.

Here, we’ve gathered 56 of the most show-stopping college campuses in the United States, from California to Vermont. So if you’re applying to college or graduate school and need some visual inspiration to inform your decision, consider this list your go-to guide. Otherwise, if you happen to be in the same city as one of these storied institutions, do yourself a favor and stroll around campus. Who knows? You might learn something.

This gallery was last published in August 2018. It has been updated with new information.

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    Auburn University, Alabama

    Easily one of the most recognizable buildings on campus, Samford Hall stands on Auburn University’s former central building, known as Old Main. In 1887, Old Main burned down and Samford Hall, which still stands today, was built. Ever the sentimentalists, the architects behind the new building used salvaged bricks from Old Main.

    Until the late 19th century, Samford Hall served as the university’s main academic building and library. Today, however, the historic structure houses the institutions administration offices.

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    Airforce Academy, Colorado Springs

    While many of the prettiest college campuses have a uniform design across their buildings, service academies add to that with a student body outfitted in strictly enforced uniforms as well. At the Air Force Academy, the mid-century master plan for the school, managed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, brought the beauty of modern design into the institution. The Cadet Chapel is one standout example: The angular, pointed, religious building was contested at first, but is now considered one of the centerpieces of the campus and was designated a National Landmark in 2004.

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    Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts

    Come for the education from this “Little Ivy,” but stay for the myriad of colors during the fall foliage season. Walking around the campus, it’s easy to look around and mistake any view for a painting of New England seen in a museum—and the 500 acres of the campus that is designated as a wildlife sanctuary don't hurt.

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    Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

    Bard’s mishmash of architecture makes it truly one of a kind. Wander between Blithewood Manor’s walled Italian gardens, the Greek Revival-style Hoffman Memorial Library, and Frank Gehry’s titanium-clad, contemporary Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. The intentional hodgepodge (the library is actually three styles: Greek Revival, postmodern, and brutalist) always surprises.

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    Baylor University, Waco, Texas

    Of all the Georgian architecture on Baylor’s campus, the Draper Academic Building is the most beautiful of all, sitting on the edge of Burleson Quadrangle. But we’d also suggest beating the heat in the McLean Foyer of Meditation inside the university’s Armstrong Browning Library. It’s designed, oddly enough, after London’s opulent Leighton House Museum.

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    Berry College, Rome, Georgia

    It may be one of the nation’s smaller colleges with just 2,000 students, but Berry College’s campus is anything but cramped. The campus covers 27,000 acres dotted with lush greenery and beautiful, gothic buildings. The Ford Dining Hall is the college’s most memorable feature—uproot the building and its neighboring English Gothic-style dorms to the British countryside, and they’d be right at home.

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    Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania

    Thanks to its Collegiate Gothic architecture, you can see nods to Oxford and Cambridge all over Bryn Mawr: the towers and gables of the Marjorie Walter Goodhart Theater, the open courtyard of the Cloisters, and the beloved Pembroke Hall, where original fireplaces still roar in the winter. For the best campus experience, visit for its annual May Day celebrations when students dance around the school’s maypoles.

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    Colgate University, Hamilton, New York

    Colgate's upstate New York campus is perfect for leaf-peeping in the fall—its 575 acres of hills are dotted with 2,300 trees, including sugar maples. The school's oldest building, West Hall, dates back to 1827, and was crafted by both faculty and students from stone mined from the school's own quarry. The campus also has 10 miles of walkways, ideal for walking on a nice spring day.

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  • Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, New York

    With New York City’s restaurants just a train ride away, the Culinary Institute of America removes will-be chefs from the bustle of the city, placing them on a serene campus on the edge of the Hudson River. Many of the school’s beautiful brick buildings can be recognized by the names of their donors, many of which are the country’s leading hospitality and food sources: Hilton, Marriott, and Colavita, among others.

  • College of the Desert, Palm Desert, California

    The College of the Desert doesn’t hide anything with its name, and yet there’s a strange beauty to this school. No, old stonework and buildings coated with ivy will not be found here. Instead, the school is on one of the most beautiful college campuses, surrounded with meticulously crafted palm trees, mid-century styled buildings, and expansive views of the Coachella Valley (yes, that Coachella), Joshua Tree, and Mount San Jacinto State Park.

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    Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire

    Built around a lovely five-acre plot of manicured grass known as the Green, two of the oldest surviving buildings on campus are Wentworth and Thornton Halls from the 1820s—a stark contrast to the campus's modernist Hopkins Center designed by Wallace Harrison, the architect behind New York's Lincoln Center and United Nations Building. While there’s no bad time to visit this Ivy League institution, it’s definitely worth packing layers for winter’s cold spells.

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    Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

    Duke University is dominated by Collegiate Gothic buildings, most notably the towering, 210-foot-high Duke Chapel, with a 50-bell carillon, three pipe organs, and seating for no fewer than 1,800 people. But it's the Duke Forest and the Sarah P. Duke Gardens that are the real highlights here—the latter was designed by celebrated American landscape designer Ellen Biddle Shipman, and is filled with a world-class array of irises, palms, and roses.

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    Flagler College, St. Augustine

    Not many college campuses can claim that they used to be a luxury hotel, let alone one that hosted Mark Twain, President Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway, Martin Luther King Jr., and Zora Neale Hurston. The Ponce de Leon Hotel opened in 1888, and was one of the first buildings in the country to open with built-in electricity. As you'd hope, the college has maintained the entire structure, right down to the Tiffany stained glass windows. Go in the summer to experience it in full vacation mode as it was intended.

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    Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina

    The most striking feature of Furman’s lakeside campus is the six-story Florentine bell tower, but the Asia Gardens are the real treat. Thanks to the South’s warmer climate, the weather allows for a wide array of Japanese and Chinese plants to grow lush. The free garden is filled with bamboo, azalea, Japanese maples, and more—making the walk to class in that humid Southern heat a little more pleasant.

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    Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

    Walking around Washington, D.C., it’s easy to feel a sense of awe at the city’s history. And all of that energy is also channelled through Georgetown, which is home to some of the brightest students in the country—many of whom ultimately move across town to work in the capitol. Few things beat being atop “The Hill,” looking down over the Potomac River, or standing in the shadow of Healy Hall, a National Historic Landmark designed by the same team behind the Library of Congress.

  • Gonzaga University, Spokane

    Nestled along the sunny side of the state in Spokane, Washington’s Gonzaga University may have the best of both worlds with the natural wildlife of the Pacific Northwest, minus the rainfall that rival Washington State usually experiences throughout the school year. The 152-acre campus is dotted with handsome, brick buildings along the Spokane River, and changes with four distinct seasons—a point of pride for the West Coast school.

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    Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts 

    People criss-cross Harvard Yard—the university's beautiful historic quad—all day long, but it's the quieter nooks, archways, and quads that make this Ivy Leaguer stand out. Students dine in Annenberg Hall, the closest thing on this side of the Atlantic to the Hogwarts great room, and take their books to Dudley Garden, a little eden between Wigglesworth Hall and Lamont Library. If these names sound like something you’d read in a story about a fictional school, it’s because these halls and buildings often inspired them. (Don’t miss watching the sunset over the Charles River.)

  • Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio

    Perhaps more than any other school, Kenyon College is the definition of a “liberal arts” college. With a healthy mix of outdoor art installations, natural forests and greenery, winding walkways, and old stone buildings, this campus looks perfectly suited for a movie about a creative’s college life. (Maybe that’s why the 2012 indie film aptly titled “Liberal Arts” was set here.) The school is beautiful inside and out, with several academic halls boasting a mix of century-old stone, wooden beams, and modern glass in old-meets-new designs.

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  • Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 

    Packed to the brim with old stone buildings, Lehigh's appreciation of the arts is no secret. Chosen alumni, dating back to the school’s founding in 1865, are cast as sculptures atop the campus’s buildings (no small shoes to fill). The school is also home to the Lehigh University Art Galleries which has over 16,000 works, including some by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Gustave Courbet, and Marsden Hartley. Step into the sculpture garden, where art students are often spotted sketching the pieces as practice.

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    Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

    Just off the coast of Lake Michigan, Northwestern’s 240-acre campus appeals to students, who take advantage of the chance to yacht or kayak along the waterfront in summer, and cozy up in lounges through frosty nights in the winter. Settled in the pretty town of Evanston, just a short ride from Chicago, the school also incorporates some of Chicago’s impressive architectural feats, with halls designed in Victorian Gothic styles and just enough ivy growing up the sides of each of them.

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    Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

    Covered in trees and grassy hillsides, Oberlin College has a certain music in the air as one strolls across campus—though perhaps that’s just the sound of students rehearsing around every corner. The school has become a bastion for the creative, with everyone from playwrights to composers flocking to Oberlin for the highest form of artistic education. The practice continues even between classes, as musicians spread out on the lawn with friends and casually pick, strum, and play for hours.

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    Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

    Princeton has that classic college aesthetic down: Old buildings, shady trees, and manicured lawns in a perfect shade of green characterize the campus. And though it sits between Philadelphia and New York, it’s far enough that it feels serene and remote. Many of the original buildings, done in the classic Collegiate Gothic style, are still used as dorms (thankfully updated inside), and everyone from politics to physics students get schooled inside buildings designed by 20th-century greats like Frank Gehry, I.M. Pei, and Rafael Viñoly. For anyone making the most of their visit, the record store in nearby Princeton Junction is an essential stop.

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    Rhodes College, Memphis

    Built in the heart of Memphis in 1848, this school is a monument to stone buildings. The campus always looks immaculate, in no small part thanks to the school’s heavy emphasis on community service. But another reason the campus stands out? The stone buildings that wrap around the central quad are composed of various stones in different shades of warm natural colors, making each facade appear like a mosaic baked in the Southern sun.

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    Salve Regina University, Newport, Rhode Island

    Tucked in between the summer home mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, Salve Regina has nothing but charm to give its visitors and students. The school was founded over a century ago as a place to care for the nation’s poor by a wealthy Dublin expat named Catherine McAuley, who had devoted herself to the Religious Sisters of Mercy in 1831. Today, the school reflects a scenic New England sensibility, for those who want to overlook the water while studying everything from accounting to world religions.

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    Southern Methodist University, Dallas

    The Southern Methodist University campus is famous for its vast green lawns where faculty regularly hold outdoor classes. On game days, head to the tree-lined stretch called the Boulevard, where you'll find football tailgating (or "boulevarding,” as it's known here). This is no “pull up your pick-up in a parking lot” affair either, as tailgating is considered the most important meal of the day: Alumni and students mingle under white tents filled with couches, flat screens, and chandeliers, over elaborate spreads of food and drink.

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    Stanford University, Stanford, California

    Despite being just a stone’s throw away from some of the biggest tech companies in the world, Stanford doesn’t look like the modernist utopia that it is for some. Aesthetically, the school features a Spanish Colonial style in its buildings, like the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Performing Arts and the Memorial Church replete with enclosed courtyards, red tile roofs, and sandstone walls. Though the school was badly damaged during an earthquake in 1906, Stanford chose to keep its classic style when rebuilding.

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  • SUNY Geneseo, Geneseo, New York

    Set in Western New York, near Buffalo, the State University of New York Geneseo campus is a beautiful one. A quick Google search will return photos of bushy green trees and green lawns, sure, but that’s not the Geneseo you need to see. Winter, when the campus is covered in a pristine blanket of white snow (an average of 51 inches a year), is even more picturesque. While the architecture of Sturges and Fraser Hall, a more modest blend of Georgian and Collegiate Gothic stylings, stand out in the summer months, it's when they’re contrasted in a brilliant white snowfall that really leaves an impression.

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    Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York

    Whether it's sledding down gentle hills in the harsh winter months or flocking out into the quad when the weather starts to change, the upstate New York town of Syracuse has a lot to offer students. You'll find them on the slope in front of Crouse College, a Romanesque revival-style castle that proudly overlooks campus, and laying out on the quad beside the ivy-covered Bowne Hall, Carnegie Library, and Hendricks Chapel (the latter was modeled after the Pantheon). Look out for the modern glass facade of Newhouse 3, one of three buildings within Syracuse's communications school—the First Amendment is inscribed on the outer west wall.

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    United States Military Academy, West Point, New York

    The United States Military Academy, also known as West Point, has a certain uniformed beauty to its campus—and that’s not counting the plethora of men and women in uniform marching around the campus. From Trophy Point, visitors can look out over the Hudson River where some of the most famous generals and presidents in American history once stood as student cadets. In fact, many of the buildings are now named after them, like the campus’s theater, Eisenhower Hall. For the best time to see the school, visit in the fall when the leaves change.

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    University of California, Los Angeles

    The University of California Los Angeles is a Bel Air oasis, the kind that makes you forget the Los Angeles traffic you sat in to get there. You won't want to miss the Romanesque Revival Powell Library and Royce Hall (both of which are modeled on Milan's Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio). The real winner though is UCLA's Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden. It's one of the best in the country, with 70 works on display including pieces by Auguste Rodin, Alexander Calder, Hans Arp, and Barbara Hepworth.

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    University of Chicago, Chicago

    Seven miles south of the city's downtown Loop, the University of Chicago campus was designed to resemble Oxford University, though it's now home to one bold exception: the ultra-contemporary, 2011-designed Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, set underground and topped with an elliptical glass dome. Look out for the mammoth Henry Moore sculpture, Nuclear Energy, a few feet away, which sits on the site of the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Some of the most impressive homes in American architecture can be found just a few blocks away, too, like Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House.

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    University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri

    Mizzou, the first public university west of the Mississippi, is most widely known for its powerhouse athletics program and expansive academic options. But the main campus is also, in its entirety, a designated botanic garden. There's a lot to take in: Neoclassic and Neo Gothic buildings (some of which are listed in the National Register of Historic Places), ornate facades and columns, a butterfly garden, and numerous pedestrian and bicycle paths. The six stone columns at the center of the quad are still standing as relics of the former portico of Academic Hall.

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    University of Notre Dame, Indiana

    People who are heading to Notre Dame typically like one of two things very, very much—football and religion. While the academic rigor of the theology program at Notre Dame is well known, plenty of students also see the school’s football team as their own religion of sorts. But the campus is also celebrated as well: Did you know that the team’s golden helmets are a nod to the campus’s Main Building dome? The gold dome quickly becomes a focal point of any tour, as do the various statues of Christ and the Virgin Mary which blesses the Grotto.

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    University of San Diego, CA

    This southern California school’s Plateresque buildings are a perfect backdrop to the expansive green lawns of the campus. While the school is a short drive from the beach, students often roam the grounds, where Spanish design influences in everything from architecture to landscaping—all with the California-cool attitude that draws students and locals alike to San Diego in the first place.

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    University of Southern California, Los Angeles

    With classic red-brick buildings, weeping willows, and students sprawled out on grassy knolls year-round, the University of Southern California feels like everything the movies told you college would be—and not only because so many movies have used this Los Angeles–based campus as their set. Doheny Library is a favorite spot on campus, thanks to its dramatic, high-ceilinged study halls and elegant nooks and crannies spread over several floors. But the real highlight is the courtyard of the Cinema School (thanks to donations from none other than George Lucas and Steven Spielberg) which lays it on thick with sun-drenched Mediterranean architecture—and some of the campus's most fascinating people-watching.

  • University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah

    For a state university, University of Utah makes the most of every one of its 1,535 acres in the Wasatch Mountain Range. With lush green spaces in the warmer months, and plenty of fields blanketed in snow as the weather grows colder, Utah’s massive campus requires shuttles to get to and from certain points. An edible garden on campus, sponsored by the school’s sciences and sustainability departments and managed by student volunteers, sells some of its harvest at campus farmer’s markets, with the rest donated to charity Feed U.

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    Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 

    Students write odes to “Vandy” in springtime, when the university's canopy of trees drop a blanket of pink and white flowers on pathways, urging everyone to take their homework outside to the lawns. Postcard-perfect Kirkland Hall, with its red-brick clock tower straight out of a doo-wop scene, is a stately backdrop to it all. Not to mention, just a short walk outside the campus gates, the city’s best chicken (found at McDougal’s on Belcourt Avenue, no contest) is readily available to bring back on campus.

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    Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia

    While many old colleges are clad in beautiful stonework, the buildings on Virginia Tech’s campus all feature the locally sourced “Hokie Stone.” Brought to the campus from nearby limestone quarries outside Blacksburg, Virginia, the renovation of the school’s buildings dates back to the university’s fifth president during the turn of the 20th century. At the time, the school’s buildings were primarily made from brick, and university president Joseph D. Eggleston sought to use limestone of the area to model buildings closer to institutions like Oxford and Cambridge.

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    Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

    Wake Forest's Reynolda Campus blends the built and natural worlds with steeples and domed roofs peeking out above the ground’s lush greenery and treelines. The quad earns major bragging rights, flanked by the gorgeous Wait Chapel and titular Reynolda Hall buildings, but the botanical aspects of the campus are the true stars here—don't leave without taking a walk through Reynolda Gardens, made up of 125 acres of wetlands, fields, forests, and trails.

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    Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut

    Spanning 316 acres in Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University features a prominent display of Greek Revival architecture throughout its 340 buildings. The main quad is surrounded by four beautiful buildings: Harriman Hall, Shanklin Hall, the former Hall Chemistry Building, and the main attraction, Olin Library—all of which were designed by legendary architecture firm McKim, Mead, and White, the creators of Penn Station and the Brooklyn Museum, among other triumphs.

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    William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia

    There’s more than just pretty old buildings on William & Mary’s campus. The school plays host to the oldest collegiate building still standing in the United States, with the Sir Christopher Wren Building built between 1695 and 1700. The school’s history reaches back to the earliest days of the nation, too. Three presidents have attended the school: Jefferson, Monroe, and Tyler. The origins of the school began as a royal decree from King William III and Queen Mary II, making it the second oldest college in the country, after Harvard. That level of history is spread throughout this campus and gives visitors a look into the past at every turn.

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    Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

    New Haven isn’t exactly an idyllic college town, but Yale University’s sprawling campus makes up for it. With buildings designed by the likes of Eero Saarinen, Paul Rudolph, and Philip Johnson, Yale’s main campus is among the most stunning in the world. In fact, one of the most eye-catching structures is the Osborn Memorial Laboratories, built in 1913 by architect Charles C. Haight.

    Though it was built more than a century ago, Osborn Memorial isn’t even one of the university’s oldest structures. Some of them, including Connecticut Hall, were built shortly after the school opened in 1701. Connecticut Hall, designed by Thomas Clap in the 1760s, is the only surviving building on Old Brick Row.

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    Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia

    There are few towns more charming than Lexington, Virginia, which is home to Washington and Lee, one of the country’s oldest universities. Originally opened in 1749 as the Augusta Academy, Washington and Lee is a small liberal arts college that boasts around 2,000 undergraduate students.

    One of the most beautiful buildings on campus is the Lee Chapel, which is named after Robert E. Lee, the university’s president from 1865 until 1870, was built in the mid-19th-century. His son, however, suggested the Victorian design. The chapel may be a religious building, but it was also Lee’s main office, the treasurer’s office, and the main library.

    The rest of the campus is just as quaint. The Colonnade, for instance, is a row of small brick buildings, all of which are designated National Historic Landmarks.

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    Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri

    Walking through Washington University in St. Louis’ main campus, otherwise known as Danforth, is like a stroll through a small European town. Most of the buildings, including Green Hall, are Gothic-inspired structures clad in pale bricks. Plus, several of them are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Though Danforth isn’t as old as the original downtown location, which was where WashU stood between 1853 until 1905, most of the buildings predate the 20th century.

    The new campus, Danforth, was carefully planned by the prestigious landscape architecture firm Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot (the same group behind Atlanta’s Piedmont Park), who took over nearly 200 acres west of the original campus.

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    University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

    Easily one of the University of Texas at Austin’s most distinguishing landmarks, the 307-foot UT Austin Tower was completed in 1937. The Beaux-Arts-style structure was designed by French-American architect Paul Cret to serve as the central library for the college’s 62,000 students. Like any university library with an impressive book collection, the stacks are enormous, rising 27 stories above the reading rooms on the ground floor.

    The main campus features more than 150 buildings, including seven museums and 17 libraries, making it a solid choice for a long stroll.

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    University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

    Ann Arbor’s University of Michigan may be more famous for its academic program and top-tier football team than it is for its Gothic-inspired aesthetic, but the beautiful buildings scattered throughout the massive campus are worth an extended glance or two. The law school, for instance, is where the university’s architectural tour de force, Allan F. and Alene Smith Library, resides.

    Though it looks like it’s been standing for at least several centuries, the stone structure known as the Law Quad, with its iconic arched doorway, was opened in 1934. It boasts a similar look to the university’s oldest still-active academic building, Mason Hall, which was built nearly a century earlier.

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    Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania

    Situated in its namesake Pennsylvania town, Swarthmore College was founded in 1864 and many of the buildings still standing on campus were built shortly afterward. In fact, Parish Hall, built in 1869, was the first building on campus. Technically, it burned down a decade or so later, but it was rebuilt to look exactly like the original. The Escheresque-style building separates the academic buildings from the residential ones on campus.

    The college is most famous for its idyllic gardens, including the Scott Arboretum, a 300-acre preserve that houses colorful flora and trees. The pièce de résistance, though, is the outdoor amphitheater whose stone steps are draped in greenery.

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    Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont

    Though there are talks about replacing Middlebury College’s most beloved first-year residence hall, Battell Hall, the circa 1955 white clapboard building is cloaked in ivy in the warmer months. Most of the buildings on campus are much older, though, including the perfectly symmetrical Painter Hall, the oldest Vermont college building still standing. Starr Hall, along the Old Stone Row, was originally built in 1860, but it mostly burned down (on Christmas Eve, no less), and was rebuilt four years later. Today, it is a dormitory.

    The small liberal arts college with under 3,000 students and its series of charming cottages and manor-like structures is spread across 350 rural acres. The winter months may be unforgiving, but its worth it for a few weeks of unparalleled fall foliage.

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    Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon

    Founded in 1867—originally as the Albany Collegiate Institute in Albany, Oregon—it was relocated 75 miles north to Portland in 1938. Four years later, the institution officially changed its name to Lewis & Clark College, after its namesake explorers’ famed expedition through the U.S. With about 2,000 undergraduate students across 137 forested acres, Lewis & Clark College is home to some of the most beautiful buildings, including the Herman Brookman, and Rogers Hall-designed Frank Manor House, which now houses the office of undergraduate admissions.

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    Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

    Indiana University’s flagship campus, the Bloomington location has enough academic buildings to host the college’s 40,000 students. Though there is seemingly constant construction on campus, many of the structures are historic and date back to Indiana University’s reconstruction in the late 19th century. Plus, the institution sits on nearly 2,000 acres, more than half of which is dedicated green space.

    Not to mention, the campus was built on top of a bed of both Salem and Harrodsburg limestone, and many of the older buildings are made from local materials.

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    Howard University, Washington, D.C.

    Howard University, founded in 1867 by its namesake General Oliver Otis Howard, is one of the country’s few historically black institutions for higher education. Though the campus is chock-full of historic buildings, including the Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel, the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hall, and the Founders Library, many of the structures, designed by architect Albert Cassell, are relatively new.

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    Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL

    Perhaps the most prominent building on Florida State University’s campus, the Westcott Building, was erected in 1910 and served as the college’s administration building. In 1936, however, it was renamed the James D. Westcott, Jr. Memorial Building for the former Florida Supreme Court justice. The building, and the massive fountain in front of it, both sit at the entrance of the university to welcome visitors and students to campus. Today, the fountain is considered a symbol of unity and heritage of the university.

    Though a decent amount of buildings pre-date the university, none of them—most of which are redbrick—are not from the 19th century.

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    Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 

    One of Emory University’s most distinguishing architectural elements is its quad, which is shaped like a glass Coca-Cola bottle. Emory has a unique relationship with the beverage giant because, in 1979, the company’s president offered a massive amount of Coca-Cola stock to the university.

    Nestled along the grassy length of bottle-shaped quad is the Michael C. Carlos Museum, which was founded in 1876. The museum, one of the oldest in the state, houses objects from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Near East, and Africa. Like the museum, many of the college’s buildings, constructed using limestone, were part of Pittsburgh architect Henry Hornbostel’s Beaux-Arts plan for the Atlanta institution.

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    Elon University, Elon, North Carolina

    Split into seven neighborhoods, the 656-acre Elon University, in a small North Carolina town of the same name, is home to some of the country’s most spectacular architectural marvels, including those situated within the Historic Campus. Comprising six buildings, the oldest part of the university is perhaps the most charming on campus. All six, which were built between 1907 and 1929, were designed in the same Colonial Revival style.

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    California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA

    With an acceptance rate of just over six percent, the California Institute of Technology, known locally as CalTech, is one of the most exclusive institutions in America. Founded in 1891 in Pasadena, the university’s buildings are spread across 124 acres outside of downtown Los Angeles.

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    Boston College, Newton, Massachusetts

    Boston College doesn’t boast a traditional college campus. Instead, the 19th-century university’s buildings are scattered throughout the city along the Charles River. The main campus, called Chestnut Hill, features a collection of 120 buildings overlooking the reservoir.