<p>Thank you for being so frank. Much appreciated! </p>
<p>Hereās a short post from a former professor of mine that might help highlight what Iām talking about. <a href=ā"I hope I don't get kicked out of Yale for this" - Chris Blattmanā>http://chrisblattman.com/2014/01/20/i-hope-i-dont-get-kicked-out-of-yale-for-this/</a></p>
<p>"Yaleās students werenāt so different from others Iāve taught at Berkeley, Harvard or Columbia, but one thing did stand out: they never saw any limits to what they could do.</p>
<p>Interested in international journalism? Maybe Iāll go to Zimbabwe over spring break, corner the central bank governor in a hotel lobby, and get a scoop I can sell to a newspaper."</p>
<p>Thanks for the links! Interesting readsā¦especially the comments left by the readers. </p>
<p>
In DSās suite freshman year, the wealthy half are African American, white, white. The ānot so wealthyā (but not poor) half are white, Asian and Asian. The wealthier three are not STEM majors and work after college and never go back to any kind of graduate school. The ānot so wealthyā three are STEM majors and now attend some kind of graduation school. (Well, one has graduated from the graduate school as his graduate program requires 3 years only.)</p>
<p>The wealthiest Asian DS met in college was actually an international one, not an Asian American who grew up in US. She did not pursue graduate study either after college.</p>
<p>The wealthiest two who DS ever mentioned to us are actually (international) Asian and African American.</p>
<p>This is just one data point.</p>
<p>Here are three YDN op-eds that give studentsā perspectives on life at Yale. The comments are as good as the articles; they show how very differently students experience the same campus. </p>
<p><a href=āDEFIESTA: Yale, the best place - Yale Daily Newsā>http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/04/22/defiesta-yale-the-best-place/</a>
<a href=āSTERN: Dear prefrosh - Yale Daily Newsā>http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/04/23/stern-dear-prefrosh/</a>
<a href=āTAYLOR: Dear prefrosh, - Yale Daily Newsā>http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/04/15/taylor-dear-prefrosh/</a></p>
<p>I like Yale, but I do feel that the giddy optimism towards all things Yale that is usually found on CC is not representative of the experience most students have at Yale. As one of the comments on Nick Defiestaās article puts it, āthere are about five people on campus who actually act and feel like the tour guides pretend to. no one likes them.ā</p>
<p>I read the OP-ed written by Defiesta,</p>
<p>Wow. I have my thoughts, but will keep them to myself. Thank you for posting.</p>
<p>My son, who will be a senior next year, is white, STEM (Physics major), a QuestBridge kid, and a very happy Yalie. Unlike the OP, he did make his decision specifically between Yale and Princeton and is still happy with his choice, reinforced by the experiences of his two high school friends who are at Princeton. (Not a Princeton knock at all, his friends are having great experiences of their own, he just thinks heās better off at Yale.)
As a parent, my (grateful) perspective is that Yaleās unofficial slogan should be āthereās a grant for that.ā Heās been given resources, like the ISA grant mentioned by GFM2014, that are just life-changing. </p>
<p>I recently turned down Yale for Stanford. If anyoneās wondering, I really really liked Yale and the people at BDD, the residential colleges, and strong sense of community, the tradition and history, but turned it down because I felt that Yale is a place more into politics than sports and also humanities over science/engineering. That just wasnāt for me. On top of that, Yale is a place where everyone is amazing, and you can tell, while what I loved about Stanford is that you canāt tell at all. I felt like I would feel constantly overshadowed at Yale. Yale is a place of privilege (not in the sense that itās snobby, but that itās a place for the best of the best) while Stanford feels more like a state school for geniuses. Also, Yaleās campus bothered meā¦ not because it was low income, but because it just felt gray and depressing. I felt like I would be much more likely to go out and do something at Stanford than at Yale.</p>
<p>But these were just my impressions and Iām sure plenty would disagree. </p>
<p>I was also very impressed with the Yale Entrepreneurial institute. Iām sure others schools offer this type of program. </p>
<p>Dd is currently at yale. Likes it alright, but does not totally love it. Feels that many of the kids at yale have to talk and act like they are having a great time when inside, they are not. She and I know others at yale who are unhappy or who just like it enough. </p>
<p>However, she and I know many other kids at H and P who feel the same way as well. Maybe these schools get so built up in peopleās minds or maybe itās the pressure that this should be the best times of their lives that it becomes an unattainable goal. </p>
<p>It also may be harder for our fellow Southern California kids because the weather and the culture are so different in the northeast than what they are used to. We have not heard these complaints from S kids, maybe for the weather/culture reason. </p>
<p>As a side note: dd did not attend BDD or any admitted prefrosh programs. Visited yale 2 times before applying and loved it. Also visited HPS along with about 30 other colleges. Dd decision to attend Y was not influenced by BDD.</p>
<p>I agree with a lot of what guccigirl said. Yale is definitely much more into politics than sports and humanities than science. Yale is intense into politics. Itās kind of hard to escape. I think thatās ultimately a good thing, though. College is for challenging your assumptions and becoming more aware of whatās around you. Most people who go to these top schools will likely spend most of the lives living in relatively homogeneous upper middle class suburbs. Itās just the natural tendency of people to want to live in communities of people like themselves who believe similar things and hold similar values. At Yale you are beat upside the head with challenges to your beliefs and values, no matter who you are. I feel like thatās what college should be. I think I wouldāve found a bit more enjoyment in a place that was less political and more into the football team, but I donāt think I wouldāve gotten as much out of it. Iāll probably spend my life going to college football games back home in the South, but this was a great opportunity to broaden my horizons. (Though some of the people here could be stand to broaden their horizons a bit and come with me to a college football game in the South.)</p>
<p>Yale is becoming more STEMy. Theyāre in the middle of a $1+ billion investment in the sciences and have made a real push for STEM students. This is unfounded speculation on my part, but I bet part of the reason of building the new colleges is to allow them to expand the STEM population without shrinking the humanities population. They want to invest in STEM but they are very against college being a form of preprofessional training. There are a lot of obvious incentives for students to pursue STEM fields, and Yale doesnāt want to discourage that, but they want to make sure that people still get the well rounded humanistic education that Yale is known for. I did not major in the humanities- I was an Econ major- but I feel like I benefited a lot from being at a place with a strong culture of respecting the humanities. The classes are basically the same; youāll find great humanities classes at any of Yaleās peer schools, but Yaleās strength is itās culture of focus on humanities so you get exposed to it even if your coursework isnāt built around the humanities. </p>
<p>YEI is pretty cool. We still have a ways to go to compare to a place like Stanford when it comes to innovation, but YEI is a great organization. </p>
<p>Stanford sounds like a great place. I wasnāt considering going across the country for school, so I really canāt say much on it. I feel relatively comfortable talking about the ways in which Yale does things better or worse than H or P, but I canāt really comment too much when it comes to S. </p>
<p>I just finished my sophomore year at Yale, and I thought this was an appropriate place to add my two cents to the conversation. While my choice did not include Princeton, I chose between Harvard and Yale and have been incredibly satisfied with my choice. </p>
<p>The residential college system has been a godsend for my social life and integration into the Yale community. While class, political views, and religious values separate students in a lot of ways, the college system does seem to serve as a great equalizer, at least in terms of building personal relationships with others. While I have learned that some colleges are definitely afforded more resources than others, each college provides Yale students with a built-in set of friends, which I see as being really essential in forming a solid support system beginning freshman year. I know that Yale admissions uses the system as a main source of pride, but I really want to speak to its significance in my life, and to its ability to help me adjust to a pretty large culture shock (mostly due to economic differences) when I came to Yale. </p>
<p>Getting on campus jobs is easy if you look for them. They are not handed to students like they are at other schools, and if someone wants one coming right into school, they have to get a jump on it immediately. I actually have three on campus jobs for next year, but that is in no way the norm. Most students who have on campus jobs seem to average working about 10 hours per week (not an official stat. just me polling my friends). </p>
<p>As far as social life goes, Yale is a place where anyone can find a strong place for them. One complaint I do have about Yale, though, is that people claim to be overwhelmingly open-minded. They, however, are not open-minded to those who want to stick to traditional values. People do tend to be judgmental towards those with orthodox religious beliefs, even if they do not affect others or do not judge those who are not religious like themselves. </p>
<p>I would be happy to clarify anything that I did not explain well. I hope my input was useful! </p>
<p>@iqtestā </p>
<p>Please elaborate on your statementā¦āsome residential colleges are afforded more resources than others.ā How so? </p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>Actually, the resources afforded the residential colleges has been equalized to a large extent in the last few yearsāin the past, some colleges had large donations that allowed them to do things others couldnāt doābut the money has now been (at least mostly, if not entirely) equalized. The colleges still have different resourcesāeach has amenities that others donātābut I donāt think any of them are significantly inferior overall.</p>
<p>@NewHavenCTmom I would agree with Hunt in saying that none are specifically inferior to others, but I would not say that they have been equalized overall. This being said, there is no college that is a bad place to end up. Some colleges, however, still have endowments for particular activities that the university cannot re-allocate because of legal restrictions. Davenport, for example, took its students to the opera in NYC at no cost, on a college-funded bus. Other colleges would have subsidized the event and asked students to provide their own transportation. A lot of it comes down to how the colleges choose to spend their money, and while I feel that I ended up in a college on the lower end of the Yale financial spectrum, I would not choose to change colleges for any reason. </p>
<p>Very interesting post. Wish I had seen this when i was choosing! Iād just like to add my two cents: I personally loved Yale, and it had been my dream school for a long time. In the end, however, I chose Chicago. But here are some of the things that really attracted me to yale:
- arts programs, artsy students, students that i perceived to not be so focused on corporate ambitions and goals
- beautiful campus.
- humanities programs - a focus on culture and an appreciation of the finer subjects like philosophy, history and theatre.
- star professors like harold bloomā¦ </p>
<p>and those are only a few of the things I liked 
</p>