My college's big rival is Number 7. And while I wouldn't give Drexel any beauty prizes, it also isn't the ugliest I've seen.

As some of the commenters noted, the 20-ugliest reviewer has a serious hate-on for modern architecture. None of the pictures evoked any kind of classic Ivy League serene loveliness, but some of them were just... modern. Kind of cool, just not ivy and bricks and dramatic archways.

And I can't believe my college got snubbed on the 20 most beautiful list. Pepperdine, the single most beautiful college campus in the entire US? Please. It's pretty and all, but it's not all that and a bag of words, and certainly not all that and a bag of words more than every other college in the country.

My college's big rival is Number 7.

And it's a very ugly place... but the part I found odd with that choice is that they could've picked from plenty of much, much uglier buildings to use as an illustration. That's actually one of the better ones.

As some of the commenters noted, the 20-ugliest reviewer has a serious hate-on for modern architecture. None of the pictures evoked any kind of classic Ivy League serene loveliness, but some of them were just... modern.

I actually thought they did a fair job of distinguishing modern-that-failed from just-plain-looks-like-a-bunker. Not that there was no anti-modern bias there, but it was a bit more nuanced than just "you only like fakey-gothic (or fakey-georgian)" as some of the comments would have it.

Signed, slow day, thinking way too much about this.

Mine is 14. i knew it would be on there. The most common architectural feature is, after all, one called a wart. Mmmm, cinderblock.

I figured bear cans were theose things that you put your food in that bears can't open unless they have a quarter. Which would be an odd thing to collect, but, hey, dream.

I'm shocked that my college didn't make the list.

We fugly: [link]

I actually thought they did a fair job of distinguishing modern-that-failed from just-plain-looks-like-a-bunker.

Ehn, I really disliked the sneering at UCSD and the other CA colleges, all of which certainly have their share of now-dated mid-century-to-70s modern stuff but also a lot of really striking work. I really kind of liked the building in the picture the author chose to demonstrate UCSD's obscene ugliness.

Dressing and decorating and painting our apartment and trying to make Hec's knickknack and art collection and mine make sense together over the last couple of years have all made me spend much too much time in "thinking way too much about this" mode, and about the line between "It's absolutely not my style, but I recognize its value" and "It's a piece of ugly crap and I hate it." I can't even point to where that line lies, but I did get a vague sense from reading the 20-best and 20-worst lists together that the listmaker is somewhere on the far side of it.

No way Drexel is the ugliest college. We used to call them Orange Brick U, but the orange brick buildings aren't ugly, just...bright. And I don't know what Bama is doing on the most beautiful list. It's just kind of generically collegiate, IMHO.

I'm kinda shocked Northeastern got the nod over B.U., but maybe we need an actual campus to be considered. Some of the acadmic buildings are nice, but Warren Towers looks like a prison block.

The campuses I know best, Penn and UW, are a mixture of the gorgeous and unfortunate, which, in a way, gives them a nice, lived-in look. They've grown over time and so have buildings reflecting a variety of architectural trends, budget crunches and splurges, and the like.

And I do tend to prefer old-school architecture to the modern kind--sometimes I feel like my aesthetic century is the 18th, and none of the fashions have been quite as beautiful after 1815 or so, be they music, architecture, clothing, or whatever. But I definitely differentiate between "not my style, but attractive for what it is" and "OMG WTF were they thinking?!"

Modern architecture is often much nicer on the inside than the outside, imho.

What looks like a barely clever box with some sort of jaunty roof angle ends up being this airy bathed in light space with amazing views and flow.