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Do you believe in ghosts? If not these stories from the most haunted campuses in the U.S. will convince you otherwise. Colleges are the perfect place for ghosts to haunt because the buildings are hundreds of years old and students will tell the next generation of all the tall-tales of paranormal activity.
But which college reigns number one and is the most haunted? Scroll down to find out.
13. Michigan State University – East Lansing, Michigan
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Mary Anne Mayo, who used to work at the university, died in 1903. After her death, Sylvan Lodge was renamed Mayo Hall in her honor. Her ghost haunts her namesake building and plays the piano and shuts doors.
12. Drew University – Madison, New Jersey
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Drew University is haunted by Roxanna Mead Drew haunts the alcoves of the campus’ main buildings. She wrecks havoc with banging doors, loud footsteps and locking doors.
11. Huntingdon College – Montgomery, Alabama
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Former prospective student Margaret or Martha still haunts the campus and is dubbed as the Red Lady. She moved from New York to enroll at the university. She always wore the color red and students isolated her. She eventually committed suicide in her dorm room and still haunts the campus with her red glow.
10. Gettysburg College – Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Gettysburg College was founded in 1832 and was the place of Civil War battles. Pennsylvania Hall was used as a military hospital during the battle and many wounded soldiers died in the building. It’s still haunted to this day.
9. University of Georgia – Athens, Georgia
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Many Greek houses at the University of Georgia are haunted. Susie Carithers used to live in Alpha Gamma Delta’s sorority house but hung herself after being stood up on her wedding day. Phi Mu’s house is also haunted by a former member, Hanna Hamilton.
8. Kenyon College – Gambier, Ohio
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Kenyon College is one of the oldest colleges being formed in 1824. The college’s south grounds entrance is dubbed The Gates of Hell. Legend has it that if you passed through the gates at midnight while the Church of the Holy Spirit’s bells ring you’ll be going straight to hell.
7. University of Northern Colorado – Greeley, Colorado
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The University of Northern Colorado boats having a ghost story for nearly every building on campus. The ghost stories mention a ghost haunting the Art Annex, a friendly ghost named George haunt Belford Hall and another ghost haunting Turner Hall by slamming doors.
6. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – Urbana, Illinois
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The English building at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is supposedly haunted. A ghost of a drowned woman haunts the building. When the woman drowned the building was a women’s only dorm. She supposedly drowned in the pool that was in the building at the time. Since then the swimming pool was converted to an atrium and made into the English building.
5. Wells College – Aurora, New York
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Wells College is number five and for good reason. In the early 90s, a security guard named Max died while helping student evacuate a burning building. In Wells’ Morgan Hall some students still feel Max’s ghost pushing them down the stairs. The college also had a severe influenza outbreak and so the university converted a building into a morgue and painted the door red.
4. East Tennessee State University – Johnson City, Tennessee
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Founding president Sidney Gilbreath died in 1961 and still haunts the campus. He still resides in Gilbreath Hall and turns on and off the lights and closes windows in the building. A former student still haunts the sorority house, Lucille Clement Hall. The ghost is dubbed the Marble Boy and will roll marbles in the upper levels of the building, but no one will be there.
3. Hollins University – Roanoke, Virginia
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Almost every building at Holling University is over 100 years old, so they’ve all seen some spooky abnormal things. One of the urban legends on campus is that back in 1925 in Presser Hall a piano teacher murdered one of his students, who he had a relationship with it. She supposedly still haunts the building.
2. Pennsylvania State University – University Park, Pennsylvania
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Penn State comes in at number two for the most haunted campus in America. The university’s Old Botany Building is cute but is supposedly very haunted. Supposedly the ghost of Frances Atherton, the widow of former university president George W. Atherton, haunts the building. Her body was buried across from the building new the Schwab Auditorium.
Also in 1969 Betsy Aardsma, a Penn State graduate student, was stabbed to death in the stacks in the library. Her murder went unsolved and not supposedly she haunts the library and you can sometimes hear her screams.
1. Ohio University – Athens, Ohio
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There are so many spooky things that have happened at Ohio University, which is why it’s number one. As an alumnus of the college, I can attest the campus is haunted af. The college was formed in 1804, the first college in Ohio so it has seen lots of ghosts. First, there are The Ridges, a shut down insane asylum on campus. It shut down in 1993 and some of the buildings were converted into offices and an art museum. But many of the buildings remain empty. Leonardo DiCaprio was cast to play Billy Milligan, one of The Ridges patients, in a movie called The Crowded Room.
On top of The Ridges, Ohio University’s Wilson Hall dormitory is supposedly haunted. In the 1970s a female student in room 428 in Wilson Hall began acting weird and speaking tongues. She then jumped from the window and died. The room isn’t used as a dorm room any longer.
