Chinese Colleges Trying to Look Like Ivy League

Over the next few weeks, American undergraduates flooding back to campus will take part in a university tradition even older than drinking from Solo cups or inhaling stale pizza: They’ll be setting up homes inside the rock-hewn walls of Gothic buildings that look like Medieval castles, retrofitted for serious scholars. Many of these buildings were designed a century ago, when young American colleges—desperate to assert their legitimacy—went on a knock-off binge. They cloned British universities’ libraries, cathedrals, quads, sculptures and even dress codes in the hopes of recreating the feel (and prestige) of Oxford and Cambridge.


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