<p>How good is yale in comparison to the other ivies and Stanford at Creative Writing? Any special perks to going to yale over these other schools if one wanted to major in that area?</p>
<p>Proximity to New York city</p>
<p>I don't believe Yale has a creative writing major, but it has one of the best, if not the best, English departments in the country. It also has an extraordinary number of student publications, so there is plenty of opportunity to be involved in writing. There's also a new journalism initiative that sounds pretty cool.</p>
<p>Yale has a fantastic English department, and a Creative Writing track (by application only ~18kids/yr) within the major.</p>
<p>Perks to doing English/Writing at Yale are the incredible professors (Paul Fry, Langdon Hammer, Lee Patterson, Harold Bloom, etc.) and range of classes (Everything from "4 American Writers Since 1950" or "Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald" to Spenser and Shakespeare). </p>
<p>As far as creative writing goes, the opportunity to work in small groups or one-on-one with writers in residence is pretty unique--- all the writers at Yale teach as well as do their own writing (John Crowley, Louise Gluck, etc.)</p>
<p>So, yeah, it's pretty good. I don't know how it compares to other departments at other schools, but Yale is great for English. The only drawback is that the requirements are pretty strict (i.e. 4 classes in Pre-1800, 2 Terms of Major English Poets or 4 substitution classes). But those are there to make sure that you've got a good foundation.</p>
<p>By far the best department in the country.</p>
<p>Yale's English department is very very good. The generalization "by far the best in the country" is not entirely true, but the quality of the scholars in it is top-notch.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that every department has strangths and weaknesses in specific areas of research, and Yale is no exception. As an undergraduate, this won't matter as much because, unlike a graduate student, you won't really specialize so intensely.</p>
<p>Yale's department kind of also has a reputation for not treating its graduate students and junior faculty so well (although the latter might not be so true under the new tenure system), and for being academically incestuous. There are some other issues that a lot of people I've talked to have with Yale's department, but you shouldn't worry as an undergrad, as the department is still fantastic.</p>