5 colleges whose architecture echoes Harry Potter's Hogwarts

A mishmash of Oxford, Cambridge and every liberal arts college east of the Mississippi, Hogwarts of the "Harry Potter" series is a big-budget architectural embodiment of musty academia at its most atmospheric and haunted.

The inherent creepiness of Gothic architecture is a given in the "Harry Potter" movies, but there's also an undercurrent of romanticism at work -- a romanticism for higher education and the monastic pursuit of knowledge. The abundance of stained glass and the high, cathedral ceilings give the secular Hogwarts campus a quasi-religious feel.

Tapping into that vein, a website called Applywise, devoted to the college admissions process, has formulated a list of five U.S. campuses reminiscent of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Top among the list? The University of Chicago, with its gothic facades, gargoyles and its official seal that prominently features a phoenix -- a recurring image in J.K. Rowling's blockbuster series.

Keep reading for the other universities on the list. And let us know if you think there are other campuses that should have made the list...

The University of Chicago. Illinois.

Credit: University of Chicago

Yale University. New Haven, Conn.

Credit: Yale University

Kenyon College. Gambier, Ohio

Credit: Kenyon College

Bryn Mawr College. Bryn Mawr, Penn.

Credit: Bryn Mawr College.

Cornell University. Ithaca, N.Y.

Photo: The main reading room of the Cornell University Library, circa 1900. Courtesy: the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library

-- David Ng

Top photo: Daniel Radcliffe in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures