<p>Yale is world-famous for its history and humanities, but it seems that in certain aspects of the natural sciences, its record is slightly weaker. To what degree is this true? Are science majors isolated by the relative inaccessability of science hill? Are the science professors a notch or two below Stanford's or MIT's? If any current students or alums could provide some insight, I'd appreciate it.</p>
<p>Would anyone like to comment?</p>
<p>I don't know if I can say enough about this to do so, but here it goes:</p>
<p>In terms of isolation, don't believe it; Science Hill is still pretty close in the end, distances at Yale are significantly shorter than those at say, Stanford. There is a very practical bus service that is constantly running so it really doesn't take very long at all to get there if you can discipline yourself to make the bus that best fits your schedule (every 10-15 minutes).</p>
<p>PLUS, there is an important initiative to move science classes closer to the residential colleges (when it is possible - i.e. no lab equipment required)</p>
<p>I'm good friends with a few science majors and I would not say that they are isolated; it's not like they spend their whole day on the hill. They go to class for an hour and come back. It's only the weekly labs that may take up some more time.</p>
<p>I agree that Yale has a rep for having better humanities and social science departmnets than hard sciences, but the univ. is doing a lot to mend this. Many of the newest buildings are for the sciences and is an important emphasis on improving this.</p>
<p>How Yale compares objectively to other institutions on the hard sciences - I don't know, but my guess it's definetely up there, somewhere. If it helps at all, I get the feeling that hard science majors get much more 1 on 1 contact with professors than most of the social science studs.</p>
<p>"Situation Normal All ***ed UP" LOL</p>
<p>Hi :-) I'm a chem major, and I really don't feel isolated at all. I do spend a large portion of the day on Monday and Wednesday up on the hill, but that's mostly because I'm taking two labs (most people only take one, I think I'm insane). However, Tuesday and Thursday I don't even go up the hill at all - I spend my time down in central campus with all my humanities-oriented friends. I only spend an hour or two up there on Fridays, too - just go up for class & come right back down. Unless you randomly decide that you want to take ALL science classes adn absolutely nothing else, you shouldn't feel trapped or isolated on science hill at all (but if you're at Yale, you really shouldn't be taking JUST science classes anyway. There are too many must-take humanities classes here, even if you are a science major...)</p>
<p>As for the science profs - as with any university, there are going to be crappy profs. Yes, at MIT and Stanford too. However, on the whole, I'm pretty happy with the science profs I've had here. With only one possible exception, I've found them to be good teachers who were very accessible outside of class hours for students who needed help or just wanted to chat about science in general. Also, I'm sure you've heard that Yale's sciences rank lower than MIT, Stanford, etc. This is true if you look at absolute rankings - MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Caltech, Berkeley etc. tend to be in the top 5 or so, but Yale is in the top 15 or so in most fields too (or at least teh ones I've bothered looking up). When you think about how many universities OFFER these fields, it's hard to reasonably claim that Yale isn't at least near the top if not ABSOLUTELY at the top. Keep in mind though that the oft-cited rankings are usually graduate-school/research rankings, not undergrad, but I do think that support of the undergrads is something I've seen done particularly well here.</p>
<p>And yes, Mexican Bulldog's point about interaction with profs is true - I definitely have more 1-on-1 contact with my chem profs than I do with my humanities profs. In humanities, my interaction is almost solely with the TAs, whereas I talk to my chem profs one-on-one quite regularly (after class, office hours, etc - the lectures esp. tend to be a bit smaller, especially at higher level classes, so it's easier to get to know the profs.)</p>
<p>How hard is science at Yale? Will it be easy to get good scores?</p>
<p>Yale is the strongest undergraduate institution in the country for sciences. The ratio of research expenditures and National Academy of Science members per undergraduate science major is higher at Yale than at any other university in the country, except Caltech. Of course, you could argue Caltech is stronger, but it's not really a university - it's only a handful of students of whom 99% major in the sciences. Also, a very large number of Caltech students drop out or transfer to other schools, whereas Yale has the lowest transfer acceptance rate in the United States - half that of Harvard, even -because nobody leaves.</p>
<p>Yale is a bit smaller and more intimate than other schools -- it focuses more on the quality of education rather than the quantity of output -- so in terms of overall science it often ranks #4 or #5 (since most rankings are based primarily on SIZE, not quality).</p>
<p>wow, lots of misinformation in the post above, including the preposterous claim that yale is the strongest undergrad institution for sciences. just as an example, take the national academy of sciences "stat": yale has 62 members in the academy, while MIT and princeton, with SMALLER student bodies, have 101 and 70.</p>
<p>The questions you ask are pretty broad, which perhaps explains in part the variety of responses on this board.</p>
<p>You ask whether the science professors are as good at Yale as at MIT and Caltech. Yale has a name and is able to attract top researchers. Many Yale professors are highly regarded in their field. They are friends with professors at other top institutions so their letters of recommendation carry weight. It is not unheard of for grad students to choose Yale over MIT for their PhDs.</p>
<p>However, the curriculums and teaching standards in the sciences at Yale leave something to be desired. MIT and Caltech really care about undergraduate education in the science (there are so many undergrads!). there are many dedicated professors at Yale, but undergraduates are not a departemental priority (perhaps with the exception of biology). </p>
<p>That said, undergraduate research experiences at Yale are generally great. Because lab groups at Yale tend to be smaller than at MIT, Stanford, or Caltech and because there are fewer undergrads competing for spots, it may be easier to land an amazing research opportunity early on in your Yale career. And when you get a research position at Yale, you are more likely to be treated like a graduate student and assigned a larger role in the project than at a large science school where you may find yourself to be an assistant to a graduate student. </p>
<p>Science at Yale is not a cakewalk. If you are considering grad school, you will be probably taking mostly graduate classes by senior year. That said, sucess rates for grad school admissions is very high. I know of Yalies who majored in science and are now at grad school at Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, and U Chigago. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Biology is a much stronger, larger and more popular program here than chem or physics.</p>
<p>
I take it you're a science major at Yale.</p>
<p>If you are a science major, the programs are great. All of my friends who are majoring in the sciences love their experiences. As a humanities major forced to take Group IVs I have been fairly dissatisfied with their offerings for non-science majors. Non-science majors are in most cases forced to take extremely boring classes designed for sciencephobes or the intense intro classes designed for majors. There are few classes that find a balance between too difficult and too easy.</p>
<p>"Yale is a bit smaller and more intimate than other schools -- it focuses more on the quality of education rather than the quantity of output -- so in terms of overall science it often ranks #4 or #5 (since most rankings are based primarily on SIZE, not quality)."
No, actually, it's not. USNews ranks on overall excellence, not size. Yale's programs are nowhere near MIT, Princeton or Stanford. </p>
<p>"Yale has the lowest transfer acceptance rate in the United States - half that of Harvard, even -because nobody leaves."
That's not entirely true. Top science students probably aren't going to Yale anyway. </p>
<p>Yale's student body is roughly 5200, or 1 NAS member per 84 students. Stanford's student body is roughly 6500, or 1 NAS professor per 52 students.</p>
<p>"Top science students probably aren't going to Yale anyway."</p>
<p>Hey, Zephyr151, since you go to Stanford, how can you possibly know that "top science students" <strong>probably</strong> aren't going to Yale? I got breaking news for you. MIT lost the most mutual admits to Yale. Check out the 1/18/06 reference in</p>
<p>There are plenty of "top" science students at Yale -- Intel semifinalists and finalists, state JSHS winners, etc. Or do you define "top" science students another way?</p>
<p>I got other breaking news for you. I have it on very good authority that the hard-core science classes at Yale may be smaller than the humanities classes , but the teaching is, for the most part, excellent.</p>
<p>"MIT lost the most mutual admits to Yale."</p>
<p>that's not at all what the link says. here's the quote:</p>
<p>"There's other weird stuff in there <a href="like%20only%20Harvard%20beat%20us%20in%20yield%20of%20mutual%20admits,%20not%20Yale!">MIT news article</a>, but that's the really significant error. So please don't worry, and please spread the word so others don't worry!</p>
<p>[Edit] My bad, Yale actually did beat us last year. I was looking at data from previous years. <em>Furrows brow in direction of New Haven</em>"</p>
<p>in other words, last year (although not previous ones) MIT lost more than half of all <em>M-Y</em> cross-admits to yale, but not necessarily more non-attending admits to yale than to anywhere else. while impressive for yale, this could actually be saying more about the schools' respective appeals to arts, humanities, and broad-education type students than to hardcore science students.</p>
<p>on this last point, see:</p>
<p><a href="http://diversity.caltech.edu/dpg_reports/irvine06-04/Data.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://diversity.caltech.edu/dpg_reports/irvine06-04/Data.pdf</a> (page 4)</p>
<p>I see you DID read the Caltech link I posted, scottie, even though you refused to acknowledge at the "other place" that it has a chart showing WHY cross admits prefer MIT, Stanford and Harvard over Caltech.</p>
<p>It also showed that the science-oriented Caltech applicants were far more likely to have, as a alternate choice, HARVARD, than either Princeton or Yale.</p>
<p>If you will consult the MIT Tech article of which you seem to be aware, (probably because I posted a link to it earlier) you will note that Ms. Jones acknowledges Harvard took "two-thirds" of the cross-admits from MIT.</p>
<p>And, as you know, Princeton has acknowledged that it loses 3/4 of the cross admits to Harvard. </p>
<p>But then, this has been true for more than 20 years, at least.</p>
<p>"Currently, Harvard and Yale are the only two schools to which MIT loses more students than it wins, with Harvard winning over two-thirds of their joint admits. MIT loses few students to other schools of technology, Jones said."</p>
<p>Well lurker, I only have to quote a CCer to disprove your so-called source. What "very good" source is this, honestly?
"The curriculums and teaching standards in the sciences at Yale leave something to be desired. MIT and Caltech really care about undergraduate education in the science (there are so many undergrads!). there are many dedicated professors at Yale, but undergraduates are not a departemental priority"</p>
<p>F. Scottie would be right on his correction, lurker. </p>
<p>While there may be top science students at Yale, because there are at lots of places like Berkeley, Cornell, Harvey Mudd, and so on, it's hard to sell Yale as a top science school, and the school itself doesn't do that. Yale does not have the kind of "science culture" that Stanford or MIT does. </p>
<p>You only have to look at all the other posts on this board--everyone sells the humanities side of Yale, but very few the sciences. </p>
<p>It's just the focus of the education, and that's great--there's not enough strong humanities program in this country. Yale's had to play quite a catch-up game, considering how far their engineering is below MIT and Stanford. And even in the more theoretical sciences, Stanford, MIT, and Princeton consistently best Yale across all departments.</p>
<p>yale is good enough at biology
yale is good enough at chemistry
yale is good enough at physics
yale is good at humanities</p>
<p>mit is good at biology
mit is good at chemistry
mit is good at physics
mit is not so good at humanities</p>