<p>
</p>
<p>Are you kidding? </p>
<p>If you’re looking for the typical college party scene, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Yale is not Clemson or OSU. But a bunch of robots who only study? Sheer nonsense.</p>
<p>Spoken obviously by someone who did not attend the school, or at least in the last 20-30 years.;)</p>
<p>
While I agree that a campus visit is a important for any college you’re seriously considering, I think this was written by someone who knows absolutely nothing about Yale. Both my H and S were/are students there - about 30+ years apart - and lack of a vibrant social life has not seemed to be an issue for either of them. Judging just from my son’s current experience, sometimes I think it’s a little TOO vibrant :)</p>
<p>What PizzaFatFace is saying wasn’t true for me at Yale in the late 70’s, and it’s not true for my son who is there now. I suppose it could have been more true at some interim period. What is true is that Yale students will mostly attend cultural activities on campus, and parties on campus, as opposed to cultural activities or clubbing in New Haven. If your main interest is clubbing, then it’s perhaps not the best school to attend–you might like Columbia better–although you still have to be 21 (or pretend to be) to get into clubs in New York.</p>
<p>It’s my observation that Yale students now do more things outside of campus than they used to, because there are more good restaurants nearby than there used to be. But nobody should be bored–there are multiple interesting things to do every day of the week.</p>
<p>yes, i was there 20 years ago so perhaps things have changed; i hope so, for the better. i don’t want to taint this discussion with my subjective impressions. so i was curious and looked up crime statistics on the trusty internet to answer the original question.</p>
<ol>
<li>New Haven, Conn.
Population: 124,856
Violent crime per 1,000: 15.8
2010 murders: 22
Median income: $38,279 (23.8 percent below national average)
Unemployment rate: 9.6 percent (0.6 percent above national average) </li>
</ol>
<p>New Haven has historically had the highest rate of violent crime on the east coast. The impoverished, crime-ridden parts of the city stand in stark contrast to affluent Fairfield county to the West, and elite Yale University, which is located within the city itself. The number of murders in the city doubled last year. New Haven has the eighth highest rate of robbery and the fourth highest rate of assault in the U.S. The New Haven Police Department is considering adding cameras at every intersection in one of the neighborhoods where shootings are the most common. </p>
<p>[The</a> 10 most dangerous cities in America - Business - US business - msnbc.com](<a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43158398/ns/business-us_business/t/crime-down-these-cities-are-still-dangerous/]The”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43158398/ns/business-us_business/t/crime-down-these-cities-are-still-dangerous/)</p>
<p>[FBI</a> — Table 4 Colorado - Idaho](<a href=“http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/preliminary-annual-ucr-jan-jun-2011/data-tables/table-4/table-4-colorado-idaho]FBI”>FBI — Table 4 Colorado - Idaho)</p>
<p>If you haven’t been to visit New Haven in 20 years, you will be pleasantly surprised to find a new vibrancy around Yale’s campus – much of it due to Yale purchasing properties surrounding the school. See: [The</a> Yale Herald Blog Archive The mall next door](<a href=“yaleherald.com”>yaleherald.com)</p>
<p>“No university has attempted anything quite like this, in New Haven or elsewhere. In the last quarter-century, Yale has gone from being an embattled, non-profit resident of an ailing city to New Haven’s biggest taxpayer, paying over four million dollars in commercial property taxes, and managing over 85 tenants—a veritable commercial empire.”</p>
<p>“Building by building, the University bought most of Broadway, and most of Chapel Street, and various other commercial properties around campus. That meant, in some cases, that Yale also owned the apartments where, by the mid-’90s, about 20 percent of upperclassmen lived.”</p>
<p>“Between 1996 and 2002, city retail sales jumped from $577 million to more than $2 billion, according to the Associated Press. Between 1998 and 2004, the number of vacant properties in New Haven dropped from 1,400 to 550. The New York Times, CBS News, and the Christian Science Monitor praised Yale’s renovation of Broadway as a remarkable case of clever planning.”</p>
<p>The loss of diversity may be the greatest casualty of Broadway’s commercial success—a renewal of enormous proportions that has changed the way universities think about commercial property. “All these years,” McGrath said, “Yale didn’t have a Harvard Square. Now they do.”</p>
<p>PizzaFatFace, if you were a Yale student, how many robberies or other serious crimes did you witness while you were there? For most students, the answer is none. As has been discussed on this board countless times, the overall crime statistics for New Haven are not very relevant to Yale students. Somebody who was a Yale student would understand this, which is why your posts are generating a bit of skepticism.</p>
<p>PizzaFatFace:</p>
<p>Agree with Hunt above. If you were a Yale student you would be the only one I ever heard of that thought students spent all their time studying forcing you to leave campus for NYC or Boston for a social life. I only went to Boston for “The Game(s)” and went to NYC twice a year which was more than most. As far as Yale students are concerned, New Haven crime is not a big deal affecting the undergraduate experience. The fact that New Haven has disadvantaged neighborhoods and citizens gives Yalies the opportunity to use their abundant gifts to give back to the community in a way that would be hard to do at a place like Princeton. Whether you want to tutor in schools, mentor children, work with a local Scout troop, or just teach kids how to fix bikes, there is a reason why Dwight hall, the umbrella for social service organizations, is the largest extra-curricular group on campus.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, it is not bad at all. When you think about, there are very few, if any, college settings that are ‘perfect.’ In the extremes, bucolic rural areas and perfectly groomed suburbs can get boring; big cities can be overwhelming and destroy campus life. Yale being in New Haven actually has a lot to offer: A city feel, for those who are tired of their insular suburb, which includes great restaurants and some name-brand retailers (like J.Crew and Urban Outfitters); an historic feel, which is novel for those from the West; close proximity to the ocean, for those from land-locked locations; easy train travel to New York and Boston. I have also driven through some pretty residential areas of New Haven, where I assume Yale employees reside (? like Tiger Mom?).</p>
<p>New Haven’s grittiness is what makes Yale’s student community so close-knit - pretty much all student life takes place on campus or in the immediate block surrounding it.</p>
<p>Can’t be that bad if [College</a> Campuses as Affordable Travel Destinations - NYTimes.com](<a href=“College Campuses as Affordable Travel Destinations - The New York Times”>College Campuses as Affordable Travel Destinations - The New York Times)</p>