<p>I have been reading that Yale is thinking about putting in 2 more residential colleges. I know this probably won't happen for a while, but if it does, will the new colleges start with just a class of freshment, and then new people added every year so that the first class does not have any upperclassmen? or are they going to move people around and spread them out?</p>
<p>Yale</a> Considers Two More Residential Colleges
an article about the possibility of new colleges</p>
<p>Don't consider this the definitive answer, but I think when Morse and Stiles opened in the '60s, they invited people from other colleges to defect to the new ones with the promise of getting better rooms than they'd get in their existing colleges. Enough people took them up on the offer that there were upperclassmen in the first year the colleges opened.</p>
<p>The rooms in Stiles are soooo nice. I visited in September and they must have just been renovated or something....they're huge.</p>
<p>Haha, ceebee, you should be aware that stiles and morse are considered the worst colleges to be put into (room-wise, everybody still loves their own college). Did you visit any other dorms? Man, I can't imagine what your reaction would be to the other places if you think stiles is nice.</p>
<p>But yeah... I actually think the size of their dorms is way, way better. And the stone flooring adds this freaky Poe-feel that's pretty sweet.</p>
<p>Stiles and Morse are still to receive the full renovation. They will be changed comprehensively -- ridding the majority of the single rooms (a dictate from the independent minded 70s -- now seen as a mistake). The idea will be to produce suites to increase cohesion as in the other ten colleges.</p>
<p>I don't know what they are smoking on that issue. I love my roomies, but the fact that we could convert the living room into a single and thus all have our own private breathing space makes it much, much easier not to kill each other.</p>
<p>I don't like the idea of increasing the size of Yale's undergraduate body. I like a small class, and I'd hate to see Yale become a "degree factory" with resources too widely spread for the holistic education of undergrads...</p>
<p>Morse and Stiles are okay for those who can deal with the funky stonework. Personally, I like the classic designs much more, though...</p>
<p>The proponents of expansion are fully aware of the inherent issues with expansion, bmwdan. That's why a comprehensive examination has been going on : from additional faculty & classes, additional support structures, additional everything -- to maintain the intimacy of the current 5000 undergrads. Will some sacrifices be required? Yes, the same ones when ES and MC were built. But the ability to educate another 250 Yale Collegians annually for generations to come... I'm all for that.</p>
<p>So basically an increased operating budget will be needed to pay for new faculty, classes, etc, not to mention a huge increase in needed financial aid. Then there is the fixed cost of new residential colleges and all of the associated variable costs with maintaining those... it looks like Yale would have to spew out money to make that happen. I am all for expanding Yale's influence in the world by educating more students, but the cost of doing so is more than I can handle. It's not like Yale can instantly boost its endowment just because its class size has increased- leading to an unavoidable drop in resources per student. Then again, I am not part of the decision making process and I don't hold all of the facts. It just seems like a bad move to make that kind of change right now.</p>
<p>bmwdan13: Yale's endowment grew by 28% last year. That is, if Yale added 3 new colleges between last year and this year, it could have done so without either increasing endowment expenditure on a percentage basis or reducing spending per student. Your worry would make sense if Yale's endowment wasn't growing, but it is, and growing extremely rapidly.</p>
<p>And even if it wasn't growing more than Rosie O'Donnell does, it's still one of the wealthiest educational institutions in the world. Only fair that a place that has been the playground of the upper echelons for centuries extends its resources to more people. The one and only, and I mean only, thing I'm not too enthusiastic about when it comes to Yale is the fact that it still IS an elitist place with elitist history. I applaud its project of democratization.</p>
<p>The problem with building new colleges is the proposed location. </p>
<p>ES and MC were built adjacent to the other colleges, meaning that all dormitories are within a 2-3 minute walk of each other. In terms of undergraduate housing, no other university in America is as compact as Yale, which is one of the reasons why Yale is more vibrant than any other university.</p>
<p>The new colleges are currently proposed for a site that is a block to the north of the northernmost residential college. This wouldn't turn Yale into a spread-out, impersonal place like Harvard, but it could significantly impact the university's character. Students wouldn't be able to hit up all 50 of their friends' parties/performances in 12 different dormitories in one evening as easily as they do now.</p>
<p>A better plan for Yale would be to convert existing buildings in the center of campus -- such as the graduate department, music school or law school -- into residential colleges and/or fill in one of the open spaces. I don't think the graduate students would mind having a beautiful new $600 million building that was a block away, because they aren't part of 24/7 campus life in the same way that undergraduates are.</p>
<p>Yale's current plan to expand the footprint of where undergraduates live will have a major negative impact on the school. Yes, it is only one block, but having to walk 5 minutes to visit your friend instead of 2 minutes can make a big difference.</p>
<p>Oh wow haha I can't believe what the other dorms at Yale are like if the one I stayed at was considered bad! I stayed in one on the main Freshman quad that had 2 singles and 2 doubles on a big long hallway with a private bathroom and a big common area, and the bedrooms themselves were pretty big. When I was at Dartmouth, I couldn't believe that there were THREE people in a room the size of a closet (they could barely fit in a bunkbed and loft bed)! And those people had a common room that could barely fit their desks...</p>
<p>Yes, Yale's endowment expanded LAST YEAR. We can't bank on that endowment continuing to grow at such an incredible pace! That would be complete folly! It was a fantastic year, sure, but next year might be horrible (um, economic turndown???)... how will Yale pay for the huge expansion and overextension of its resources then?</p>
<p>Yale will not "democritize" (whatever that means) if it expands. Do you think expanding the class size by a thousand people will make Yale much less selective? It's going to be the same thing, except that it will not be able to serve those new students as well as before.</p>
<p>I'm not sure how this thread turned into a populist "anti-elitist" rant, but I'd be more than happy to address that as well. America is a meritocricy, more so now than any time before. This is especially true of college admissions. With recent financial aid reforms from H and Y, anyone admitted can pay for an incredible education at either of these institutions. Nobody is excluded that way, but you would be correct to say that HYP students have some of the best conditions and resources of any university in the nation. This is the nature of a competitive world. In our meritocratic system, equality of condition is naturally impossible, but there IS equality of opportunity. The admissions office takes into account race, income, challenges overcome, first generation, etc. in order to ensure that each class is not a bunch of rich, advantaged stodgebags. Since the massive change from the days of the "gentleman's C" and the "future oil exec degree factory", Yale has become one of the most diverse colleges in the nation. I have no idea why you feel it is elitist. Please explain?</p>
<p>bmwdan- Yale's endowment has grown by an average of 18% per year (or somewhere around that) since Swenson's been the investment manager (and that includes the early 2000s stock market downturn). That is, the growth over two average years is sufficient on its own to pay for the extra resources, while, as for building the colleges themselves, finishing the current round of renovations will free up money for that.
posterX's concern about the location is more valid, and it worries me too. I would like to see Yale come up with a better plan for addressing that, but, in the end, I think expanding the number of students who can go to Yale is a broadly good thing, if it is planned responsibly to ensure that the quality of a Yale education remains constant.</p>
<p>ceebee - if you were staying on the main Freshman quad (Old Campus, as we call it) you weren't in Stiles. Probably you were in Lawrence, which is freshman housing for Stiles students, and in many ways preferable to the college itself.</p>
<p>They are going to have to listen to students and dangle some big carrots on Prospect to entice more students up that way when the new colleges are built (don't think it's an 'if' anymore). Something entertainment-oriented? Maybe a dedicated undergrad student union type of building? Let's face it, even TD is and always has been a bit of an outpost. </p>
<p>On another note- are there plans to introduce the right angle to M and S? Never mind the singles, the really awkward thing was that ever-widening gulf between bed and wall or alternatively, having the end of your bed wedged into your desk.</p>
<p>When are these new-fangled colleges going to be built, anyways?</p>
<p>There is no timetable yet, and they're years away from being built.</p>
<p>My bet is that if the plan to build is approved this year, they will be finished and ready to open no sooner than 4-5 years from date of approval. It could easily be 10 years out even if approved this year as they would need to be building up faculty and making other changes to ready the school for a larger undergrad population.</p>