It is said that the “best-kept secret of the Midwest” is located in “the vibrant city of Bloomington,” with its abundance of trendy, delicious restaurants. Tthe campus is very active, with students giving dividing their day between rousing academic discussions, engaging social activities for student bonding, physical fitness and the upkeep of mental health, and unwinding sessions for the students to get a breather. There is “always something going on and something to do on campus that will fit the need of any and every student.” The weekends generally start on Thursday night and go through Saturday night with abounding popular house parties. They have their famous Greek system as well, although it only encompasses roughly 20 percent of the campus and “provides a strong social scene.”

Indiana University's athletic facilities are located on campus and are grouped in between East 17th Street, Dunn Street and the IN-45/IN-46 bypass. In the 17,000-seat Assembly Hall (home to the IU NCAA basketball team), there are five NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship banners on display.

Many of the campus's buildings, especially the older central buildings, are made from beautifully quaint Indiana Limestone quarried locally. The Works Progress Administration built much of the campus's core during the Great Depression. Many of the campus's buildings were built and most of its land acquired during the 1950s and 1960s when first soldiers attending under the GI Bill and then the baby boom swelled the university's enrollment from 5,403 in 1940 to 30,368 in 1970. Nine of the oldest buildings are included in a national historic district known as The Old Crescent.

Indiana University is one of 62 members of the Association of American Universities, an organization of leading North American research universities. It has been called a Public Ivy university. The Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked IU Bloomington 101–150 in the world and 49–60 nationally in 2017. Additionally, it ranked Indiana University-Bloomington 16th in the world for Business Administration, 7th in the world for Communication, 5th in the world for Public Administration, and 2nd in the world for Library and Information Science. U.S. News ranks IU 36th out of the top public universities in the United States. Forbes ranks IU 20th out of Public Universities.

The IU Jacobs School of Music is highly ranked, with their fine arts, theatre, and entertainment offerings rivalling other much larger cities. This celebrated institution stages more than 1,000 performances every year, in opulent spaces that are an aesthetically artistic experience in themselves. The beloved Musical Arts Centre, which they affectionately call “the MAC”, is one of the grandest arts venues in the Unites States, with a sprawling seating and a 90’ by 60’ main stage.