<p>i know there's a healthy mix of both, but is one more prevalent than the other?</p>
<p>LOL: Why do you feel it’s mutually exclusive?</p>
<p>Although Yale is not more pre-professional than other top schools, almost all top schools produce quite many students who pursue the professional track in the end.</p>
<p>I actually think while still in college, Yalies tend to be slightly less pre-professional than its comparable schools.</p>
<p>With this said, as far as I know, out of 6 suitemates in DS’s suite in the freshman year, 3 have attended professional schools as of today. None headed to MS/PhD programs. This may be just a coincident: all of these 3 students were graduated from public high schools, and their parents never attended professional schools when they were young. It seems often the case that if the parents are professionals themselves, their offsprings tend to do one of the following: 1) choose a more intellectual career path or even take a job in a non-profit organization. or 2) go straight to a professional career (e.g., the wall street) immediately after graduation from college. Disclaimer: This is only one data point: what students from one suite choose to do after graduation.)</p>
<p>@T26E4, i know that they aren’t mutually exclusive, but i suppose I was wondering what the general vibe was. For instance, from what I’ve heard Reed college has a very intellectual vibe, whereas Northwestern has a more pre-professional vibe. Obviously, preprofessionals exist at reed and intellectuals exist at northwestern, but there’s still a stereotype. I guess I was wondering if Yale also has a stereotype</p>
<p>
One stereotype has more truth: An “art” Ivy.
The other stereotype has less truth: One in four, maybe more 
(If you do not know what this is, I think you do not have a reason to know it.)</p>
<p>There are plenty of careerists at Yale. But because, objectively, Yale has many humanities and social science majors (more than many of its peer schools) the general vibe at Yale is more intellectual than pre-professional.</p>
<p>@mcat2, does “one in four” refer to the number of Yale grads who go into consulting or finanaces?</p>
<p>^ No. I am joking about the rumor that some talented but “special” sexual orientation persons tend to apply to this school. True or not, I am not so sure. But I could believe that the student body at this school could be more open minded toward them, as compared to, say, South Methodist University or Baylor. (It appears to me that there are indeed more singers at Yale, as compared to most high schools.)</p>
<p>An anecdotal experience, DS’s suitemate for many years at Yale is very intellectual. His parents have no chance to influence him so that he would be on the pre-professional career track, even if they try - I heard they did and failed.) We are very happy that he has a luck to have such a suitemate (for two years, actually a roommate.) DS was a pre-professional though, but he rarely preferred to hang out with those who are very pre-professional oriented as an UG student. Several of his friends were philosophy major, history major, physics major, chemistry major.</p>
<p>It’s one in four, maybe more; one in three, maybe me; one in two, maybe you. It’s a bit of an exaggeration, though.</p>
<p>As for intellectual vs. preprofessional, it seems to me that all though lots of Yale students do end up in professional schools, it doesn’t have a preprofessional vibe. It is more of an artsy vibe.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, my social scene at Yale is waaay more intellectual than it is pre-professional. Regardless of what people end up doing later in life, there is an emphasis on intellectualism that I haven’t found in my (fairly extensive) visits to Harvard, and blatant “networking” types tend to be regarded with disdain at Yale much more than you might expect.</p>