Their names are crowned with prestige and their campuses idyllic. You may not have won a scholarship to these universities, which have given rise to dozens of Nobel Prizes, but you can visit them. And treat yourself to a logoed sweatshirt to hone your style!
Harvard, the oldest
The oldest in the country (1636) is a must on a visit to
Boston
. Around its
historic campus
with a British charm (red brick against a green lawn) stretches an extremely lively neighbourhood crawling with small restaurants, cafes and bars. While the free guided tour does not allow you to enter all the buildings, the students’ explanations give a good overview of student life. And the university’s marvellous art and natural history museums are a must. Just as legendary, the neighbouring Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a real open-air contemporary art and architecture museum.
Harvard University Visitor Center
Smith Campus Center, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
www.harvard.edu/visit/
Harvard Art Museums
32 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
harvardartmuseums.org
Harvard Museum of Natural History
26 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
hmnh.harvard.edu
Stanford, the most tech
From Google to LinkedIn, tech giant founders are all Stanford graduates. An hour from
San Francisco
, you find yourself in the historic heart of Silicon Valley and the most spectacular campus in the United States. 3,300 luxuriant hectares for 17,000 students! Don’t miss: the majestic entrance road lined with palm trees, the Main Quad in the style of a Mexican square, grouping together the first buildings from the 1880s, and Memorial Church with its façade covered in mosaics. Two art museums complete the picture, including the Anderson collection and its Mark Rothko canvases, not forgetting Rodin’s bronzes spread across the campus
Stanford University Visitor Center
295 Galvez Street
Stanford CA 94305
visit.stanford.edu/explore-campus/
Cantor Arts Center
328 Lomita Drive
Stanford CA 94305
museum.stanford.edu
Anderson Collection
314 Lomita Drive
Stanford CA 94305
anderson.stanford.edu
Berkeley, the most rebellious
It cannot shake its hippy vibe inherited from the sixties. The
Berkeley campus
is covered in dense Californian vegetation: eucalyptus, Sequoia Redwoods, etc. This kind of environment inevitably boosts the desire to excel yourself! From the top of the bell tower, the view extends over San Francisco Bay and its
Golden Gate Bridge
. The cool and lively city of Berkeley offers thrift stores, bookshops, record shops and good restaurants. Californian nouvelle cuisine was even born here.
UC Berkeley, Koret Visitor Center
2227 Piedmont Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94720
visit.berkeley.edu
Columbia, the most urban
A member of the Ivy League comprised of eight of the most prestigious private universities in the United States, Columbia is nestled right at the heart of
Manhattan
, between Central Park and Harlem. The steps of its historic building, Low Library (1897), are regularly immortalised on film. Coming out of the famous wrought iron gates, the enormous student cooperative on the left is a goldmine for finding sportswear in the college colours.
Columbia Visitors Center
Low Library (room 213), 535 West 116th Street
New York, NY 10027
visit.columbia.edu
Columbia University Bookstore
2922 Broadway (et 115th Street)
New York, NY 10027
