<p>svalbardlutefisk: Thanks for the insight.
Yes, Yale rep visited Palo Alto and San Jose here and we have not visited Yale ever.
It is nice to know that information session is not everything when it comes to selecting Universities to apply to.
Since it is not possible to visit all colleges before applying and it is not possible to apply to all the colleges. The information sessions become a real guidance for one to make up one's mind about the college.</p>
<p>Yale representative failed to put forward the strength of Biological Science at the information session. My D wants to be a doctor but interested in computer science undergrad as she wants to blend the two for her future research. That is why she had Yale as her dream school as she thought she would get a solid Biological Sciences department along with her computer Science major. Stanford comes out as leader in both so that is why it is her other top choice.
Realistically both Yale and Stanford are very tough to get into and she will have to pick up more colleges on the way to apply to.</p>
<p>POIH, I understand that it often isn't possible to visit colleges before applying. Since it sounds like your daughter was interested in Yale before the info session turned her off from it, I would urge her to apply to Yale, and to try to visit if accepted (if financial issues are a problem with visiting, schools like Yale will often pay for admitted students with financial need to visit, and, regardless of whether you would be eligible for financial assistance in visiting, you save money by not having to pay for hotels, as visiting admitted students usually stay in the dorms). A bad info session is not a good reason to rule out a college.
If your daughter is planning to be pre-med, Yale is as good a choice as any. Yale's computer science is certainly good (if not quite at the level of Stanford's), and at the undergrad level, particularly for someone whose first priority is med school (and thus will have less need of extremely advanced grad-level courses in compsci), it will offer your daughter an excellent education.</p>
<p>"My son said it had quite a different feel than most of the other schools he visited."</p>
<p>Counting Down---Could you say what your son described that was so different about Stanford's "feel". Just curious. Thanks.</p>
<p>Thanks, ParentOfIvyHope, for reporting on what you saw at your regional information session. My son attended such a session a couple years on an evening when I was busy, so I didn't see the session myself. He liked Yale quite a lot after attending the session. One of his best friends from an all-state math team is now starting studies at Yale, so there is some appeal there for some students interested in mathematics, at least. </p>
<p>Thanks to svalbardlutefisk for the detailed replies, especially explaining in what sense Yale (which I NEVER think of as "conservative") could look conservative to a Californian.</p>
<p>Just got back from Princeton, gotta say that Princeton hands down beats yale.. The campus is so gorgeous, better than any other I've seen... The admissions people were also better speakers and got straight down to the admissions parts (unlike the old yale guy who was mostly talking about some weird crap in the humanities)... Unfortunately though, Princeton is like 2 hours further from Yale than me.</p>