<p>I am struggling to decide between Yale, Amherst, and Grinnell. Both Yale and Amherst offered me about 6000 per year need based aid, while Grinnell offered 15000/year merit aid, and it costs less. I am not certain on my major, but I am interested in Physics, Music Theory, and Philosophy. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>I'd go with Yale, based on the strength of the departments and the strength of the other students you will meet there. Amherst and Grinnell are amazing schools too, but they simply don't compare to what you'll find at Yale. I've spent a lot of time at all three places and there's a big difference. At least do an overnight visit for a couple days at each, if you can at all possible, and see which one you think has the best students. The extra money you could spend will be well worth it, and I think you will consider it the best investment you ever make. </p>
<p>Also, the difference here is only a small fraction of the total loan you'll have when you're done, and you have to consider that most of what you learn will be from fellow students - both while you are in college as well as from the hundreds of friends and classmates you will have once you graduate. It is a lifetime investment.</p>
<p>I actually know people who were in a similar situation as you (but with a full ride somewhere versus having to pay a bit if they went to an HYP-caliber school), ended up going with the HYP-caliber university and considered it to be the best decision they ever made, well worth any conceivable investment.</p>
<p>I love Grinnell, but I would have a hard time passing up Yale. I don't know the numbers, but imagine you are talking about $15K more a year at Yale and it's for you and your family to decide if you can afford it. Amherst - I've never been there, but I imagine it's not a huge step up from Grinnell.</p>
<p>yale yale yale yale</p>
<p>I passed up some Ivies for Grinnell, and I consider THAT the best decision I've ever made. You just have to think about what you want, especially in terms of the size of the college (both physical size and population) and the geographical location. Take your visits and see which place you enjoy more.</p>
<p>I left ivy for Grinnell -- best thing I did.</p>
<p>Sis left Grinnell for ivy -- she admits worst thing she did.</p>
<p>Other sis never went to ivy, and finished at ACM school.</p>
<p>We grew up in the ivies. Ivies were good to us as they fed dad who fed us.</p>
<p>Ivy is great junior and senior yrs -- before that it is not a warm and fuzzy place. College should be warm and fuzzy. Grinnell is 4 years of very warm and fuzzy intellectual environment. And, you can do anything you wish with extracurricular activites -- something not easy to do within the confines of any large school -- even a 6000 person ivy.</p>
<p>If you want people who excite you and are excited about teaching -- go to Grinnell.</p>
<p>If you want the great sheepskin -- go to the ivy. And, as you are paying off your debt, you will constantly be asking yourself, was this sheepskin worth the price? This question is posed both in money and in the year or two or three or four of less-than-satisfied educational experience.</p>
<p>The Ivies, particularly HYP, are far from a "sheepskin". Their intellectual environments are confirmed by the fact that, to use just one example, Yale sends more of its alumni on to receive Ph.D.'s in the humanities than any other university or college in the country - on a per capita basis, too, it beats out almost every other liberal arts college (Swarthmore being the one exception). </p>
<p>Look at the undergraduate pedigree of the world's top professors - some went to LACs like Grinnell, but many more graduated from HYP, Chicago, etc. Small LACs like Grinnell do very well at training their students to become intellectuals, but they certainly are not unique in that regard. In fact, the number of professors per student at places like Yale and Princeton is actually higher, and the size of classes on average smaller, than any of the top LACs.</p>
<p>Posterx wrote:
In fact, the number of professors per student at places like Yale and Princeton is actually higher, and the size of classes on average smaller, than any of the top LACs.</p>
<p>Yale proudly has about a 7:1 ratio. Really looks great on paper. But, what is the availability? How well do you know these people? Are they working for you, or are they working for the graduate school student body?</p>
<p>I know that my family never had undergraduates over for dinner. I know that the number of courses taught was about 2 a semester. I know that we had a more open door policy than most other professors on the ivy campus. And, I know that the majority of first and second year courses are taught by TA's. And, some of them are not very good at teaching either because that is not what they were blessed to do or because they are just plainly too green.</p>
<p>At Grinnell, no TA's, and no graduate students to absorb much of the professors' attentions. Students knowing, eating at the homes of, and having great relationships with teachers is most common. </p>
<p>Heck, I do not condemn the ivies. In fact many of the faculty kids at Grinnell who I babysat for have attended the ivies. In my own way I felt like a family member had "done okay." But, do not let sterile faculty/student ratios on paper deliver you to believe that when you attend the ivy you will become as interpersonally related with the professors as you are at an LAC.</p>
<p>If you read Loren Pope's book "Looking Beyond the Ivy League" you will see some surprising numbers and researched statement. "But recent digging into performance records has revealed that the good small colleges are giving the nation the most brains for the buck." page 31 "The good small colleges are even better door-openers to graduate and professional schools." page 32 "A good record at any one of scores of good small colleges is better than a lesser one at Harvard." page 33</p>
<p>And then read his list about which colleges produce the highest percentage of graduate students. The ivies are good mind you -- but the ivies are not nearly as dominant as some bloggers would make you believe.</p>
<p>The actual student:faculty ratio at Yale is much lower than that. US News statistics are inaccurate because they do not count all faculty teaching undergraduates. They only count faculty in the arts & sciences programs.</p>
<p>Professors at Yale are more accessible than those at most LACs. 60% of the faculty lives in central New Haven, within a short walk of the campus. LACs tend to be more isolated, and faculty lives farther away from campus. At a place like Yale, the faculty frequently invite students over for dinners or seminars. I agree that this does seem to have an impact on where the students go to graduate and professional schools - in that almost all graduates from Yale get into the very top programs.</p>
<p>Posterx writes:"The actual student:faculty ratio at Yale is much lower than that. US News statistics are inaccurate because they do not count all faculty teaching undergraduates. They only count faculty in the arts & sciences programs."</p>
<p>RESPONSE: The source for my 7:1 ratio is not US News and World Report. It came from Yale's website, go to:
<a href="http://www.yale.edu/admit/freshmen/facts/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.yale.edu/admit/freshmen/facts/index.html</a></p>
<p>Posterx writes: "Professors at Yale are more accessible than those at most LACs. 60% of the faculty lives in central New Haven, within a short walk of the campus. LACs tend to be more isolated, and faculty lives farther away from campus."</p>
<p>RESPONSE: Believe this if you care to -- but explain how 60% is greater than those small LAC's where the faculty must reside within the limits of a town of 5K or 6K? Please . . .</p>
<p>Posterx writes: "At a place like Yale, the faculty frequently invite students over for dinners or seminars. I agree that this does seem to have an impact on where the students go to graduate and professional schools - in that almost all graduates from Yale get into the very top programs."</p>
<p>RESPONSE: Interestingly, the bulldogs are experiencing attrition in postgraduate studies among its graduates. Less than 10% of the most recent class enrolled in graduate school -- compared to 36% in 1975. Only 6% attended law school as opposed to 18% for the class of 1975. To get the complete list, go to Yale's own fact sheet at: <a href="http://www.yale.edu/oir/factsheet.html#Graduate_Activities%5B/url%5D">http://www.yale.edu/oir/factsheet.html#Graduate_Activities</a></p>
<hr>
<p>Please, posterx, read Yale's pages before delivering inaccuracies to the board.</p>
<p>We all know you love Yale. And, yes it is a great institution. But, do not employ distortions to support your position. Yale can rest on its own laurels -- it does not need to be depicted as the ultimate unparalleled school to obtain recognition. Even the great ones have faults.</p>
<p>You haven't given any context to your "attrition" numbers, which makes them meaningless.</p>
<p>Also, it is increasingly more popular for students who want to go to the very TOP grad schools, especially relative to the 1970s, to work for a year or two before going on for an advanced degree. </p>
<p>Yalies frequently get $100,000/year job offers right out of college, so it's a good idea for them to gain some real experience for a couple years before going back to graduate school. Then they go on to the very top programs like a Yale Law or a UCBerkeley engineering Ph.D., which you can't to the same degree claim about small LAC grads. Just look at the % of the incoming classes at these kinds of programs.</p>
<p>Furthermore, and I'm sure you know this, just because a university website gives a number doesn't mean it is accurate. Many of those kinds of websites are written by lower level staff, and they are just copying the numbers from USNews or some other "source."</p>
<p>I won't tie up Grinnell's blog any further with this volley.</p>
<p>I cannot respond to anyone -- posterx -- who believes that Yale's web page retrieves statistics about its university, and then publishes the same, from a source other than its own personnel. Unlike you, I cannot believe that Yale would intentionally publish inaccurate statistics about its univeristy on its web page.</p>
<p>I am HEAVILY leaning towards Yale at this point, because although I will have some debt, my parents and I agree that we think it will be worth it. Although I still encourage people to look at LACs and think that the liberal arts college is a great model. In fact, I do think Grinnell has many benefits with more accessible professors and generally smaller classes. However, Yale actually does a good job of focusing on undergrads, and the amount that I LEARNED would probably be somewhat similar. Both will give me fine oppurtunities for grad. school, etc. I just feel that Yale would open my horizons more. Grinnell, a small school in the middle of Iowa, would probably be more similar to my current high school experience: a bubble in which I was more intellectually near the top. It would less of an adventure for me, and wouldn't expand my horizons as much. At Yale, by contrast, there are so many more oppurtunities and it would be a completely different environment (I live in Montana). I really liked the culture and the people that I met, and I was there for 4 days. It would be much more of a new world for me to explore than Grinnell.</p>
<p>So it came down to what felt good, would expand my horizons more, stimulate me more VS. smaller classes, more of a community feel and money. My strong feeling (and the Ivy "sheepskin"/prestige isn't a big deal to me) was Yale.</p>
<p>I'll post more later, this was a bit rushed. This is an interesting conversation though...</p>
<p>Statistics are rarely 100% accurate, especially without considering the source, methodology, and other factors. You need to do the investigation yourself to vouch for their accuracy. I would not place 100% authority in anything printed on the internet, or in a newspaper, or even in a government publication, no matter who wrote it. There are ways to collect and validate data yourself, though, by cross-comparing a number of methodologies and other factors. Statistics are a science, not something you get from reading things off the internet.</p>
<p>Gouda, you are correct that Yale would expand your horizons more than Grinnell. I know many people who have been in your situation and were amazed by what they learned at universities like Yale, just in the first year. Yale has many of the strongest professors, students, and overall resources of any university (not to mention any place) in the world; as a university with an amazing collection of resources and as a university with so many opportunities within a few-block walking radius of each other, and as a community where people care and invest in each other, it honestly has no peer. Yale is investing $500 million in new arts facilities (and it already has the strongest arts institutions of any university in the world), and it is also investing nearly $2 billion in sciences. These kinds of investments will give students there even more opportunities, if that is even believable.</p>
<p>Posterx -- did you watch a lot of X files?</p>
<p>New Haven is not a land of milk and honey. In fact, with your background, you will learn a lot as eastern urban environments include people and problems not as often seen at home.</p>
<p>Yale is good -- but not the eden posterx wishes to envision. </p>
<p>Some advice of the town </p>
<p>SPOT PIZZA and HANOVER STREET are musts.
There is a hill section by the medical school, try to avoid going too far on the wrong side of the hill.
The Town called FAIRHAVEN is neither fair nor a haven -- stay away if you can.
Take a train trip to NY with buddies one day 1st term -- great experience
Really best pizza -- MODERN PIZZA on State Street -- but drive as the distance is not close
Go to POLO MATCH -- FREE KEG OF BEER AND great outdoors
HARVARD/YALE games are classics -- better at Harvard but the bowl is darn good
Basketball is religion for NEW HAVEN. HS teams are worth watching -- better than Yale
Whitney Museum is great
Libraries of Yale are wonderful
DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA -- the Yale Reperaotry, Long Wharf etc</p>
<p>Oh I envy you</p>
<p>well... who can pass up yale? but look really hard at it. i hear of A LOT of people loving a lot of stuff at yale (or any comperable, highly respected, big university) but coming out thinking that they might have been better off at a smaller college. yale is known for it's smaller college feel for undergrads, but it it is still a big university. However, all three schools there are very very very different. All great academics and repuation if you're headed off for a PhD or something, but very different atmospheres</p>
<p>GRINNELL GRINNELL GRINNELL!</p>
<p>Grinnell totally owns on everything! IOWA UNTIL THA END!</p>
<p>I guess it depends on what you want fa real. Grinnell is so active and I love that. I think most people at Grinnell are more concerned with societal issues that just working as opposed to Amherst and Yale. I love Grinnell for that, but if you don't really care about that stuff go to Yale. </p>
<p>If its all about money then go to Grinnell.</p>
<p>[edit]</p>
<p>I guess this is a bit late. you had to decide by the 1st. what did you choose?</p>
<p>Actually, I think Yale is more of an activist campus than Grinnell, or even Oberlin or some other LAC known for its activism. Of course, being larger Yale has all perspectives represented politically speaking, but there's definitely more of a critical mass of activists than any small school. I'd put it right up there with Berkeley. Mother Jones magazine named Yale th #1 "activist campus" in the country a few years ago. The New York Times just did a story about activists at Yale, who pressured Yale into being one of the first places in the country to divest from the Sudan.</p>
<p>I chose Yale. It came to the atmospheres that I encountered when I visitied Yale and Amherst (I was thinking of asking for an extension to visit Grinnell, but think I had a pretty good idea of what it was like from talking to people who had experience with it. I had always been attracted to the small liberal arts model and think that the educational experience at Amherst or Grinnell might actually be just slightly better than that at Yale. But ultimately it comes down to my initiative--I can get a great education at all three.</p>
<p>The deciding factor, then, was the feel of the campus and culture. Amherst felt a little to claustrophobic and socially cliqueish, while Grinnell (from my brother and others) did not have the diversity and amazing oppurtunities of Yale. Growing up in Montana, I want something different and I feel that Yale would expand me the most. I can see if this east coast academia thing is really for me. I will have a better idea of what I want to do in the real world than I probably would at Grinnell. And the students that I met (and I was there for 4 days) were stimulating and fun.</p>
<p>The money, well...</p>