UM was just ranked one of the most scenic schools in the country. Should we believe it?

Three top things to know in this story:

• The University of Miami is named the ninth most “photogenic” U.S. campus by Immerse Education, which based the ranking on the number of Instagram and TikTok posts linked to each school.
• The campus beautification is largely credited to Roberta ‘Bosey’ Foote, wife of a former university president, who transformed the campus into a lush, green space.
• Current efforts at the University of Miami are focused on solving housing shortages with new dormitory buildings replacing older residential towers.

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The University of Miami is no stranger to “best college” lists.

The private university is ranked in the top 100 schools in the nation by US News and World Report , and it’s also been ranked among the top 25 party schools in the country by Newsweek .

Now, UM is getting surprising attention for something new — campus beauty.

The U was ranked as the ninth most “photogenic” campus in the country by Immerse Education, an academic tutoring company that hosts pre-college summer programs at universities globally.

Immerse created a “seedlist” of top universities in the United States, and then looked at the number of Instagram and TikTok posts associated with each school. The schools with the most posts were deemed the “most photogenic.”

The University of Miami was listed alongside schools like UCLA, Harvard and Columbia University by Immerse. The rankings mentioned UM’s “palm tree-lined walkways and a serene central lake.”

Though the Coral Gables campus might lack the stone-columns, rolling greens and centuries-old clock towers of other higher-learning institutions, perhaps there’s something uniquely charming about the sun-soaked campus?

“This is quite an honor for the University,” Jessica Brumley, vice president for Facilities Operations and Planning at the University of Miami, said in a statement to the Miami Herald about UM’s ranking. She pledged to continue “looking for ways to enhance the beauty of the campus in ways that are sustainable and support our natural surroundings in Miami.”

So, is UM one of the most in the U.S.? Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all.

There are some photography hot spots on campus, such as the famous U, long a favorite Instagram location for graduating seniors and newly accepted freshman. There’s also some new campus construction that could promise aesthetic upgrades, especially for residential buildings.

So, what exactly is behind UM’s photogenic success? The answer might lie with a single person.

Has the University of Miami always been known for its beauty?

When UM opened in 1926, the fledgling campus was quickly decimated by a hurricane that hit Miami that fall. When classes began, they were held in hastily renovated buildings, earning UM the nickname “Cardboard College.”

Over the next decades, the university was known less for its architectural beauty and more the laid-back lifestyle of its students. The Saturday Evening Post dubbed the school “Suntan U” in 1949, a reference to the “country club atmosphere” of the young university, according to The Miami Hurricane , the student newspaper.

Over the latter half of the 20th century the University of Miami fought to rise above its beach-bum reputation and leave behind the hard-partying ethos amplified by magazines like Playboy. In the ‘80s, under the guidance of new university President Edward Tad Foote II, the school began to establish itself as the elite academic institution it is today.

But it was Foote’s wife who would change the face of the campus forever.

Who was Roberta ‘Bosey’ Foote?

When Roberta ‘Bosey’ Foote arrived in Miami in 1981, as her husband began his tenure as UM’s new president, she was met with a drab, concrete campus. She quickly made it her mission to turn the unremarkable urban grounds into something beautiful and green.

Bosey Foote was the engine behind an extensive beautification program on the UM campus, opening several palmatums featuring exotic palms from around the world. She was also a major champion of the university’s John C. Gifford Arboretum, where rare trees and plants are housed for research purposes. These renovations helped turn the university grounds into the exotic, palm-lined campus that it is today.

Bosey Foote died in 2015 from complications of cancer. Her daughter, Julia Foote LeStage, recalled her mother as a “silent force” who “had a vision that the UM should be a tropical garden, and that was her legacy.”

The university’s VP of facilities, Jessica Brumley, agreed that the U’s new photogenic reputation is “a testament to the legacy of Roberta ‘Bosey’ Fulbright Foote.”

Is the current UM construction for beautification?

The active construction on parts of the university’s campus has less to do with beauty and more to do with housing. The university has long been plagued by housing shortages , leaving new and returning students with no place to stay while completing their studies.

In 2019, UM announced plans to demolish four residential towers, the Stanford and Hecht residential colleges, in order to make way for new housing. The buildings, long condemned by students for their spartan accommodations, will be replaced with new dorms as part of the multi-million dollar Centennial Village plan to modernize the institution. The new dorms will house over 2,000 beds as well as classrooms, work-spaces, and a dining facility.

The new residential buildings may not be motivated by aesthetics, but hopefully will be more pleasing to the eye than the long-derided, Brutalist-style, towers they are replacing.

And maybe the new buildings will help UM remain atop the “photogenic” rankings.

Top 10 most photogenic universities

The current top 10 most photogenic colleges in the US, according to Immerse Education, are:

▪ University of California, Los Angeles

▪ University of California, San Diego

▪ Harvard University

▪ Columbia University

▪ Boston University

▪ University of Florida

▪ University of Washington

▪ University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

▪ University of Miami

▪ University of Arizona

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Note: The three bullet points at the top of the article were created using an AI tool for summarization and edited by journalists. Read more on our AI policy here .