Florida Gulf Coast University has landed itself on another top colleges list—this time–in the top half of the Best Value Schools’ top 30 list, ‘Most Beautiful Coastal College Campuses.’

Best Value Schools, an online college scouting website, aims to help prospective students and their families “wade through the redundant, inaccurate, and confusing information that seems to be everywhere on the Internet, and provide them with credible, actionable guidance in getting the greatest value from their education.”
Colleges were chosen and ranked based on the following criteria: location, awards and recognition, student enjoyment, notable features, and other noteworthy factors of the school.
FGCU lands at the No. 13 spot on the list, nestled between No. 14 College of the Atlantic in Maine, and No. 12 Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina. College of the Atlantic, nestled on the edge of the Acadia National Park and in the coastal town of Bar Harbor, was described by BVS as “the epitome of New England charm.” The surrounding area offers lighthouse tours, sailing classes, aviation trips, and coastal bike tours. Coastal Carolina University, a school located less than 15 miles from the nearest beach is located in the vacation hotspot of Myrtle Beach.

Texas A&M, Corpus Christi, the FGCU men’s basketball team’s opponent in the College Insider Tournament in March boasts a campus that mimics FGCU’s beachfront/beach view dorms, colors, and even their logo also features a bird-like figure. Corpus Christi was No. 23 on the list.
BVS describes FGCU as a “pure Floridian paradise in every sense of the word.” The description of FGCU includes the university’s location within a nature preserve, the FGCU waterfront on campus, student accessibility to outdoor activities, the economic wealth in Southwest Florida, and at the presence of wildlife and frequent run-in’s with alligators.
FGCU is joined by six other Florida schools: No. 24 Flagler University in St. Augustine, No. 22 Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, No. 19 Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, University of West Florida in Pensacola, No. 10 University of Tampa, No. 6 New College of Florida in Sarasota, and No. 4 Eckerd College in St. Petersburg.

The title of “Most Beautiful Coastal College Campus” was handed to Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. BVS claims that Pepperdine, a Christian private school, as a school that’s “Mediterranean-revival architecture seems to ooze Southern California charm.” The college is located in the foothills of Malibu and “boasts easy access to some of the most celebrity-dotted beaches on the coast, while from the campus itself, students can enjoy spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean, the Channel Islands, and the city of Los Angeles.”

View the rest of the list here.

FGCU also recently landed the No. 26 spot on BestColleges.com’s list of the 39 “greenest” schools across the country, No. 9 on TopTenGalleries.com’s “Top 10 College With The Best Dorms” list, and last fall the university made the No. 2 spot on University Primetime’s “Top 10 Safest College Campuses in the Country.”