<p>To Yale Undergrads/Alums - What was your opinion about the school? While browsing the net, I came across another review site and was wondering how accurate some of the following recurring themes were:
- Mostly large (40 - 60+) classes with profs that don't give you the time of day and are more interested in their own research.
- "Cutthroatness" of students (going as far as to rip pages out of books from the library, not collaborate ideas, etc)
- Unsafe campus, robberies common, etc.
- New Haven not a great town (to say the least)
- Snobby kids?
- Basically that everything that is advertised sounds great on paper but really isn't so great in reality?</p>
<p>LOL: what a load of garbage. They give Yale’s education quality an “A-”
3 of the points are completely false, 3 are opinions – so there. You’d think an MIT grad would actually build a site that values real info rather than user driven “reviews”. He says " It is up to you however, to do the due diligence and investigate the educational quality behind the brand for the institutions you might wish to attend." What is his solution? Read anonymous peoples’ opinions on his webpage.</p>
<p>But if you want to keep your research on Yale to dubious webpages, go right ahead. If you actually read the negative Yale posts, the look like complete ■■■■■ posts but are left up because the actual site moderators don’t know enough to tell when it’s a completely false rant versus something legitimate.</p>
<p>I like the post where the writer says the professors will get violent with you for bugging them too much. LOL</p>
<p>Hahaha good point. I was pretty much looking at the whole thing like “…this is not really anything I’ve heard before…” and figured I’d ask legit credible people.</p>
<p>I read a bunch of positive ones that say pretty much the opposite. So, asking couldn’t really hurt.</p>
<p>And yeah. That one about professors being evil and what not was def. the most entertaining thing I’ve read in a while =].
Okay. Thanks</p>
<p>You will find more trustworthy anonymous opinions about Yale here on CC. My son is a freshman at Yale, and he’s not finding most of those problems. He says most of the private school kids aren’t snobby, he’s had good contact with profs, and the campus is as safe as any urban campus. OK, New Haven is not the greatest. But Yale is.</p>
<p>this place is not for everyone. i will say that. i don’t think it’s fair for me to make overgeneralized statements about this school based on just my experiences, but i will share with you what i feel and know. </p>
<p>the education you will recieve here will be excellent, so if you’re choosing a school just based on academics, then Yale is a great place to consider. the professors really are very accessible and the curriculum really is rich and interesting. if you don’t understand a topic, there are PLENTY of resources to help you out. teachers hold office hours and will make separate appointments with you if you don’t understand something. there are also tutors within the department as well as residential college tutors in each subject. further, for really big lecture classes, there are extra classes called “sections” where you can go to a smaller version of the class and have questions answered and topics gone over by TAs. residential college libraries are open 24 hours. bigger libraries like bass and sterling stay open till around 1:30am and also include private sound-proof rooms for intense studying. they really will do everything they can to help you learn here. </p>
<p>THE OTHER SIDE TO THIS is of course, is the social side. and that’s where i have a bone to pick. people will say “oh yeah they have a lot of parties here and there are lots of clubs to join blah blah blah” but i feel like the social dynamic here is a little disturbing, actually. the residential college system has its upsides, i suppose, but the down side is that you’re around THE SAME PEOPLE ALL THE TIME and eventually things get ugly.
people CONSTANTLY gossip about each other. you can’t do ANYTHING without your whole entryway having something to say about it. everyone knows EVERYTHING that everyone else does. and i’m really not exaggerating. one time a girl in my entryway started talking about how a girl who lives next door to her farts while she pees in the bathroom. even things that personal and irrelevant to life get discussed.
even people who never get in trouble, stay in the library and do homework, are never drunk or participating in promiscuous behavior or any of that stuff…get talked about. people will say that they are judgmental just because they don’t drink. or they’ll say that the person is “distant” just because they don’t hang around the other people in the entryway all the time.
i remember earlier this year having a cold, and because of that i stayed in my room to rest and recooperate and also to keep from spreading germs. some girls in my entryway decided to actually get an attitude with me about it and said that i had been behaving in a “distant and weird” manner. SERIOUSLY!?!?? i explained to them that i was sick and they literally shrugged their shoulders and said that i should have been hanging around them and listening to them gripe about their lives anyway. THAT’s how controling the culture can get to be here.
everyone wants you to do EVERYTHING with them COLLECTIVELY, and if you want to do your own thing or have a different opinion about something, you get judged. i was also once told that i was “ridiculous” and “taking things way too far” in a HOSTILE manner because i declined to go to some lame stupid party in favor of studying for a difficult midterm i knew was coming up. </p>
<p>i realize that my anecdotes may be examples of extreme cases, but i thought it was important to put that out there. and i don’t think that my opinion is completely biased. i’ve had friends visit me from other colleges and they’ve made comments about this type of behavior without me even mentioning it to them.</p>
<p>oh and one more thing, despite the issues i listed above, the students here are pretty down to earth (and the ones that aren’t get talked about a TON). also, it’s definitely not cutthroat here. even in super competitive, strictly ranked classes students help each other with homework and with understanding the material and often study together. kids here are generally really nice about helping out others with work.</p>
<p>^^
your first post completely turned me off from yale…(ok not really)
but are those things really that bad?
like do people actually get bullied…is it hard to make friends?</p>
<p>I don’t know if that is a girl thing or what, but for the most part everything here is fine. You get your group of friends and just do your thing. Who cares if people are judging you, it is college, who cares about those people.</p>
<p>peachsnapple: “are things really that bad?”</p>
<p>have u read the replies to the original post? The premise is that the site is baloney. </p>
<p>dbate: I’m with you. I can tell you that four years living w/mostly guys, we never encountered what fluffy describes. We had vastly differing tastes and “party habits” but they certainly weren’t issues any of us felt caused division in our core friendships. In my close circle, one guy came back one summer and had sincerely become a devout Christian. He changed his behavior completely. None of us (guys) respected him any less or let it be a wedge to our friendship. Sure we did a lot of things en masse but what fluffy describes is alien to my time at Yale. It seems fluffy’s entrywaymates would have burst gaskets one of the roomies had changed as much as mine did. </p>
<p>I’m sympathethic to you fluffy. Frankly, they don’t seem like those people are very secure in who they are.</p>
<p>Are people at Yale overly-artsy? My choice of matriculation is kinda hovering on that point. I’m not into singing/arts/theater stuff, and I’m wondering if I’ll still find other things to do without being overwhelmed by the arts</p>
<p>What about New Haven? I was just in Cambridge and I loved it, but New Haven didn’t seem to have as much happening. Outside of the campus, is there a lot to do?</p>
<p>I might be able to answer Phreez. My daughter was a social science major and was involved with political and environmental organizations on campus, as well as the outdoor activities. She would go to theater and singing events sometimes, but just to watch her friends or enjoy the show. I don’t think you would find that the arts dominate the culture. There are so many different kinds of clubs and activities on campus - don’t let the recent video give you the impression that everyone there is into drama or the arts because that’s not true at all. Mostly, they’re into academics.</p>
<p>Tardis- New Haven is ok. It’s a small city with its share of restaurants, clubs, theater, museums, shops, parks, and hangouts that you would expect in a college town, maybe more. What it also has is a somewhat seedier side because of the poverty in some parts of the city, so you have to be careful. My daughter had no problems in her four years. She would run alone often (which used to concern me), and she and her friends would travel at night as well. She actually enjoyed New Haven. Parts of the city are quite nice.</p>
<p>phreez: if you’ve already been admitted then I would suggest you attend BDD. There you’ll get to meet potential future classmates. You’ll find that they are incredibly diverse. Yes artsy types will be among them – but every type will be represented. In my circle of friends were 3 rowers (all attended NE prep schools), a footballer from Atlanta, four of us from the midwest (rather plain backgrounds), one from CA who ended up being a professional actor, and a minister’s kid. Among us we enjoyed sports, the arts, politics – everything. The only thing that’s similar about Yalies is that they are accomplished, ambitious and yearning to learn – sometimes this means the arts, often it doesn’t.</p>
<p>Just for fun, take a look at the index on the Yale website. Scroll down the page and see if you feel that the emphasis is too artsy. I think you’ll be amazed at the breadth and diversity of subjects and activities.</p>
<p>moonchild: It’s definitely good to see that the college isn’t dominated by the arts (i’ve been browsing through that index site for quite a while lol)</p>
<p>And T2 – I will definitely be attending bulldog days so I can get a better grasp on the atmosphere of the college</p>
<p>Current Yalies: Share more Yale stories/experiences! Only so much can be learned from reading through viewbooks and whatnot, so what are some other things that make you love Yale???</p>
<p>Huge snowball fight at midnight the other day where the Stiles freshmen just stood in the middle of old campus and stared at us while we threw snowballs at them…</p>