re: Rate the SEC Campuses that you have been on by beauty

Auburn
Alabama
Texas
Georgia

Ole Miss


Florida

A&M

Miss St

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Best true College towns:
Athens
Oxford
Auburn

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Yep, you have to draw the distinction between “campus” and “college town”. Some are arranged with a nice college town wrap of a bad campus, like Arkansas. Others are nice campus, with an immediately adjacent Mogadishu area, like LSU. Some are just meh in both respects, like Houston.

I’ve worked at Rutgers, VA Tech, Rice, NC State, UNC, Duke, Clemson, Houston, Charleston, AL, UAB, USA, Emory, UGA, GaTech, FSU, UF, Auburn, Alabama, Arizona State, Utah, ECU, LSU, Maryland, Texas, Michigan, Vanderbilt, UT, OSU, TexasTech, Arkansas, Northwestern, UW, Akron, Kentucky, and several dozen smaller colleges.

No better college campus from a layout/architecture perspective than Rice, though the surrounding footprint is not worthy of ‘college town’. The best college town - integration of the edge of campus with campus - is Michigan, though the campus architecture and master plan is nothing to write home about- it’s like UF, a nice ‘old campus’ that bleeds right into meh new space. Best integration of both is probably noted above, though all three still have some tired design and to-be-razed brutalist trash.

College architecture, from the standpoint of buildings designed to stand on their own as an individual element, was abandoned in the late 80s for ‘stick to the Master Plan’ (every school has one) and the palettes of materials (all projects at VT shall include Hokie Stone). So few are trying anything new, the exception being ASU.

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Yeah, some of those Big 10 schools don’t look good at all. Michigan’s law quad is a special place. The rest of the main campus is a mess.

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Maybe it’s just me, but I find it really weird that people give money to a school that they paid to go to. Do these same people send money to Sam Walton because they shopped at Walmart?

Vanderbilt, LSU, Ole Miss, Auburn, Alabama, Arkansas



Everyone else …

Alabama is also very well maintained. So is Ole Miss

Never been to MSU, obviously

It's a fine campus

Beauty of the campus or beauty on the campus?

Auburn is my favorite either way

LSU's campus was originally laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted, who also helped design Stanford. Theodore Link was the architect that introduced its Italianate architecture nestled in the Live Oaks. It's quite impressive. LSU is one of my largest clients, and I always love visiting.

Vanderbilt is known for its Arboretum with has over 6000 trees. It's really a beautiful campus.

The core at Ole Miss including the Grove, Ventress and Lyceum is a very nice.

Oklahoma has a very unique architecture in several of its core known as "Cherokee Gothic." The library is gorgeous.

Arkansas
Alabama
Ole Miss
LSU
Tennessee
Miss St

LSU is horrible.