<p>Tperry, in a more general sense (and I apologize to you scottisbritish for going off topic), my son frequently remarks upon how Yale goes out of its way to help him and his classmates succeed. Foreign languages are not his strong suit, so he has made use of the ready, willing, and able tutors. They’re available at convenient times and are probably underutilized. I hope that it’s like that for all college students everywhere, but I have a sense that Yalies are lucky. </p>
<p>@IxnayBob Don’t apologise, by all means go ahead and discuss this! I’m delighted to read any information that enlightens me about Yale! :)</p>
<p>Yes IxnayBob, my daughter moved to German after 7 years of Latin. It is intense, but there is lots of help when she needs it. She is thinking of doing a summer program where she goes to Yale for a few weeks in the summer and then to Germany. By the beginning of Sophomore year she will be level L5 in German. But this is for everything I believe. She loves her study sessions for Anthropological Biology and gets good feedback on her papers when she needs them. Yale may be hard as heck to get into, but once you’re there, they do a yeoman’s job of making sure you succeed. Yalies are lucky - I love my alma mater!!</p>
<p>@scottishbritish As prior posters have noted, you’ll find that the majority of the top colleges in the US have a welcoming atmosphere for LGBT students. Certainly, some are more hidebound or more progressive than the happy medium you are searching for, but in general the nation’s campuses are less polarized by far than its talk radio and 24-hour news channels might suggest.</p>
<p>So ultimately your question becomes more about culture than tolerance. Where will you find the LGBT culture and campus culture at-large that suit you? I highly recommend you spend some time reading some student-authored guides to US colleges (e.g. Students’ Guide To Colleges and The Insider’s Guide To Colleges, the latter written by staff of the Yale Daily News) to get a sense of how the finer nuances of LGBT culture play out on different campuses.</p>
<p>@DreamSchlDropout Oh no, I do want an extremely progressive campus with regards to sexuality! I just don’t want it to be a divisive issue or there to be cliques of gay people milling about. A campus with assimilated homosexuals would do fine! 
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<p>@DreamSchDropout, as I said previously, I think scottishbritish is looking for the Goldilocks Zone, where the reaction to a student’s orientation is neither too cold (low tolerance) or too hot (what he refers to as “cliques of gay people milling about.”).</p>
<p>I was discussing this with my son the other day, and he has found that at Yale, a student’s orientation might be the 3rd or 4th thing mentioned about him, if the description doesn’t just stay at discussing the student’s ECs, for example, or who he’s doing research with, or whether he’s funny, etc.</p>
<p>My son’s HS was one which celebrated LGBTQ, in my son’s view, to a fault. There are so many more interesting parts to a forming human, and I think that’s what scottishbritish is looking for.</p>
<p>@IxnayBob I well understood your reference to the Goldilocks Zone, and hat-tipped it with my reference to the “happy medium”. There’s actually not a single word of your most recent post that I was (or am) disagreeing with. :)</p>
<p>I think we are having a collective misunderstanding over my use of the word “progressive”, by which I meant schools that have a more activism-oriented LGBTQ community that can be more segregated and cliquish not due to any lack of tolerance or progressive thought in the student body at large, but rather due to the community’s own self-selection of social groups. (Note: this is not meant to imply that hetero students do not support LGBTQ activist causes, but we are talking in general terms about different social patterns that can emerge, and the “cliques of gay people milling about” pattern is indeed an observable phenomenon even on some campuses where the vast majority of the student body are pro-queer)</p>
<p>My primary aim was to provide @scottishbritish with some resources to find more schools that have a similar “assimilated” culture to that at Yale. Yale is not a unique snowflake in that regard, but it certainly does hit SB’s sweet spot impeccably. </p>
<p>I can add that Georgetown had a similar attitude, in which your ECs and studies were regarded as far more relevant aspects of your personality than orientation, which rarely became a topic of conversation even in sexual situations. “You’re into me, I’m into you…why stop and have a self-definition party?”</p>
<p>I hope that the books I suggested can provide some additional inspiration for candidate Goldilocks schools. Campus culture is such a tough thing to take the pulse of, and even a campus visit can’t really convey the true depth and nuance of it. It’s made yet more difficult when a visit is made unlikely by distance, so some eyewitness accounts from actual students may be the best indicator available. </p>
<p>One thing that cuts against cliquishness at Yale is the residential college system. There is no special interest housing, at least on campus. </p>
<p>@DreamSchlDropout, my apologies, I did not read your initial post carefully enough. Apparently I was insufficiently caffeinated.</p>
<p>You do know that Georgetown is a Catholic School right? They are clear on their views and they are definitely not neutral. Though with the Pope’s new musings, maybe this will change.</p>
<p>The Catholic Church view is one thing, the Jesuit view is another (which is not always in perfect lockstep), and the campus culture is yet another.</p>
<p>I was speaking of the campus culture, which is largely defined by the students, not by the religious affiliation of the school. </p>
<p>Would you, during your four years, occasionally find yourself aghast at a statement given by a university administrator? Almost certainly. Would you still find the student life to be very accepting of LGBTQ students? Absolutely. </p>
<p>@DreamSchlDropout I’m a Catholic, but I couldn’t be bothered with going to somewhere like Georgetown where my religion is ingrained in the administration of the school; my religious affiliation is a personal thing! Still great to know that somewhere claimed to be über-conservative is still welcoming. </p>
<p>For what you’re looking for, I’d say Yale is pretty ideal. I think maybe the best thing about being LGBT at Yale is that it is a non-issue. Honestly. </p>
<p>First, Yale does have a rather large LGBT community. There’s a rhyme, one in four maybe more, implying ¼ of Yale guys are gay. While this figure is exaggerated, the percentage of LGBT individuals at Yale is significantly higher than the general population.</p>
<p>Given this population of LGBT people, if you want to find primarily LGBT spaces, they do exist. For example, LGBT Co-op is an umbrella organization for many gender and sexual minority student groups. These organizations also put on LGBT-themed parties, study breaks, activism activities, etc. So, if you do want LGBT-related things to play a larger role in your life, the opportunity definitely exists. </p>
<p>But for most LGBT students at Yale, things are very casual. Students (almost without exception) are very respectful of LGBT students. Stereotypes and homophobia are very unpopular (you won’t hear ‘that’s so gay’, or any other derogatory slurs on campus, and, if you do, that person will likely be quickly corrected, probably by a fellow straight person.) But most importantly, people don’t make a big deal about it. At Yale, the vast majority of your friends (straight or otherwise) will treat you exactly the same once you’re “out” to them as they did before, because Yale fosters an atmosphere to help people realize that an LGBT person need not be defined by their sexuality.</p>
<p>@HKSZYU Wow! Everything I could have hoped for! It’s PERFECT! Everything you say is exactly how I envisaged my ideal college environment to be. In a way, it’s a lot like my school, which I love. Are you a current Yale student? :)</p>
<p>@scottishbritish I’m a recent Yale alum. And yes, it’s pretty utopian. :)</p>