Grove City College is ‘most beautiful’ in region, top small town school

Grove City College was recently recognized as the “Most Beautiful College in the North” and one of America’s “Best Small Town Colleges” by a pair of college search websites.

The recognitions speak to the quality of life at Grove City College, which boasts a 94 percent freshman retention rate – a key indicator of student satisfaction.

Christian Universities Online ranked the College’s campus number one on its list of “10 Best Colleges in the North.” The College’s architectural style, signature buildings and natural setting earned it the honor, according to the website.

BestColleges.com put Grove City at number 11 on its list of "Best Small Town Colleges." The website focused on Olde Town Grove City, “a revitalized and rustic downtown area … bustling with shops and eateries in a safe, neighborly atmosphere.”

Grove City College’s park-like campus was originally designed by the same landscape architecture firm that created New York’s famed Central Park. The campus’s most defining feature, perhaps, is Harbison Chapel, with its high crown steeple that can be seen from nearly all vantage points across campus and arched doorways have welcome generations of Grovers to campus. 

Grove City College’s 180-acre campus is picture-perfect, with neo-Gothic buildings set on wide lawns and open courtyards surrounded by century-old trees. Behind the classic facades are state-of-the-art classroom and laboratory facilities and one of America’s best-wired campuses. The College also features extensive athletic and fitness facilities, an award-winning campus ministries building and a showplace performing arts center. 

Campus sits in the heart of Grove City, Pa., an idyllic small town just 60 miles north of Pittsburgh. Olde Town offers friendly places to shop, eat, grab a coffee or see a movie at the Guthrie Theatre, one of the few single-screen movie houses in the country still featuring first-run films. The College’s campus quickly becomes a home-away-from-home for students.

Campus designers Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and his brother John Charles Olmsted were the sons and successors of eminent landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed the nation’s most visited urban park. The brothers carried on their father’s legacy at Grove City College and elsewhere. Together, father and sons produced more than 355 campuses for secondary and higher education institutions.

See Grove City College’s beautiful campus for yourself here

Grove City College is ‘most beautiful’ in region, top small town school

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