<p>I have many times come across posters on CC praising yale's residential college system, saying that it is one of yale's USP. I am an international and donot know what a residential college system is. Could somebody shed some light?</p>
<p>[Residential</a> Life | Freshmen | Office of Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://www.yale.edu/admit/freshmen/residential_life/index.html]Residential”>http://www.yale.edu/admit/freshmen/residential_life/index.html)</p>
<p>Ever seen Harry Potter? Well, if you have, it’s similar to the four houses. If you haven’t, the residential college system is just a way to split the student body into smaller groups, so that students aren’t simply lost in a gigantic undergraduate horde. </p>
<p>The students live in one of twelve colleges, such as Branford, Davenport, or Silliman College, forming smaller communities of several hundred students. They live, eat, and study within their colleges–each has its own gym, dining hall, and other facilities–and get acquainted with the other students of their college. Of course, using another college’s facilities is not prohibited, but the system helps students feel more at home on campus. Some of the residential colleges also have certain reputations, though they don’t last long, and many of them compete in informal athletic or academic contests. Furthermore, every residential college has a Dean and a Master, which provide academic and personal advice and organize student life activities, respectively. This way, every student has access to helpful faculty members.</p>
<p>thanks co2010, that was helpful for me as well</p>
<p>Trumbull’s current reputation is the “smart college”. We won the cup for the highest overall GPAs and highest achievement in science courses for 2009. Accordingly, we also consistently place in the lowest three for intramurals.</p>
<p>yay!</p>
<p>You’re assigned to a college as a freshman. You mostly eat and live with other freshman, not at your college, but you do spend more time at your college than at others. You then live in your college - or off campus, but maintaining the affiliation - and get involved to whatever degree you want in the various activities, from social to approving seminars based in your college. There is no quidditch.</p>
<p>are people at yale friendly and nice?</p>
<p>@co2010- hey man, i was already very fascinated by yale and your post got me all the more interested. i mean i have always been fascinated by Harry Potter and to live in a college with that sort of a feel is like wow.
Is there an intense rivalry between any houses?</p>
<p>“Intense” as in “break-your-neck-in-quidditch” intense? Nothing that I detected when I visited. However, I don’t doubt the different colleges try to outdo each other in academics, as in Comment #5, or athletics.</p>
<p>To pigs<em>at</em>sea: Yes! The students I met at Yale were all extremely friendly and willing to help me. An attitude of openness and tolerance seems to be one of Yale’s defining features.</p>
<p>To clarify Lergnom’s post: When you enroll in the university as a freshman, you get assigned to a certain college, but you don’t physically live in it until sophomore year. In your first year, you live in the Old Campus with other freshman, but you use the facilities of the actual residential college to which you were assigned. All the buildings are within walking distance, so this isn’t a hassle.</p>
<p>Yalies are extremely welcoming to the freshman that enroll in their residential colleges. According to the students I met, they will even meet you at your car and carry all your belongings up to your room.</p>
<p>To pigs<em>at</em>sea: Jonathan Edwards people are nice. Ezra Stiles is like where they put the child molesters and animal euthanizers.</p>
<p>^ i heard ezra stiles hosts the casino nights. must be the fun college…</p>
<p>Time to correct some especially egregious mistruths.</p>
<p>Firstly, there is rivalry between colleges. TD sucks, terribly, and every Silliman student ensures such a fact is well known.</p>
<p>Secondly, most freshman live on Old Campus, but those in the aforementioned live the college all four years.)</p>
<p>Finally, JE sucks, as does Stiles, Morse, and basically every other college. In terms of location (serious comment), though, Stiles and Morse are best for athletes due to proximity to Payne Whitney, and Silliman is best for science majors and people too cheap to purchase pizza, because of the proximity to Science Hill and Commons, respectively.</p>
<p>so, is there a college that doesn’t suck?</p>
<p>put another way, what is the best college?</p>
<p>And how is a student selected into a particular house?</p>
<p>It’s random selection during the summer before your Freshman year. </p>
<p>Berkeley is the best: Middle of campus, right by the libraries, world renowned food, underground tunnel, two beautiful courtyards, and 2009 champions in Bladderball.</p>
<p>If you have legacy, though, you can opt into the same residential college. Two of my suitemates did so, both because Silliman is quite clearly the best college, and because they wanted to avoid Morse and Stiles.</p>
<p>The best college is basically a matter of personal preference (that is, what college you are placed in), although Silliman, TD, and JE are generally seen as a bit better than the rest.</p>
<p>And in regards to a centralized location, absolutely nothing beats Silliman.</p>
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<p>This is completely false.</p>
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<p>Have we talked to different people here? The aforementioned superiority is definitely the impression I’ve gotten from CC, other internet sources, and students here at Yale.</p>
<p>As you can tell, there is no rivalry between colleges, because everyone knows that his college is so clearly superior to all of the others that it’s not worth debating. There are active competitions in a jillion intramural sports, including odd ones like Bladderball (a once-a-year event that is sort of like a riot with a giant ball).</p>
<p>Random selection is one of the nicest things about the system. It means that each college has a wide variety of people and interests in it, and that the college’s characters are constantly shifting. You make plenty of friends outside your college, though.</p>
<p>I read that bladderball made an illegal return this week. </p>
<p>I went through the iterations: original bladderball, revised bladderball, displaced bladderball and no bladderball. In reverse order and ignoring the obvious last one, they tried to move it to the athletic fields out by the Bowl and that failed. The revised bladderball meant only on the Old Campus with all gates locked and that was like trench warfare in WWI with huge crowds of people pushing one giant mass. Old bladderball was free-form and involved taking the thing to your college, which meant trickery and chasing. </p>
<p>It also led to the “JE Sucks” cheer which lasted for years because those dopes tried to hoist the bladderball over the Old Campus fence with some sort of grappling hook and they deflated it. (It was then chased through the streets and put on reserve at Cross Campus Library.) The “JE Sucks” cheer was huge at football games and I often marveled at the sight of ancient alums, well lit from their elegant, booze-infested tailgates, screaming it red-faced, certainly with no knowledge of where it came from.</p>