Most Beautiful Campus in the Big Ten

1. IU
2. Michigan
3. The land Northwestern sits on.
4. ?
5. ?
6. ?
7. ?
8. ?
9. ?
10. ?
11. MSU
12. Purdue

OSU and PSU are too spread out for me to give a good opinion, but I'll also say that I do not like PSU at all.

Only been to -

Purdue - seemed very concrete and sterile to me (lots of construction though, may have colored my view)

Ohio State - Very nice for the most part from what I remember

Penn State - Great area - love state college, campus was nice.

MSU - only saw about half, must have missed the beautiful part.

Really want to see -

Wisonsin - heard it is amazing

In short - nothing compares to AA and UM. even the ones I have never seen. How's that for obtuse?

To be fair, MSU can be quite pretty in the fall along the Red Cedar...but then there are the Moo U fields to counter the Red Cedar tranquility.

MSU isn't that bad, don't love it but it's better than a lot here give it credit for. Haven't seen too many in the Big Ten but Michigan is the best of them from my (obviously semi-biased) prespective

Michigan has that "feel" so it's hard for me to believe than any other B10 campus could compare.

State does nothing for me.  Stale and rural are the only words that pop in my head.

IU . meh.  Corn.

Think of OSU and the people you associate with that school.  The campus falls into the same dreary category.  It's a shithole.

I've never been to Iowa, Wisconsin, or Penn State but I'd like to see them one day.

Michigan State's campus looks okay here.

I haven't been to many campuses ... MSU, Illinois,Northwestern and U of M. U of M was the tops hands down of my small lists of campuses visited

I've been to all of them and have to say that U of M easily has one of the most beautiful. IU's was very nice and Northwestern being on the water was also very nice. I never thought of MSU's campus as very nice. Its just too damn big, and it never has felt "beautiful" to me.

I haven't been to any except Michigan and MSU. MSU has nice greenery I guess but nothing beats Ann Arbor so far.

Anyways, you have some great pictures on your site! I've spent the a lot of time browsing through them. I especially like the ones from Lansing Zoo and ofcourse, Ann Arbor!

Love A2 (sentimental reasons help) and of other campuses, I've been impressed with Iowa and Northwestern's. Northwestern is impressive for the landscaping and location, and Iowa feels a lot like Ann Arbor except with a bigger river and smaller town. Campuses I have disliked include Illinois and Minnesota, and Wisconsin's campus is not as cool as Madison the city, imo. Haven't been to Cbus and don't plan on going anytime soon.

Having an awesome town is crucial since there really isn't all that much to do on campuses. I think Ann Arbor & Madison are my favorite big ten cities/towns. I live in Chicago and it seems as though most fun-seeking Northwestern students move out of Evanston as soon as they can.

Michigan State in that area around Beaumont Tower is awesome. There are classic architecture buildings all the way around the area, with a gentle slop of contured land. The area is so flat otherwise, so that hill effect makes it cool. Plus it is insulated soundwise from the high vehicle traffic areas that surround the campus. Go west you gradually go downhill and get a premium high vantage point view of the baseball field and Jennison Fieldhouse. Go east and you get more classic buildings. 

Basically north of the river is nice, south of it is flat and sterile.

Doesn't touch Michigan overall.

I dunno why people are bagging on Purdue.  I like it better than some I've seen.  In the Big Ten I've seen U-M, PSU, Purdue, and Minny and I'd put Minny at the bottom easily.  Except for the main mall area and a couple of stretches outside it, I didn't care for it much at all.  Too urban for me, too many ugly modern buildings, and the "college town" section near it (what little there is) seemed forced and over-planned.

Actually, of the four Big Ten campuses I've seen, if you put them in a vacuum I like Purdue's the best.  U-M needs Ann Arbor and then it shines bright, but the campus itself is underwhelming.

I'm a sucker for old buildings, especially churches covered in ivy. The view at the water is spectacular as well.

OSU has some really nice buildings...but next to factories that pump out black clouds. Shame.

Maybe I'm not the best guy to ask because aesthetics doesn't play much of a role in my thought process when I'm not specifically sight-seeing. When it's winter in Michigan, my friends are like "It's so pretty outside." I don't notice because I'm busy thinking "ITS FUCKING COLD. FUCK THIS STATE."

Seen enough to judge.

1.  UM (biased but...I'd rather be in ANN ARBOR)

2.  Northwestern

3.  Wisconsin

4.  IU (biased from IN)

5.  Minny (twin cities rock)

   (insert ND about here, like the area but not the town)

6.  Penn State

7.  Purdue-Blockheads love this place.

Have been there and color me impressed.

Iowa (passing thru, saw the meat puppets)

Have been there and was dazed and or confused.

Michigan State (the women were memorably fine)

Ohio State--AC/DC was wrong...hell is a bad place to be.  

Have not been there...not sure if I want to go.

Nebraska-Illinois (tied for second to last)

I have been to PSU, which is really easy to get lost on campus because a lot of the buildings look the same. Also they seem to have the market cornered on squirrels. Overall it was nice but not great.

OSU I walked through campus nothing jumped out at me to the point where I was like OMG where is my camera either. Overall not bad, I would rank it behind PSU.

1. IU 

2. Michigan

3. Notre Dame (The area around campus is shit though.)

4. Northwestern 

5. Wisconsin

6. Ohio St.

7. Purdue (The whole city smells like sewage.)

Haven't been to any others campuses so this all I can rank. And I will admit being biased because I go to IU but campus is amazing, especially in the fall. And to the person who said something about IU and corn, it's obvious you've never been in Bloomington. 

the law schools are downtown. Edge to Michigan especially because of the Law School.

Oops

, minus newcomer Nebraska. IU has a very nice central campus with a unified architectural quality that makes it the best in my opinion, when combined with the natural features and the bar/entertainment area. All the campuses in the Big10,11,-12, have something going for them. Madison's student union sitting on the edge of the lake and serving beer is nice, for instance. And I agree with the other posters that give credit to MSU, the older part of campus is pretty nice, but the stuff on the south and east end of campus is starkly hideous (prison architecture). I travel with friends to a different college campus every year for a game and in our 20+ years have seen some pretty good campus settings. Ironically, the place that always bottoms out when we re-rank the campuses after every trip is Purdue ... the destination for our first trip. Good thing we didn't let that stop us way back when. IU always gets a nod near the top, with Virginia, North Carolina, and Ole Miss. Oops, went outside parameters.

Impossible to separate some schools from what lies around them. UM is great because it's so integrated into a beautiful town. MSU, from what I remember, seemed quite finite--and apart--by comparison. Lotta buildings a little like East Quad. Wisconsin might have a claim being on a lake and having a really pleasant state capital close at hand. Been in and around Northwestern, by the same token, and was more aware I was in Chi than thinking about the school. Like Columbia or NYU.

I did some grad work at MSU for a short stint and got to know the campus pretty well. It is pretty nice is the fall, like a few have said, and has more of a typical "college" feel, by which I mean it's all in one finite square. It has some great looking areas (by Beaumont tower, along E and W Circle), but it just lacks the history and architecture of places like U of M, Northwestern and even Wisconsin. I think downtown Ann Arbor really adds a lot to UM campus and like some of the West coast recruits said, it's not at all what they expected.

I give any campus I visit the aluminum rail/door test: the more aluminum railing and doors a campus has, the more its aesthetic appeal drops. I have applied this test to the following Big 
Ten schools I have seen: Michigan, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Penn State, Wisconsin, Ohio State,and Northwestern. I have not seen Iowa or MSU. 

1. PSU- looked like a test center for aluminum railings and doors.The glare is blinding.

2. Purdue- battle between aluminum and concrete. Concrete won out. It's an unreal place.

3. Illinois- I could not believe the size of their campus walks. Utilitarian buildings of massive proportions with bizzare architecture abound, all surrounded by corn. Underground library cut down on aluminum use. 

4. Ohio State- People actually live in their stadium. The river is filthy and separates the stadium from the ag school. Bars everywhere. Above average aluminum and many thirsty and hostile students. Buildings tend to be grubby. I was too nervous to carry out a proper assessment.

5.Northwestern- On the Lake. Intereasting architecre made up for more aluminum than I had anticipated. They could be ranked higher (lower) but for that.

5. Wisconsin- Large buildings with average aluminum ranking. Lake is big deal there as well.

6.Indiana- Interesting buildings with pleasant greenery and less than average aluminum. This score was aided by massive student union with wrought iron all over the place.

7. Michigan- The gothic style dramatically reduces UM aluminum usage. The campus is the best i have seen. Markley does have an excess of aluminum glare, but other than that, I found the campus to be a very enjoyable one. Central Campusdoes use more aluminum than i would recommned, but Central Campus more than off sets that archtiectural gaff. Overall, the Michigan campus is the most attractive campus when applying the aluminum factor.  I would say UM achieved their top standing because they built fewer buildings during the fifties when aluminum railings and doors were all the rage. Remember the UGLI?