Loyola University Chicago

Located in Chicago, Illinois

Founded in 1870

In the 1880’s, when Loyola was a small Jesuit-affiliated school known as St. Ignatius College, a priest and a nun reportedly began a relationship. The nun became pregnant and gave the priest an ultimatum: she would give up her position if he would do the same. However the priest declined, then the devastated sister hanged herself on the 14th floor of what is now the school’s Mundelein Center for Fine and Performing Arts (previously Mundelein College). The priest found the nun’s body and was so distraught that he promptly jumped out from the building’s window to his death. Students have since reported a flickering glow lighting up the same window, also a vision of a hanging human form. Others say they have heard the sound of a man weeping, then a scream and then an abrupt hush.

Hollins University

Located in Roanoke, Virginia

Founded in 1842

Even according to Hollins University’s own guidebook, there are a number of urban legends on the school’s Roanoke campus, most of them being ghosts. The guide book also says that “almost every building” more than a century old is rumored to harbor a past student’s spirit. For while the Virginia institution assumed its full university identity in 1998, its roots as a coeducational college stretch back to 1842. Today’s campus features many historic buildings like Presser Hall, completed in 1925 and home to the music department. It was here that a female student began a relationship with her piano teacher, who later murdered her during practice. Her ghost still haunts the building as a dark figure visible in a window. In the school’s Main Building it is held that a student shot herself and that her spirit continues to reside there.

Gettysburg College

Located in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Founded in 1832

Gettysburg College shares its name with the infamous American Civil War battle that had a death toll for both sides totaling in the tens of thousands. The Pennsylvania school was started in 1832, over three decades before the battle, and its Pennsylvania Hall centerpiece was turned into a military hospital during the fighting that lasted 3 days. So it makes sense that many people have had ghostly Civl War Era encounters in and around the grounds of Gettysburg. One evening in the mid-1960s, on the 100th anniversary of the battle, two campus employees took the elevator down to the building’s first level; however, it did not stop and brought them directly down into the basement. When the elevator doors opened they saw a horrid field hospital scene. Soldiers lay dead on the floor as blood-sodden doctors struggled to cope amid the chaos.

University of Notre Dame

Located in Notre Dame, Indiana

Founded in 1842

Founded in 1842, Notre Dame is not only known for its historical football program, but also for its share of college ghost stories. While many of the other most haunted colleges in America have ghosts all over their campus, Notre Dame’s tend to center around Washington Hall, built in 1881. The theater is supposedly haunted by a worker who fell off the roof during construction, and also by a music student who practices his French horn in the middle of night.

But the most popular of Notre Dame’s ghosts is George Gipp, an All-American football star who died of pneumonia during his senior year, in 1920. Having just won one of the biggest victories of his career, “The Gipper” came back to campus after curfew, tried to sneak in the back door of Washington Hall, and had to sleep outside after finding it locked. He has been spotted numerous times through the halls of Washington Hall.

Ohio University

Located in Athens, Ohio

Founded in 1804

Founded in 1804, and first accepting students in 1809, Ohio University is one of the oldest public universities in the nation. It also has a nation wide reputation for having several paranormal encounters and urban legends. According to some, the university sits between five cemeteries, forming a pentagram, and Wilson Hall is at the very center.

A section of campus, today known as The Ridges used to be the Athens Lunatic Asylum. It is said to be filled with the spirits of the asylum’s former patients. The Ridges is currently the home of the Kennedy Museum of Art, administrative offices, storage spaces, and classrooms. It is also one of the nation’s most-visited spaces for paranormal researchers. With one of the more prominent ghosts being named Margaret Schilling, who died in 1979. The most infamous of the buildings, the former tuberculosis wing, was torn down in 2013 due to the high number of college students and troublemakers breaking in to find ghosts.

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