The 10 Colleges With The Best Campus Food

Are you hungry yet?

Princeton Review recently named the colleges with the best campus food. Wheaton College in Illinois topped the list, followed by Bowdoin College in Maine.

Check out our slide show of the colleges with the best food around. Then tell us, how important is food to the college experience? Weigh in below!

Loading Slideshow

• Wheaton College (IL)

• Bowdoin College

• Virginia Tech

• Bryn Mawr College

• James Madison University

• University of Georgia

• Washington University in St. Louis

• Cornell University

• Colby College

• University of Massachusetts-Amherst

Comments

[JDHART]

12:36 PM on 08/31/2011

JMU has so many other issues so I'm not sure that food should be a deciding factor. There was a professor there who was recently jailed for distribution of child pornography and then there was the riot last year where there were many injuries. Also, be aware that the student population has a surplus of females (which isn't so great if you have a daughter), I think it's something like 75% vs. 25%. And, last but not least, JMU has the highest STD rate in the state of Virginia. Just thought you should know.

I just don't get these rankings. They're entertaining to read but are they really useful to prospective students and their families? Or is it the schools that are served?

[pindiva]

11:18 AM on 08/15/2011

UMass made the list. Times have definitely changed.

I lost 50 pounds my first year at UMass because we were forced to buy the mealplan and I refused to eat anything that I didn't like or that didn't look good. Ended up living on Tab and snickers bars, with an occasional bagel from the peoples' market.

Do they still serve lentil loaf?

[Mr Bad Example]

05:18 PM on 08/11/2011

UC Davis, a school with agricultural roots, it's own vinter and brewing programs, experimental farms and gardens and located in the Central Valley should be on this list...

[The Brain]

05:31 PM on 08/10/2011

Yup, that is what I am going to make my decision on. Which campus I can gorge myself in the most splendid fashion. What is next HP? Campuses with the best toilets?

[Megan Riona]

05:55 PM on 08/11/2011

Honestly, it's a pretty big factor. I can't imagine that anyone would be very successful at a school where the food is inedible.

[Vic22]

05:28 PM on 08/10/2011

I feel like huffington post has two hats the "most well known big schools" and "most well known small/liberal arts school." The only decision they make for these lists is whether they will pull from one hat, the other, or both this time

[whlemmer]

03:37 PM on 08/10/2011

Wow, Wash U is on another list. If you look at St. Louis as the provider of food yes you can get some of the finest fare in the world. But, if your eating the swill turned out by the vendors on campus your eating bad to poor fast food turned out on a tiny inadequate grill. Oh alas! they could turn out wonderfully fresh and tasty food items, but they don't.

[bahkey]

10:18 AM on 08/11/2011

so how is wash u. of st. louis overall as a school? my son is considering applying this fall.

[betty mc89]

11:24 PM on 08/11/2011

"If your eating the swill turned out by the vendors on campus your eating bad to poor fast food turned out on a tiny inadequate grill." What? I would ask if you even go to Wash U, but your grammar tells me you don't. Wash U's food is wonderful (too expensive, but wonderful). The only tiny, inadequate grills I've seen on campus are on the back porches of frat houses.

[Donald Fannin]

02:57 PM on 08/10/2011

I have an idea for HP why don't you instead of covering the fancy dan college dining halls. Cover the 10 best bread lines in America. Where people can go and get the most nutritious food. Or may there are some on the upper east side of Manhattan that serve steak and escargot.

[frank day]

03:02 PM on 08/10/2011

You do realize you're in the college section???

[Venmaker1]

04:38 PM on 08/10/2011

Forest, trees, forest, trees... so difficult for some... LOL

[Donald Fannin]

01:59 AM on 08/12/2011

Yes all of these college grads who can't find jobs or can't afford the meal ticket will need to know where to go to eat.

[bahkey]

10:20 AM on 08/11/2011

take ten steps back from monitor,then read again.

[moving violation]

02:55 PM on 08/10/2011

NYU has the entire East Village to use as a dining hall. It does not get any better

[Phoebe917]

04:06 PM on 08/10/2011

yup.

[ricchh]

02:14 PM on 08/10/2011

I guess these rankings are for colleges that don't exceed in academics.

[MrUnlimited]

04:14 PM on 08/10/2011

....

Look again...there are a decent number of well-respected academic institutions on that list.

[radicalcentrist44]

01:55 PM on 08/10/2011

Based upon just the dining room alone, the U.S. Naval Academy wins.

[Ipanema]

01:44 PM on 08/10/2011

Yeah, I was always well fed at Cornell and enjoyed the fact they occasionally brought national chefs in for formal diners!

[MrUnlimited]

04:15 PM on 08/10/2011

The program is called Cross Country Gourmet! And I loved it too.

[FTT11]

07:14 PM on 08/10/2011

Is the food over the summer different from the food served during the academic year? I only ate in Purcell and Appel, but most of those meals were not even close close to what I would classify as good college food.

[DungBeetle]

01:25 PM on 08/10/2011

I used to lick my hand after rubbing it underneath the bottom of the tables in my dinning hall. I was asked to leave.

[directfitz]

12:59 PM on 08/10/2011

UCSC

[arod72]

02:14 PM on 08/10/2011

Yes!! (I still have the freshman 15 20 years later to prove it).

[Rj Caldwell]

11:30 AM on 08/10/2011

I happen to like these little slide shows, but when you're ranking things, why don't you give us some information as to why its relevant. It is almost as if you took 10 pics randomly out of a hat of the nation's colleges, put them in order and made up a title for your list. Tell us why #1 is #1 or why these are the top 10. Otherwise, they become irrelevant space-fillers on the site.

[arod72]

11:49 AM on 08/10/2011

I totally agree with your comment. I also wonder, "who rated these colleges?". Does it mention that anywhere in the article. I mean, presumably college students can really only have an opinion on their own dining halls (maybe two if they transfer, or six if you're Sarah Palin), so how can they compare?

[GrandmaG]

12:46 PM on 08/10/2011

I agree. What exactly is it that makes them so good? And who says so?

[bahkey]

10:21 AM on 08/11/2011

The spagettioos

[ClaraKCMO]

11:07 AM on 08/10/2011

My husband went to Bowdoin twenty years ago and he STILL talks about how great the Dining Hall was!

[bahkey]

10:23 AM on 08/11/2011

how sweet,he meet you there?