Hello! So here is my situation: I have received acceptances from Yale and Stanford. I want to major in public policy/political science, depending on the school (PoliSci for Yale and PP for Stanford). Yale was obviously my instinctual preference, due to its proximity to places notorious for amazing internships DURING COLLEGE in this field, such as New York, Boston, and DC, and its notable alumni in the field.
I live and was born about 45 minutes away from Palo Alto and have practically grown up on the Stanford campus, so “the weather” is not a selling point for me.
Regarding the field of public policy/political science (I am an aspiring lawyer), what are the advantages of studying at Stanford over Yale? Specifically, what opportunities does Stanford offer, outside its academics, that Yale does not?
If you mean “summer” internships during college, you will certainly not be disadvantaged in interviewing for and obtaining internships. Depending on what you want to do, you may just travel farther from home for them.
Its Yale hands down if you are interested in Law. Yale is the #1 law school and many of the students admitted are from Yale itself. http://bulletin.printer.yale.edu/pdffiles/law.pdf according to the document there are 69 students from Yale and only 16 from Stanford. You are not going to see a lot of opportunities for public policy/Political Science in the bay area.
Yale has the #1 ranked law school, but Stanford at #2 is not exactly shabby. Stanford also has the co-#1 ranked (with Harvard) graduate Political Science department in the country.
More importantly, Political Science is one of the most popular majors at Yale, so it will be flooded with students competing for internships, research opportunities, and grad school/law school spots. At Stanford it is relative dwarfed by the STEM/entrepreneurial focus, and there is a lot of opportunity for motivated and interested students. Stanford is actively trying to encourage students with public service interests:
Palo Alto is clearly not a hotbed for public policy compared with the east coast, but there should be plenty of opportunity. I don’t think New Haven itself is particularly rich in opportunities, so I’m not sure what the difference is between studying at Yale vs. Stanford and then doing a summer internship in New York or Washington.
The bottom line is that I suspect you can get plenty of good education and experience at both schools, and should pick the environment which appeals more to you overall. Having grown up not far away from Stanford you may want to venture further afield and get experience in a different environment. But in terms of excellence and opportunities, and potential to go to a top low school, I don’t think you would go wrong with either.
yale for sure
Stanford is a great school but puts their focus on STEM majors. I’ve even heard from students that Stanford’s own student body looks down on non-stem majors
Also if I were you, I would go to Yale just so I could be far away from home. College is great for branching out so after 17 years of living in the same place, I would probably want to move
Connections! Wall street and DC work through connections. Its more likely that you will make those at Yale,Harvard, Columbia, and even Duke. For startups Stanford would be the obvious place to go, not the East Coast schools.
^ I think you can find plenty of East coast connections at Stanford public policy and political science. Condi Rice, Nan Keokane, Robert Keohane, and many taught at Stanford and then moved east to influence policy. And it will likely be much easier to get attention as a policy major at Stanford than at Yale. It’s a fallacy to think that Stanford is only for those with entrepreneurial and tech interests.
I’m not saying that Yale isn’t the way to go. It depends on which environment appeals more to the OP. I’m just saying that there will be plenty of opportunities at both schools, and the OP should choose based on overall preference, not on specific public policy/polysci programs/connections.
@david_p being close to New York, Boston, DC in the way Yale is (i.e. it takes a lot of time to travel there from Yale) does not make any difference at all. No Yale kid is going to commute to DC or New York for an internship.
Also Stanford has top connections everywhere, you don’t have to be on the east coast to take advantage of these connections. At Stanford poli-sci classes are smaller, so you might have a more intimate community access to your professors etc. Also take a look at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.
There are no actual differences between the two in terms of opportunities in this field. Just go with preference for location and fit.