<p>As the title indicates, those are two of my foremost worries concerning Yale. I'm currently deciding between Yale and another top school (a smaller one, which will remain unnamed), and I'm worried about the whole Ivy League stereotype, which surely must have some truth to it.</p>
<p>I'm pretty laid-back and couldn't care less about the grades my peers receive; I'm competitive with myself, of course, but with others... not at all. I've read that Yalies are less competitive than students at most other Ivy League schools (and certainly less than H and P), but I'm still worried about so many high-achieving students in one place... I don't want to feel overwhelmed.</p>
<p>And also, I'm just worried about pretentiousness. Does it exists in large quantities at Yale? I know the prep-school contingent is there somewhat, but I'd rather not be surrounded by the nose-in-the-air attitude that I've heard to frequently come with an Ivy League education.</p>
<p>For any responses, I am thankful. (Even links to other threads of this nature are good with me.)</p>
<p>My son is going to Yale this fall. He didn’t find them pretentious. Actually, they were the friendliest, engaging students we met. From what we have been told, the competitiveness is not a problem. High achievers are usually competitive but it isn’t a cut throat environment like at some other schools that we visited.</p>
<p>Very non-competitive – your greatest move is your own drive. Pretentiousness – generally frowned up. Socially just rare at yale. Almost a pride taken on being more homey and down to earth and humble. Really.</p>
<p>Depends on what sort of background you come from.</p>
<p>Yale is Yale, and so the majority of students will be ambitious strivers, hard-working and tireless. Just because everyone around you drives himself crazy and takes himself too seriously doesn’t mean you can’t take it easy and enjoy yourself.</p>
<p>kwu: You are not a Yale student, are you? I think kids who drive themselves crazy and take themselves too seriously are in the minority at Yale.</p>
<p>My experience has been that the cut-throat atmosphere very much present, but not prominent. People do work very hard for high grades, do crazy things to get into desirable classes, and dive into extracurricular activities in the hopes of becoming an officer or leader of the organization at some point. However, the culture is in favor of trying to disguise or play done ambition; no one wants to look as competitive as they are. </p>
<p>The fact that competitiveness is not always present or obvious can make things less stressful, but its continuing presence, especially when partially concealed, can be annoying.</p>
<p>kwu, I’m from a pretty wealthy, suburban town in the Northeast… so I know very well the preppy, Mercedes-driving crowd (one of which I’m not a part) that I so dislike for their very attitudes and overly materialistic concerns.</p>
<p>I’m just worried that I’d find too many kids at Yale interested in working hard to get high grades and a high GPA and consequently get into a good med/law/business school… The whole pre-professional attitude that seems to exist at Yale is something that bothers me. </p>
<p>Are people like myself the minority at Yale? i.e., those who work hard and study not to get the highest grade in the class, but because they genuinely love learning (and one will usually learn more if more time is put into one’s studies)…</p>
<p>Since half the students are accepting FinAid, they probably aren’t driving around in the mercedes. Why wouldn’t someone work hard? You’re in a great university with high achieving students. Didn’t you work hard to get where you are? You should easily find the type of students that suit your needs. I saw more of what you’re taking about at other non-ivey schools. </p>
<p>You seem to be leaning towards yale being Pretentious and competitive. You focus on the one person to give that opinion. Go to bulldogs days and see for your self.</p>
<p>I wil try to be completely honest. I think Yale is one of the least “pretentious” of the elite schools. Students are not snotty; wealth is a non-issue; people don’t take themselves too seriously; students are not competitive with each other; etc.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I would not go so far as to say that it is not “elitist.” After 4 years surrounded by gothic castles and some of the smartest and most talented students and best professors, you are going to naturally be affected. You probably become “elitist” in the sense that you like talking to smart people more than average folk; your conversations are probably disconnected from those at most dining tables around the world; etc.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone, for your replies, which have somewhat assuaged my worries. I will be attending Bulldog Days a week from now, and I really hope that’ll give me a better sense of what the student body is like.</p>
<p>I’ve just read such conflicting things about Yalies that I don’t know what to think anymore. I’ve read they’re pretentious, I’ve read they’re laid-back. I’ve read grade grubbers and competitive (with one another) students are ubiquitous, I’ve read people don’t care in the least about the grades others receive… I guess only time will tell how I myself feel about Yalies.</p>
<p>aml: my reply was based on my own observations. Certainly I wasn’t everywhere at everytime. I had in my circle of friends some extremely, extremely wealthy and privileged people. But I found them to be very down to earth and formed deep friendships with them (I come from a blue collar immigrant family, BTW). Showy wealth was definitely a no-no. Yes we all worked hard – no doubt about that – and we were hard on ourselves. But I never witnessed the need to step on others to get ahead. Frankly this was one of the deciding factors for me as I weighed all the schools that accepted me.</p>
<p>When you’re at BDD, make sure you ask the upperclassmen your nagging concerns. See if they’ll be able to shed more light. </p>
<p>Congrats, regardless. Good luck to you on choosing</p>
<p>you’ve heard conflicting things because the student body is complex. The only thing wrong about what you laid out is the word ‘ubiquitous.’ Yale students are much too heterogeneous to be ubiquitously anything. I imagine this is true at any college of 5000+ people. </p>
<p>You’re coming for bulldog days. find out for yourself. i think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.</p>
<p>My daughters took classes at Yale in high school, Intro classes, but still had a snapshot of the students. They felt, like with most schools, there were some prententious students, but most were very nice and welcoming. It helped cement D1’s decision to apply and now attend.</p>
<p>We actually really don’t have an overwhelmingly pre-professional atmosphere. Even if people do want to go into business or medical, many of them end up majoring in unrelated fields like history or sociology or something they’re genuinely interested in studying. If anything, I’d say our atmosphere is quintessentially liberal-artsy.</p>
<p>And as far as pretension goes, you will be shunned and/or talked about if you come off pretentious or elitist. Like it or not, it’s the truth.</p>
<p>This reminds me of a funny anecdote: Upon entering Yale, all of us are assigned a faculty member as an advisor. Mine called a meeting at one of the common rooms to introduce himself and for all his advisees to meet one another. There was about a dozen guys gathered together and we sat in a circle on various couches and chairs. One fellow insisted that we call him by his new-found appellation, “Chateau” (curious as this is French for “house”). Whatever, right? Well as the professor begins his meeting, Chateau gets up from his chair and lies down right in the center of the circle, reclining with his hands behind his head, listening to the professor. My advisor noticed this but didn’t say anything. Around the circle, there were rolling eyes and smirks and thoughts of “Who does this guy think he is?”. Later as we were talking one of the other guys said “Hey Big Toe… oops, sorry, Chateau…” That caught us and several of us let out giggles. I heard that later on, Chateau reverted back to his given name. The witty guy turned out to be in my college and became one of my best friends. It turns out he’d been a prep school boy from long ago and could sniff out posers easily. He was very down to earth and a great guy – funny and a super quick wit.</p>
<p>nope… not even ubiquitously smart. I’ve met a handful of people at yale who i would call legitimately dumb as rocks (even by regular, non-yale standards). </p>
<p>Probably the closest you could get to a universal characteristic is that we actively choose to participate in competitive application cycles. It’s not a personality trait… but yalies like applying to things that are hard to get into. If you tell an undergrad that something has a 5% admit rate, they will probably want it more.</p>