<p>Hi everybody,</p>
<p>I am not starting to look at colleges for next year. What is your opinion on the overall atmosphere of these colleges? Are they super competitive, laid-back, nuetral, etc.?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Yale: Not competitive at all.</p>
<p>Why is that? So, everybody helps everybody and there isn’t a lot of competition among students?</p>
<p>Yeah pretty much. There is no incentive to be competitive so everyone studies together and helps each other out. </p>
<p>Why would students compete against each other?</p>
<p>I’m not sure. 
I just assumed that everyone at an Ivy League school wants to be at the top of their class. I’m not sure if it is a stereotype but, I’ve heard that MIT has really competitive students.</p>
<p>Idk about MIT, but people at Yale are happy and are not competitive. It is a GREAT school to go to and if you get accepted you should not hesitate to attend. Moreover, Yale has a history that few other schools have and it is great to be apart of that tradition.</p>
<p>Hi everybody,</p>
<p>I am “NOW” starting to look at colleges for next year. What is your opinion on the overall atmosphere of these colleges? Are they super competitive, laid-back, nuetral, etc.?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>What are your big “selling points” of Yale? (Just out of curiosity)</p>
<p>To me the most attractive thing about Yale was the architecture. I really wanted a beautiful school and this school is amazing. I mean taking your final exam in a place and studying in a place that is so ornate is truly amazing.</p>
<p>Aside from the architecture, I feel that Yale really offers a community. It is fairly cliche, and I admit that I do not have very much knowledge about other colleges (I only got into two), but I still feel that Yale–especially in relation to the residential college system–is a community of people as opposed to a student body. People at Yale are amazing and it is an absolutely wonderful experience. To be honest, in order to really understand what I am talking about you have to be here. EVERYONE loves Yale and I do mean EVERYONE. Yalies are extraordinarily happy.</p>
<p>MIT is arguably one of the most collaborative colleges in the world…not sure where you heard that it is competitive. We don’t even have rankings haha</p>
<p>Jashper, so you’re saying that everyone is ok with helping everyone? In other words, are there any “stuck-up” people that think that they know everything and aren’t willing to help you?</p>
<p>Gee, I was going to say the atmosphere is mostly nitrogen. </p>
<p>Are there any jerks? Seriously? Can you imagine a place without jerks and without some competition? If you’re really concerned about competing, then you should think hard about applying to places populated with extremely bright people who are naturally going to want to do well. Some classes, some areas in every school are more openly competitive than others but nearly everyone in all of these schools wants to excel and that is a form of competition.</p>
<p>Lergnom, don’t get me wrong, I’m very competitive in school. I just want to go to a school where I’m not afraid to ask for help from a fellow student.</p>
<p>I don’t want to go to a college where all of the students think that they are too good to give advice or help a fellow student.</p>
<p>At any college you go to there will be both competitive and helpful students.</p>
<p>But not all colleges are the same in this respect. It’s a good question to ask…it may be hard to get a clear answer, because even in one school, there may be different experiences. Thus (for example) people in the sciences–especially premeds–may be more competitive than people in some of the humanities. Or not.</p>
<p>As a premed at Yale I can attest to the chillness of the pre-med population.</p>
<p>When my dad went to school, he was competing against WWII vets who’d sometimes been in combat for 3 years. He told me they’d break your experiments and would toss out your product. They’d steal the fetal pigs so you couldn’t use one. They’d sometimes force the kids to do their work. Some of these guys had spent time in places like Iwo Jima so they weren’t going to lose to some skinny tall kid with glasses who was too bleeping young to serve. </p>
<p>Things have changed. You need to grab hold of your anxiety about this.</p>
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<p>Weren’t you thinking of engineering or physics at one point, Dbate? What influenced your decision to explore the premedicine option (if you don’t mind me asking)?</p>
<p>I had always intended to pursue a pre-med route, I was just going to go via physics or engineering. Biomedical engineering is very compatible with a premed curriculum, and it is the one I am most likely to pursue. One of the good things about Yale is that there are so many degrees of freedom in choosing courses during the early years such that I still don’t have to decide and won’t be behind.</p>
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<p>Oh, fantastic. That seems to be an exciting option for those who are interested in the quantitative aspects of biology.</p>
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<p>Yes, certainly.</p>