College Admissions: The 5 Most Haunted College Campuses

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Cristiana Quinn, GoLocalWorcester College Admissions Expert

Isn't it hard enough to study without a ghost interrupting your concentration? As we are all getting spooked up for Halloween, consider these truly haunted college campuses.

Gettysburg College

The nearby battlefield was the site of the bloodiest episode in the Civil War. So, it’s not surprising that one of the buildings on Gettysburg College's campus, Pennsylvania Hall, served as a Confederate hospital. Over the

years, students have reported seeing soldiers walking the grounds or pacing at the top of buildings. But the most gruesome story occurred in the 1980s. Two administrators got on an elevator in Pennsylvania Hall, and when doors opened at the basement level, they saw a room filled with injured soldiers, doctors operating in primitive conditions, and blood spattered walls. Now that’s scary!

Transylvania University

Yes, there really is one! I’d like to say that Dracula graduated from TU, but sadly the Count did not hail from Lexington, Kentucky. The oldest university west of the Allegheny Mountains, TU is home to the tomb of Constantine Rafinesque, a terribly unpopular Botany professor who later had an ill-fated affair with the college President’s wife and was banished. Angry and bitter, legend has it that he cast a spell on the university as he left town, and now his ghost still haunts its grounds.

Notre Dame

You guessed it; The Gipper is indeed the resident ghost at Notre Dame. George Gipp died from pneumonia after a night of partying and being locked out of his dorm. He slept on the steps of Washington Hall in the rain, and is said to still walk the halls of that building, accompanied by the eerie sound of his French horn.

Ohio University

Athens, Ohio is home to what may be the largest Halloween party in the country, drawing people from all over the U.S. The OU campus is rich in ghostly legend. In fact, it’s hard to find a building that isn’t rumored to be haunted. Washington Hall is said to be visited by a female basketball team that perished in a bus crash on the way home from a game, and Jefferson Hall has a frequently sighted elementary teacher dressed in 1950s clothing. In other dorms, ghosts are reported to turn on water faucets, make lights flicker and throw books around rooms. Why so many restless spirits? Apparently, the campus is at the center of a pentagram formed by 5 cemeteries in the outlying area of Athens, and the energy from the undead is drawn to campus.

Kenyon College

The “Gates of Hell” that adorn the entrance to campus might be your first clue that Kenyon has an association with the other world, but it doesn’t stop there. About a dozen places on campus have had ghostly sightings. Some of the stories appear to be pure legend, like the student who died after hitting his head on the ceiling in the swimming pool building, but several others appear to be true and related to suicides or untimely student deaths. However, the most famous haunting stems from is the tragic fire in the Old Kenyon building in the 1940s when 9 students perished. The building reopened the following year, and the ghosts of the victims are said to still cry out late at night.

Cristiana Quinn, M.Ed. is the founder of College Admission Advisors, LLC which provides strategic, college counseling and athletic recruiting services for students. www.collegeadvisorsonline.com

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