<p>first name starts witha H. lives in east bay?</p>
<p>I got into both, too. I am crushed (in the positive sense) and shocked...I also got into Penn, and now I'll have to make a decision I was certain that I would never have to make-choose between harvard and yale...that's going to be hard, especially since I cannot visit, but the fact that my heart has been crying Yale for the last 13 years should make things a bit easier...at least I hope so...</p>
<p>thursday was a big day - i got into harvard, yale, and penn within hours of each other. I'm waiting to hear from Princeton and Stanford, but I think im leaning towards Harvard right now (dont throw digital tomatoes at me and boo me off the stage yet lol), but thats mainly because I havent had the money to visit Yale (the one school I missed on my one parent-funded cliche east coast college trip). Im at work right now, hopefully ill scrounge up enough to fly out to New Haven before its too late. Anyways, what do you future Yalies see as the advantages of Yale over Harvard?</p>
<p>just adding to some of the posts here, anyone want to help me in making my decision? what are the pros and cons of both harvard and yale? they're both amazing schools and you can't really go wrong anywhere but i'm having a really hard time deciding. I live in mexico so i dont know if i'll be able to visit before the deadline...anyone want to help?? haha, i need it...</p>
<p>I applied to 5 Ivies (HYPCD) never thought I would get into all of them. harvard used to be my first choice, then came Dartmouth, now I love NYC, Princeton gave me an ungodly amount of money plus it is 1hr away from NYC an Philly, I don't know about Yale (visit during April).</p>
<p>I feel like my decision will most likely depend on finaid (that is what I tell myself every single day but I am not so sure).</p>
<p>
[quote]
Anyways, what do you future Yalies see as the advantages of Yale over Harvard?
[/quote]
Well, the commonly-quoted advantage is the greater attention Yale lavishes on its undergraduates. Yale is also a bit smaller, both in terms of undergraduate and graduate population. That said, Yale and Harvard (and, for that matter, Princeton) are very similar in most respects.</p>
<p>Oh, but if you like Gothic architecture, Yale definitely tops Harvard. ;)
<a href="http://www.yale.edu/opa/imagegallery/campus/image_hi/library_walk.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://www.yale.edu/opa/imagegallery/campus/image_hi/library_walk.jpg</a></p>
<p>Yale is much more undergrad focussed, it's smaller, you'll get more attention, residential colleges beginning in freshman year, master's teas, many many things. </p>
<p>Maybe it's just me, but the Yale campus is definitely the most beautiful one I've visited in my life. I dont think anything tops it. Go Yale!</p>
<p>It's a little bothersome that the Harvard admitted students weekend is the last weekend of the month (for someone who's never see Harvard), but I guess if you've seen it already, then going again won't be a big deal. Ugh.</p>
<p>Edit: By the way, those little dots on the admitted students map.. Does one dot equal one admitted student or a group of them?</p>
<p>Moo.</p>
<p>equals one i beleive. </p>
<p>Yeah leave it to harvard to hold out arrogantly</p>
<p>
[quote]
Maybe it's just me, but the Yale campus is definitely the most beautiful one I've visited in my life. I dont think anything tops it. Go Yale!
[/quote]
It certainly isn't just you. Yale was designed by the most prominent architects, and it shows.</p>
<p>Mirandajuly, there are currently two people from my school attending Yale right now, but there's only one dot for my town on the current student map. </p>
<p>When are you guys visiting Harvard? I think they did this because they wanted all the Ivies' Open House dates to be spread out. The idea works for the 4 that I got accepted to. Check to make sure because I don't know about dartmouth, cornell, columbia, and upenn. I visited Harvard twice, but I didn't get a good luck, never took the tour.</p>
<p>I made this choice last year, and I chose Yale. </p>
<p>The main differences I noted between the two on visits and in researching them is that the general feel at Harvard is that you are one of 7000 students going a million different ways at once. Essentially, I got the impression that Harvard students are much more individually driven and aren't that in need of a strong sense of community. Harvard encourages this in that they do not coddle you as much as Yale does and to a large extent seems to let you run on your own. Yale feels more like a community of strong individuals. Yale supports this with their extensive advising systems, the residential college system (the subtle differences between Yale and Harvard in this regard fit this in that you are part of a small community at Yale from the moment you step on campus and you don't enter a house at Harvard until right before Spring Break), and the greater undergraduate focus of the academics at Yale. I like the coddling and community that Yale offers. Many people opt for the individual spirit and the intensity of Harvard.</p>
<p>Other factors that swayed my decision were my admission to the Directed Studies (humanities survey) freshman-year program at Yale that allows you to take small courses with some of the best professors at Yale (my history professor last semester won the National Book Award, for example) and once again to align with a smaller community of 125 freshmen. </p>
<p>The big difference that has proven to have one of the biggest positive effects on my life is Yale's much preferred schedule. Yale has a weeklong Thanksgiving break, Harvard gets out the day before Thanksgiving. Yale has a three week long winter break, Harvard has a two week one. Yale has a one week reading period and exams before winter break and Harvard has a two week reading period after winter break (which sucks). Yale has a two-week spring break, Harvard has a one week one. Finally Yale gets out for summer three weeks before Harvard does. I can't stress the beauty of Yale's calendar enough (all my friends at various schools across the country are envious of my schedule) and when schools are as close as Yale and Harvard are (for everything I said above, they are still very close) things like Yale's calendar can be strong swaying factors.</p>
<p>it's possible to go to one school with another school's financial aid package, so that they can match (assuming, of course, the school with the better package is of greater or equal calibur)</p>
<p>the above post is for grumptious</p>
<p>"The big difference that has proven to have one of the biggest positive effects on my life is Yale's much preferred schedule."</p>
<p>I'm also deciding between the two schools, and that calendar sounds very appealing. :)</p>
<p>thanks chasgoose2....i really am swaying towards yale right now, it definitely sounds like there's much more of a community feel there...i think i'm still going to visit just in case something really grabs my attention at either school..how are you liking the directed studies course by the way? is it somewhat overwhelming or much harder than taking normal courses?</p>
<p>DS gets a little overwhelming at times, when there is a lot of reading at once, or you let yourself get behind, but overall it can be easier than a regular courseload. One thing that is nice is that since it is an organized program, three of your classes have paper schedules that don't conflict with each other. So instead of having two papers due at once you have one due just about every week with a break every two or three weeks. The other nice thing about it is that there are no midterms in the three DS classes. Sitting here writing my last history paper of the year though, I would definitely reccomend DS to anyone that has any interest in the humanities. One thing though, make sure you have a non-humanities class as your 4th or 5th class because doing all humanities is beginning to drive me insane. I miss Calculus and Physics.</p>
<p>How is the grading in DS? More competitive than normal, less or the same?</p>
<p>Grading in DS is generally very easy, but it depends on your professors. For most professors, the default grade is usually an B+/A- and exceptional papers get an A and inferior ones get Bs or B-s (B-s are usualy the lower limit for DS papers). Just about every professor doesn't grade on a curve and they give the grades they think the class deserves (one time everyone in my section got at least a B+ and almost all of us got As or A-s). While I have been blessed with easy graders for professors, there are generally one or two who grade really tough. For example, my roommate who was also in DS continually put more effort and time into his papers and they were clearly better than mine yet his professor would take huge markdowns if he went over by 100 words or more so I would get an A and he would get a B-. I think overall, though, grading in DS (and all humanities courses) is easier than the majority of Yale classes.</p>
<p>whoa.. thanks chasgoose.. that calender does sound way better. and yale is scoring more and more points over Harvard....</p>