College Consensus Ranks the Top 50 University Recreation Centers in the United States

Universities are finding increasingly creative and expensive means of attracting would-be students, and state-of-the-art recreation centers are at the top of that wish list.

Aggregator site College Consensus recently published its list of the top-50 American university rec centers, which utilizes various data sets to determine which facilities go above and beyond students' expectations.

"There was a time not so long ago that campus recreation was pretty limited, but that is no longer the case," College Consensus Managing Editor Carrie Sealey said in a media release. "For many colleges, campus recreation is central to the mission and branding of the institution. At some schools, you'd be hard pressed to guess whether you were at a university or a luxury resort, but all of this luxury has a very real purpose. The stress of college can have a long-term negative impact on student health, but access to a top-notch campus recreation center doesn't just offer an escape from college stress—it offers a cure for the illness of stress."

The full alphabetical list of rec centers—mostly belonging to large public universities—is below. For the ranked list with consensus scores, click here.

Auburn University — Auburn, AL
California State University — Fullerton, CA
California State University, Long Beach — Long Beach, CA
Colby College — Waterville, ME
Colorado State University — Fort Collins, CO
Drexel University — Philadelphia, PA 
Eastern Washington University — Cheney, WA
Georgia Institute of Technology — Atlanta, GA
High Point University — High Point, NC
Indiana State University — Terre Haute, IN
Kent State University — Kent, OH
Liberty University — Lynchburg, VA
Longwood University — Farmville, VA
Missouri State University — Springfield, MO 
Morehead State University — Morehead, KY
Nova Southeastern University — Davie, FL
The Ohio State University — Columbus, OH
Oklahoma State University — Stillwater, OK
Pepperdine University — Malibu, CA
Purdue University — West Lafayette, IN
Rice University — Houston, TX
Saint Mary's College of California — Moraga, CA
Temple University — Philadelphia, PA 
Texas Tech University — Lubbock, TX 
University of Akron — Akron, OH 
University of Alabama at Birmingham — Birmingham, AL
University of Arizona — Tucson, AZ
University of California, Los Angeles — Los Angeles, CA 
University of California, San Diego — San Diego, CA
University of Central Florida — Orlando, FL 
University of Chicago — Chicago, IL
University of Cincinnati — Cincinnati, OH 
University of Colorado Boulder — Boulder, CO 
University of Colorado Colorado Springs — Colorado Springs, CO
University of Houston — Houston, TX
University of Iowa — Iowa City, IA
University of Massachusetts Amherst — Amherst, MA
University of Miami — Coral Gables, FL
University of Minnesota — Minneapolis—St. Paul, MN
University of Missouri — Columbia, MO 
University of Pennsylvania — Philadelphia, PA
University of South Carolina — Columbia, SC
University of South Dakota — Vermillion, SD
University of South Florida — Tampa, FL
University of Texas at Austin — Austin, TX
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley — Brownsville and Edinburg, TX
Vanderbilt University — Nashville, TN
Virginia Commonwealth University — Richmond, VA
Wabash College — Crawfordsville, IN 
Washburn University — Topeka, KS

College Consensus' site states: "By combining the results of all of the most reputable college ranking publishers and thousands of real student reviews from around the web, College Consensus provides the most accurate and comprehensive ranking of a school's reputation and quality available anywhere."