@Gucci girl Can you please elaborate on this “hallway experience” that you mentioned. This is the first time I’ve heard that term.
@go4cornell
I can’t elaborate much on many other schools, but what I noticed about HYP when I visited was that their housing is pretty different from Stanford’s.
At Stanford (and I imagine it is this way at most schools), you generally have a long hallway with lots of rooms on both sides of the hallway, like you see in movies. I think a hallway usually has around 15 or so rooms. So while dorms as a whole function collectively with a lot of pride, each dorm also has some “hallway/floor” pride. For example, a student might be a part of the dorm Arroyo, but he’ll also be specifically be on the 2nd floor hallway of Arroyo. Hallways are usually coed but sometimes are single sex. Each floor will typically have an RA, and share gender specific bathrooms.
At HYP (Princeton has some “hallway” dorms though) however, the structure is mostly suite style living that is built vertically rather than horizontally. So instead of hallways, you have a long winding staircase that go upwards, with only two or three doors on each floor. Each door opens up into a common room, which has 3/4 more doors to singles or doubles. So it’s not the same at all.
I personally find the hallway layout to be much more social. Students frequently dart in and out of each other’s rooms easily, hanging out, studying, socializing etc. But at HYP, it’s easier to get stuck in your room, and I think it doesn’t promote interaction as much. BUT, you do get a lot more room and a pretty sweet common room.
@guccigirl Thank you! I understand completely. Also, I assume you meant it as a joke but out of pure curiosity, why do you view the suite style setup as elitist?
@guccigirl thanks. Quite helpful! What aspect about Stanford did you wish you’d understood better when you said:
“But back in April I wish I knew Stanford as I do today before choosing.”
There are two additional “outside admit weekend” visit programs for those with conflicts, two nights of dorm housing and food provided: between April 6-10 and April 13-17, but no scheduled events.
In terms of hallway vs entryway (as is at HY), I would argue that the entryway style is actually more social. While it might seem that students are isolated within their staircase (or entryway), there are doors connecting each common room that essentially make the common rooms a hallway. If the doors are all unlocked, you can theoretically walk from the first entryway to the last. And it’s VERY easy to get distracted and end up catching up for thirty minutes with a classmate.
In general, I’ve found that suite style living is much more social than dorm style – it’s very easy to host friends within your room, and have study groups/gatherings without disturbing everyone in your suite, since you have a common room. I do find Yale isolating in that I tend to stay in MY college, rather than venture to entryways in other colleges, but this is only because I’m very close with my 100 classmates. I can name all of the other freshman living in my residential college (though my RC is generally considered to be the most tightly knit).
One thing to add: students stay in their residential college for FOUR years. This promotes a lot of college pride. In a dorm, you probably won’t live in the same building for your whole college career. I was talking to a friend at another Ivy that doesn’t have a college system and she feared next year, knowing that the friends she made in her freshman dorm were going to be broken up.
Note on me: I turned down Stanford (and some other schools) for Yale.
@yaleboy
Really interesting notes. Personally I still believe hallway is more social than entryway just because it’s way easier to navigate physically through the rooms of lots of people, but to each his own.
I also loved the residential college system at Yale and how tight-knit people can get, it was the main thing that made it so hard to turn down Yale. But again I think there are pros and cons, and to each his own. It can be nice living with different people or living in a co-op or frat/sorority house.
In my opinion, at the end of the day Stanford and Yale are quite different and students choosing between the two should find whichever system/culture fits them.
@yaleboy do you find you also socialize with the upperclassmen in your college? Is freshman campus isolating at all? With no food on frosh campus, where do you eat, especially breakfast. Do you spend much time at your college main dorm? Or social hall in basement? Finally, did you know before decision day that’d you’d select Y over S or others, if admitted? Or we admit days helpful?
@MomTwo2 Yes, I definitely socialize with upperclassmen in my college! I know all the freshman counselors really well – and we’re also assigned a sibling family with several older sibling sophomores upon arriving. But beyond that, since the college community is so small, and we all live together, I know a good deal of other upperclassmen as well. I’m actually in one of the two residential colleges that houses its students all four years, so I can’t really speak for Old Campus (I eat breakfast in my college – I just have to go through the basement and I don’t even need to go outside!). I will say that everyone on Old Campus argues that they have the best experience, but those of us in our colleges will argue that we have the best experience! So there’s really no way to go wrong! (I do think a lot of my friends on Old Campus just have a bar and fruit in their rooms before going to class).
I generally check into my college around dinner 6-7, and don’t leave after that unless I have a good reason. The rest of the day (9am to 5pm-7pm is spent out in classes, working, rehearsing, etc). I generally study between classes, at meals, and after dinner into the night. Students on old campus tend to spend most of their time in the Old Campus buildings because that’s where they live. At least once a night --usually more – I will go into the basement (or another room) to socialize. I get the impression that students on Old Campus bond their first year, and then move into the college and assimilate into college culture after that. (Yet students in my college still the closest…)
Yale was my top choice when I was applying, but I hadn’t really considered Stanford as a realistic possibility (or Yale, for that matter). Both were really on an equal playing field after I got in though – I think you’ll find that after regular decisions come out, you really reevaluate what you initially thought about the schools you applied to, as you’re seeing them in a whole new light. Bulldog Days and Admit Weekend were both helpful – at Bulldog Days I got a sense of the residential college community and the cohesiveness of the Yale campus and Stanford felt cold in comparison. Of course, that could be because I was assigned in a college (not on Old Campus) and was brought into the college culture by my host, and at Stanford had a senior host with whom I didn’t share interests–but I really think it was probably for the best. By the time I had flown from the East Coast to the West Coast, I had a pretty good idea that Yale was the right school for me, for a multitude of other reasons. And I’m extremely happy at Yale. Could I be happier somewhere else? Maybe, but thinking about that is pointless.
I’ll just end with one story: over spring break I jokingly tried to convince a friend that I hated Yale and had applied to transfer. She immediately knew I was kidding and when I asked her why, she said that she didn’t know anyone who didn’t love it here. And I completely agree with her.
Thanks for these very helpful insights, @yaleboy and @guccigirl! yaleboy, your experience at Yale confirms our impressions, and the residential college experience was one of the main reasons my son applied to Yale early. If he gets into Stanford, though, he’ll face a difficult decision, because he’s a prospective computer science major, and CS at Stanford is much stronger than at Yale. Also, we live in California, which is a factor he’ll be considering too. But he’s definitely looking forward to finding out more at Bulldog Days and Stanford’s admit weekend, if he gets in, as well as to checking out admit days/weekends at a couple of other places if he gets into those. Although I think there are drawbacks to allowing these events to determine one’s decision (because the atmosphere is usually so different from the normal day-to-day life students really experience), I believe they can be helpful, and I’m hoping they add more valuable “data points” before my son makes his decision. Many thanks again, both of you, for helping to clarify some of the differences between Yale and Stanford.
I think admit weekends are preferable to a weekend stay. You never really get to see what day to day life is until you are there and for short stays you see only what your host shows you. The point of the weekends is not to show you that the college is in festival mode all the time. It is to make sure you have the chance to experience the things you might like. DS checked in at Bulldog Days and immediately upon leaving the building a member of a student org walked up to him and now he is a happy member of that group. it was very useful for this to happen at BDD, and very, very likely would not have happened had he been hosted by someone.