<p>Right, Ernie, I guess that's why many of the houses and condominiums off campus (even many blocks from it) sell for a million dollars and why you need advance reservations to get into some of the enormous, $70/person prix fixe restaurants.</p>
<p>We're talking * in general * here. New Haven is one of the poorest cities in the northeast - it is just slummy in general. I'm sure there are nice places even outside Yale (though I didn't see many when I visited) and I've heard the city has improved a lot in the past decade or so, but it still a far cry from Cambridge as far as college towns go. And that is coming from a person who liked Yale way more than Harvard after visiting both. But New Haven isn't one of Yale's selling points.</p>
<p>Are you sure? It certainly doesn't seem that way to me. Especially given all those $70 prix fixe menus, $3,000 per month luxury apartments, and global hedge funds moving in to the area that I mentioned. Not to mention the dozens upon dozens of student-friendly places open all night.</p>
<p>And this:</p>
<p>Per Capita Incomes in 2001 - U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis</p>
<p>United States Average $30,413</p>
<p>Wealthiest urban areas in the U.S. and $$$:</p>
<ol>
<li>San Francisco, CA 57,714 </li>
<li>San Jose, CA 51,579 (Silicon Valley)</li>
<li>New Haven, CT 48,453</li>
<li>Bergen-Passaic, NJ 43,856</li>
<li>West Palm Beach-Boca Raton, FL 43,626</li>
<li>Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon, NJ 43,292</li>
</ol>
<p>Other Northeastern urban areas above the U.S. Average:</p>
<p>Washington, DC-MD-VA-WV 41,754
Nassau-Suffolk, NY 41,559
New York City, NY 40,949
Boston, MA 39,873
Hartford, CT 37,819
Philadelphia, PA 33,750</p>
<p>Other Northeastern urban areas that are poorer than the U.S. Average:</p>
<p>Providence, RI 29,824
Springfield, MA 28,705
Syracuse, NY 27,021
Utica, NY 24,452</p>
<p>"$70 prix fixe menus, $3,000 per month luxury apartments, and global hedge funds" do not make a town student friendly. If it did, we could all go to college in the Hamptons and have the times of our lives. Students can't even afford what you mentioned. In addition, New Haven is very stratified in that it has extremely rich people and extremely poor people. I heard this from someone who goes there. </p>
<p>Your soliciting of Yale also makes it seem like you have some vested interests in having students going there... Why so much passion for something so irrelevant? This is an opinion topic.</p>
<p>posterX, I have always thought that it would be great if Yale were in Cambridge, not New Haven...Come on.. You frequently show us some very interesting stats about many schools, including Yale, of course..But if you keep this up you are going to start losing credibility.....</p>
<p>How many Yale students do you need to change a lightbulb?
None----New Haven looks better in the dark...</p>
<p>Movie, those ideas are years out of date now, as I've pointed out above in detail. Derrick, it's not the Hamptons, nor would anyone there ever want it to be, but it also isn't as "stratified" as you or your friend seems to think. While there are both rich and poor people there, just like anywhere in the increasingly-stratified world we live in, New Haven is much more of a middle-class city than a place like New York City, where you only have ultra-rich in $2M+ condos combined with legions of the poor. In fact, in New York City, over 50% of gross salaries/incomes go to the tiny fraction of people working in that city's financial industry. That leaves very little for the average guy. Yes, there are many very expensive restaurants in downtown New Haven, but also hundreds of very popular ones in the area that are within a student budget. </p>
<p>Also, unlike any city I have ever visited (and I've been to almost every major city in the United States), there are dozens of "carts" featuring different world cuisines (even obscure ones like Ethiopian carts!) scattered throughout the city. They cluster together into large "cart cities" in areas in and around Yale as well as along the city's waterfront about a mile from Yale. Immigrants find it much more affordable to open a cart than a full service restaurant and even more importantly because the city government very actively encourages them as small-scale entrepreneurship in order to provide jobs for families. The health inspections for the "carts" is actually more rigorous than it is for any restaurants anywhere, meaning that you're much more likely to get food poisoning from a fancy French restaurant in NY City than you are from one of them. Also, they are delicious, although it may take some time to try out different ones and identify your favorites. Wouldn't you agree with me that an enormous $1.00 taco/burrito made by Mexican immigrants, smothered with salsa and cilantro and better than anything you would find at a Mexican chain restaurant or even most places in Mexico itself, is affordable to students?</p>
<p>a sobering dose of truth here: with a per capita income of just $16,393, new haven is the 235th richest city/town in connecticut. that's out of 245 total, placing it in about the 4th percentile in its own state. the city lost some 6,000 residents in the 1990's, part of the more than 40,000 (a full quarter of its total) it's hemmorhaged since the 1950s, when its factories were still operational.</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Haven%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Haven</a></p>
<p>I would turn down Harvard for Williams, but I didn't give Harvard that option =].</p>
<p>I turned down Harvard for Duke.</p>
<p>Maybe posterX is confusing New Haven with New Canaan, the wealthiest county in the state of Connecticut. </p>
<p>Wishful thinking.... LOL</p>
<p>f.scottie, the "municipal" figures you cite are incorrect and not comparable with other cities, as I've explained in detail on other threads here. They have only to do with taxation boundaries established in the 1700s, not actual urban areas. New Haven's artifically-determined "municipal" figure is low because the massive amount of students (13,000 at Southern CT State, 11,000 at Yale, 10,000 at Gateway College, 4,000 at Albertus and many more thousands at other local institutions) and tiny size of the taxation boundary. It's urban area (U.S. Census metropolitan) figure places it as one of the wealthiest cities in the United States.</p>
<p>I would definitely turn down Harvard for Yale.
50/50 between Harvard and Princeton.</p>
<p>I stated eariler that I would turn down Harvard for Amherst, which was and is my dream school and where I am going in the Fall. But last night I had a dream that I got into Harvard after getting into Amherst, and I was really torn (in the dream)...I mean, on the one hand, I love Amherst. But on the other, Harvard is Harvard. I have to admit that it sometimes annoys me when people don't know what Amherst is, and I know with Harvard that would never be a problem. The name alone can open so many doors for you. I never thought I was that kind of person, who cared so much about name recognition, but I woke up from this dream wondering if the name itself would have been worth giving up Amherst. Is it so wrong that on some level I would have thoroughly enjoyed jaws dropping at the mentioning of my school? In the dream I ended up turning down Amherst and accepting a place at Harvard. It really disturbs me that even now I wonder, if offered a spot at Harvard, whether I would take it or not. It was bothering me all day.</p>
<p>But then I got out my 2006-2007 Amherst Course Catalog and flipped around. I remembered that at Amherst I will be able to choose whatever course tickles my fancy without anybody breathing down my neck telling me which requirement I haven't filled yet. I realized I'd probably be able to walk on to the soccer team and play club volleyball, something not as easily done at a DI school. I remembered that one of my best friends is going to Amherst with me. And I remembered that Amherst is virtually everything I could want in a school (OK, minus the earth-shattering name recognition). But that's OK. Those who matter know what goes down in central Mass.</p>
<p>And that's why I can say, with full confidence, that I would turn down Harvard (and any other school, for that matter) for Amherst.</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>We call it Western Mass, though. :)</p>
<p>i would turn down harvard for...................... um actually i wouldnt turn harvard down.. if i got in</p>
<p>I feel like saying that you "would" turn down Harvard for a school and actually doing it are two totally different things.</p>
<p>Two of my friends this year got into Harvard, and neither wanted to go there. One infinitely prefered Columbia, but his parents (alum) forced him to pick Harvard and he gave up protesting. Another (also a legacy) got into Haverford and knew she'd be a better fit at a LAC, went to the admitted student weekend at Harvard and didn't like it or the feel of the school, yet is still going simply because its Harvard without even really visiting Haverford. She's not excited about it, even if her parents are, and kinda wishes she were still on the waitlist for Georgetown or Middlebury.</p>
<p>I, for one, feel like I'd love Duke or Williams (my current options) more than I'd like Harvard, yet if I got off the Harvard waitlist, I also think I'd ultimately end up there next year. There's a reason why Harvard's yield is so extremely high. I think the only schools I could legitimately and truthfully say that I would pick Harvard over would be Wharton or Yale, maybe Princeton.</p>
<p>Stanford, maybe.</p>
<p>I'm almost positive I'd never turn down Harvard... :8</p>
<p>I completely agree with sphairistic. Wharton was my first choice throughout the entirety of high school. I knew I wanted to be in business, knew that attending Wharton would be the best way of ensuring me a great job in that industry, and felt that Wharton was a feasible reach school. I applied early, was deferred but was ultimately accepted. An acceptance from Harvard also came on March 29. </p>
<p>Where am I going? </p>
<p>Harvard. It's the school that you grow up hearing of, that commands immediate and total respect from anyone, that you don't dare to dream about. Harvard will open doors for you that you didn't even know existed. It's hard to turn something like that down.</p>
<p>^^^ I understand what you are saying. That's the reason I applied EA. However, I think it is also a matter of one's ability to make a decision based on what one ends up considering really important. I would say that in the cases you mentioned, the 7 letter word "Harvard" won. It is kind of sad to make a decision of going to a school because of its "name" even if you feel you would be happier some place else of comparable academics and prestige.</p>
<p>I am grateful my parents were very supportive and thrilled for me when I told them that I really felt I liked Brown much more and that I would be happier there. I guess I was lucky to realize that Harvard was not going to open the most important door for me....Happiness......and I do know that door exists.</p>
<p>Hmm...well I never did say that I would be more happy anywhere else. In fact, I'm completely secure in my decision. Just as you say it's sad for me to make my decision based on a name, I don't feel it's completely right to make a college decision based on four years of happiness. I think truly successful people have the flexibility and resiliency to be happy/comfortable wherever they go while making the most of the opportunities they are offered. I believe that for the most part, the people who choose to go to Harvard attend the school acknowledging the importance of the school's name but also enter with the mindset of having fun and working hard during their four years. I think you, MovieBuff, would have done the same had you chosen Harvard and wouldn't have been unhappy. :] Though I know it happens, I think, for me at least, it would be difficult at such a stimulating and exciting place.</p>
<p>I don't know if all that rambling above makes sense though...</p>