This historic Kentucky university was ranked among the 50 most beautiful in the country
Transylvania University — a private liberal arts school in downtown Lexington — has been named one of the most beautiful college campuses in America, according to an analysis of online reviews by College Rover.
The college evaluation website looked at the percentage of Yelp and TripAdvisor reviews mentioning the word “beautiful” to put together its list of the top 50 most beautiful college campuses in the U.S.
As it turns out, Transylvania did pretty well. It even beat some bigger name, Ivy League schools. Here’s how the university did in the analysis and what to know about it.
How does Transylvania University compare to others?
Almost half of the online reviews College Rover looked at for its assessment described Transylvania University’s campus as beautiful — 47% to be exact. That puts Transylvania dead even with St. Louis University, Harding University in Arkansas, the College of New Jersey and Northwestern University in Chicago.
Transylvania University, which is a small school with a fall 2021 enrollment of just 971 students, even did better than several Ivy Leagues, including Princeton (44%) and Brown (44%).
The top five colleges in College Rover’s ranking of the most beautiful are:
Davidson College in North Carolina
Rhodes College in Tennessee
Sewanee: The University of the South in Tennessee
Washington and Lee University in Virginia
Going state by state, College Rover picked Maine as having the highest number of beautiful college campuses.
The University of North Dakota is the most beautiful and affordable college campus, the ranking found, averaging an annual tuition of $11,546, according to College Rover.
The South, meanwhile, is the place to be when it comes to beautiful college campuses, since it has more than any other region in the U.S.
You’d better start studying if you want to attend one of these colleges, however. According to College Rover, the average SAT score needed to get in is 1296. On the ACT, which is more common in Kentucky, that equates to a composite score between 27 and 28, according to the assessment’s concordance table.
What should I know about Transylvania University?
For starters, Transylvania University is one of the oldest universities in the country and Kentucky’s first. It was founded in 1780 and boasts a rich history. According to its website, famed statesman Henry Clay taught law there as a professor and was a member of its board.
It counts among its alumni the founder of Texas Stephen Austin, abolitionist Cassius Clay, U.S. Vice presidents John Breckinridge and Richard Johnson, as well as Supreme Court justices John Marshall Harlan and Samuel Freeman Miller. As many as 50 U.S. senators, 101 Congress men and women, 36 state governors and 34 ambassadors number among its graduates.
Transylvania University is also notable for its strong academic, greek and athletic life. The university competes in National Collegiate Athletics Association Division III sports. It’s also notable for helping to bring football to Kentucky, playing against Centre College in 1880 in what was likely the first game ever played in the South.
Of course, the university also boasts a beautiful campus in the heart of Lexington. Old Morrison, originally erected in 1834, still stands on the campus. Architect Gideon Shryock, the father of Greek Revival architecture in Kentucky, designed and oversaw construction of the building, which is now a national historic landmark, according to the National Park Service.
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