Many people have told me they’ve visited Georgetown just 'cuz.
UPenn has an amazing museum of archelogy and anthropology. Lots of tourists visit it.
William & Mary gets loads of tourists because of its proximity to colonial williamsburg and its historical significance as the second oldest college in the nation. It has a pretty cool history. Being next to busch gardens amusement park doesn’t hurt either
Other schools notable for its tourist population include schools with esteemed international reputations. When I visited Yale, it was notable that an entire tour bus of international visitors came along for the ride. It was quite an amusing experience, they even had their own translators. What’s notable about these schools is they talk less about student life and more about the history of the school in general.
William & Mary…all the Military Academies.
Folks will visit Williams College intentionally for the museum.
How many tourists does Dartmouth draw anyway? I visited the school last year, mid-August, and it appears to have almost as many people outside the buildings (Wilder was about as full as I would expect it to be in summer though) as during the academic year.
@Catria - Dartmouth has an unusual academic calendar where students are required to due a summer semester. Because of this, I would imagine that Dartmouth has more people on campus that most schools do during the summer. The campus is also used for many sports camps and other summer programs.
Hanna’s suggestion of Oxford and Cambridge is spot on. Many of the colleges charge admission fees to tourists. People do pay to get in to see the colleges.
The military academies.
http://www.trademarktours.com/harvard-tour/ <Speaking of paying. The Harvard students giving the tours actually make good money between salary and tips.
Trinity College in Dublin also has non-applicant tours with the highlight being the Book of Kells.
Are there colleges whose touristic potential is under-utilized?
CU Boulder on April 20th.
I’m sure there’ll be plenty more Chinese tourists at HYPSM now that Obama’s given them 10 year tourist visas. It’s practically a pilgrimage for them. Harvard is their mecca.
CU heavily cracked down on its 4/20 celebration because tourists were overutilizing it on that day. On any other non game day, CU is a great place to visit.
In the non Texas Plains, the flagships are often the cultural hubs of the states. Granted, these areas aren’t exactly havens for tourists, but they still offer a great deal of entertainment to anyone who does visit the area from out of town.
For those driving along the California coast, UC Santa Cruz has my vote for an excellent destination. Nice town, beautiful area, and plenty of university run amenities open to the public.
I’m late to this thread, but we’ve visited colleges with our children (since they were little) on many of our vacations…especially driving vacations. We’ve always enjoyed stretching our legs and exploring a campus, usually finding ice cream or pizza to rejuvenate. We just love the feel of walking around a campus.
Oh and we like to visit presidential libraries and state capitals too! 
Sure, a Gothic architecture buff would likely find their thing at WUSTL or Duke… but are they really touristic attractions?
This year CU was open on 4/20 (last two years it was a weekend). Only the quad closed off but students had class. Now every day is 4/20 in Colorado so who cares?
Many schools have reasons for tourists to visit - art galleries, botanic gardens, chapels and churches, science displays. Most western schools have geology, Indian, agriculture, and history displays. You want to see rocks, they have rocks. Many schools give tours of the sports facilities. My daughter’s school in Florida has a big textiles art museum and a botanical garden with 1000+ types of palm trees that more non-students visit than students, plus aviation and jet car displays. We used to go to the Air Force Academy whenever we had visitors from out of state to go to church and look around. My brother lives in Annapolis and goes to events there all the time.
Lots of Asian tourists at Stanford. My ds has had his picture taken by some!
My daughter walks through a lot of weddings at Princeton in the spring.
When we visited Dublin we did visit Trinity College to see the Book of Kells.