I’m always looking up addresses for universities, and it seems as if most of them(at least a large number of them) don’t make it easy. They have addresses like ‘University of Lower Slobovia, Muckrake, Lower Slobovia, 60606’. No street address. Why not?
Is it, ‘Oh, well we’re such a Prestigious Institution™ that everyone knows where we are – except morons.’? Or is it just that any mail addressed to The University will eventually get there and MapQuest will probably have it as a ‘destination’ so you don’t need an address?
I’ve seen addresses (not for universities) like ‘3 miles Old Mule Road’ – i.e., no street number, just a position. In very rural areas I can understand they might not bother with street addresses. But a university should have one, right?
What are the official Post Office rules on street addresses?
Big universities (like the one I’m at) have their own mail system. They may even have their own ZIP code. They’re like small towns, which also don’t have street addresses.
ETA: Big university campuses also have several streets in them, so it’s impossible to specify just one.
Never underestimate the capacity of universities to see themselves as the center of the universe.
Speaking for the large universities in North Carolina, street address isn’t terribly relevant. The universities are so large that one single street address just doesn’t make sense. If they make the head administration building “100 Main Street” or whatever, odds are the place you want to go is at least a 10 minute walk from there anyway, and you probably parked your car 10 minutes in the other direction.
Mail is delivered centrally to the university (which has its own zip code), then to university PO boxes for each department. As long as the post office knows where the university mail service is, that’s all taken care of.
Universities aren’t hiding their street addresses. It’s simply that it is more efficient for the Postal Service to deliver all incoming mail to a central institutional location and allow the university’s own mail services department to route each item as appropriate.
Some delivery services (such as Fed Ex) require a street address in order to deliver a package. For this reason, many university websites will have the street address listed. Look for the ubiquitous “Contact Us” link.
Heh. To get a FedEx package reliably delivered here requires you to know the name of the specific building. The truck will go right to the building’s loading dock and deliver it to the mail room. No street address necessary.
Well, a lot of them don’t have a single street address. Harvard is on a LOT of streets. Many individual buildings and departments have street addresses that are easy to find.
Most stuff coming into MIT, on the other hand DOES come to a street address – 77 Massachusetts Avenue. (Most of the buildings are scrunched together – you can walk literally – and I MEAN “literally” – for miles through the corridors of MIT without retracing your path.)
All the times I’ve sent something to a college or university, I wasn’t sending it to the generic university, I was sending it to a specific office or department. IME, the address of the registrar’s office or the art department is usually posted in the school directory or on that office/department’s web page on the school’s website.
The Undergraduate Admissions Office actually has a street address, but the others consist of a room number and building name. Most (if not all) of the buildings on campus don’t even have a number assigned to them.
Two of mine are/were 360 Huntington Avenue and 550 Huntington Avenue, both in Boston… I still send my alumni fund donations there, well to the latter one.
Hmmm…our nearby school… 03755 is the ZIP code for all of Hanover, not just Dartmouth.
General Information:
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH 03755 USA
Yeah, that’s pretty generic. It must go to the Mail Center and then get sent to a designated office.
Office of Admissions (undergraduate)
6016 McNutt Hall
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH 03755 USA
6016 is the Hinman Mail Center box number for Admissions. Not an address.
Alumni Relations Office
6068 Blunt Alumni Center
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH 03755 USA
6068 is the Hinman Mail Center box number for Alumni Relations. Not an address. McNutt and Blunt are both on North Main Street, but mail doesn’t get delivered like that.
Development Office
41 Centerra Parkway
Lebanon, NH 03766 USA
Off-campus location, so that is a physical address.
Office of Human Resources
7 Lebanon St., Suite 203
Hanover, NH 03755 USA
Off-campus location, so that is a physical address.
Our University has a separate address for Accounting since they do not want students working in the Uni Post Office handling student financial documents.
Ah, Northeastern and Wentworth. I’m not sure about Wentworth, but Northeastern pretty much uses the same address for everything, so stuff going way over to Columbus Place will be labeled as “360 Huntington Ave. Room 418CP”, even if “716 Columbus Ave. Room 418” would be more accurate if one wanted to actually go to the place. On the other hand 26 Tavern Road is pretty useless, as that’s just a glorified walkway in the middle of campus.
In my experience (bike couriering), Harvard deliveries usually had some form of individual street address for each building in the main campus and medical school, but a common address (0 Soldiers Field Road) for the business school. MIT deliveries might be “77 Mass. Ave.” no matter how far flung the building, though many do have their own addresses. For example, the Hayden Library can be described as “160 Memorial Drive” or “77 Mass. Ave. Bldg. 14”. I could go on and on; even without consulting my MIT map, I know way too much about MIT’s building and room numbers and locations.
Way back when I went to college myself, all mail, as far as I could tell, was addressed to “110 8th St.” (I’ll leave it at that as a puzzle for the curious). I just checked (it’s been six years, I couldn’t remember the exact number), and that address is one click away from their homepage.
Oh, and as far as I know, none of the institutions referenced herein has its own ZIP code.
Hey, cool, water2j. My office addy at Harvard was 12 Appian Way, 02138. But as long as you addressed the missive to the correct building it would get there. And I used to work in W20 at MIT (Stratton)…
RGVChicano, welcome, and I think you’re referring to Jester Center, which was at its time of construction the largest residence hall in the US. However, it has the same zip code as most of UT - 78705.
My office has a street addy for deliveries and such, but most mail is sent to University Station, and distributed from there.
Big institutions of all kinds work pretty much the same way. When I send my wife flowers at work, I have to specify something like “Giganto Corp on Interstate 80, Patents Division, Building 12, Suite 448.”
I have no idea whether or not any of the above posts might be helpful to you.
Could you tell us WHY you want the street address? Is it because you’re afraid the Post Office won’t be able to find them, or is it because you want to go there and need something to tell MapQuest, or is it for some other reason?
True, our office has a street address with number whereas the main building just beside us is simply on “University Road”. Post from the post man sent straight to us invariably comes with post for many different offices and staff who have moved to another department, something the porters don’t let happen.
I deal with data that tradtionally deals with business names and their addresses. If it’s not too much trouble I like to ensure there’s an actual street address because I suspect that some non-street addresses might be rejected. (Note: ‘suspect’ and ‘might’.)
The Postal Service can be a little weird sometimes. Like they don’t like people to use my town as my address, but want the nearest incorporated city even though my unincorporated town has a higher population. No doubt that addressing something to The University, Anytown OH will get a letter there. I assume that if you send a letter to The White House, Washington D.C. it will get there even though it has an actual street address. My house has a sign on it from a previous owner that says ‘Hillcrest’. If someone addressed a letter to ‘Hillcrest House’ there’s no way it would be delivered.
I can’t find addresses for many businesses that need them, or the addresses I find are ambiguous. (Is this really the address for this* business?) But it seems to me that it’s often more difficult to find a street address for a university than for other places.
Speaking of addresses, there’s a prison on 1313 13th Ave. Think they’re trying to send a message?
They have an address.