<p>Good choice. From your writing, you sound like a very thoughtful, friendly, outgoing, conscientious, and intellectual person and Yale tends to attract those type of people in droves. After four years I doubt you'll be thinking about the money issue.</p>
<p>But, one less spot for the waiting list...</p>
<p>Interesting how posterx employs the "hard and fast" rankings of a Mother Jones list for activism. A list made entirely from quantitaive review and not derived from qualitative data. Posterx basically espouses, "If Mother Jones says it is so, it must be so." But, posterx earlier represented that Yale's statistics on Yale's web page were inaccurate. Posterx actually stated, not inferred, that Yale's statistics were derived from US News and World Report -- as opposed to Yale's own data or research. Enough already.</p>
<p>Yale, it seems, will fit Gouda. But, remember this Gouda, Yale is not the eden posterx keeps making it out to be.</p>
<p>No, I'm actually wondering where he's coming from. Yale is a great school, and now that I've made my decision I'm looking at the good aspects and being optimistic. But, I definately agree with you, it's not an eden, and there are definately very significant advantages to LACs. Did you go to Yale, posterX, or are you a current student? You seem like I am in a debate tournament, citing obscure studies/statistics/generalizations against every single point brought up against Yale.</p>
<p>Although I feel confident that I have made the right choice for me, I will always encourage people to look past universities to LACs (most of my peers are looking at schools in the northwest, so I try to encourage them to look at, say, Whitman, rather than University of Montana or University of Washington).</p>
<p>LACs are great. In fact, I encourage people towards LACs as well. After HYP, MIT and Caltech, I believe that a list of the best schools in America would continue with Carleton, Grinnell, Wellesley, Wesleyan, Amherst, Williams, Pomona, CMC, Harvey Mudd and Swarthmore. But many people generalize too far in the other direction, forgetting that Harvard College and Yale College - set within the two wealthiest universities though they might be - are the two greatest liberal arts colleges in the world.</p>
<p>As far as Mother Jones versus statistical data, I do not cite Mother Jones to make a statistical argument. It just adds color to my argument that Yale is one of the most activist campuses in the country, as just about anyone very familiar with the activist movement would agree. Just look at the Sudan thing for even more color. Which two cities are the ONLY cities in the United States to have divested from the Sudan? Providence and New Haven. When it comes to statistics like "student to faculty ratios", it's the opposite problem. People cite supposed "facts" from various sources in order to try and prove their point, without realizing exactly and precisely where these "facts" come from. As I said in another post, if you didn't collect and synthesize the data yourself, and apply it to the relevant issue, you're likely misunderstanding or misapplying something. This is the whole premise behind science.</p>
<p>Good luck at Yale, and I hope you like it there. If you have any doubts in the fall, feel free to visit Grinnell. They might even help pay for the travel. Grinnell accepts a dozen or so transfers each year.</p>