On the fridge question … My son is in a seven person suite. I never thought of individual fridges, but maybe they need two? Does anyone know if you can rent an additional one easily enough after school starts if they want it? Where would they have room for individual ones?
@T26E4 I’m mot sure I understand the relationship between being blasé and Thurston Howell. I don’t want him to be jaded to how fantastic the resources at Yale are. “Yeah so and so is teaching an intro freshman course, yeah I might take it”. As Woody Allen said “if I get too mellow I ripen then rot”.
Musicmom2015, the company in the ASA mailing is mymicrofridge.com and it looks like you can get fridges after their suggested Aug. 10 deadline, but there’s an additional $40 charge and the fridge won’t be there on move in day.
The $135 annual rental fee is roughly what you could buy a mini fridge for but obviously it’s more convenient to have the company deliver it and take it away over the summer.
@wchatar2 – what I meant was you don’t want your son to be an Ivy dripping braggart (Thurston Howell III, who was a Harvard grad, btw). The summer before I left, I was immensely relaxed – mostly b/c I had no real idea what I’d encounter. Even while I was there, several of my notable instructors’ outside achievements were lost on me until afterward. Sure there were some superstar instructors and even superstar/celebrity fellow students – but it’s to be quietly enjoyed/savored.
I suspect your son has already gotten the unfair pushback. “You’re going to YALE? You must think you’re something.” “Want to go to Wall Street, eh?” “Oh, you’re now an Ivy Leaguer; can I kiss your ring?” “Why Yale? Isn’t XX State University good enough for you?” Or some twisted derivation of that.
He’s likely already used the phrases “I go to school out east” or “I go to school in Connecticut”
I was leaving a week long work conference yesterday and since it was a travel day, many people dressed casually. Several were in college swag. You couldn’t have paid me enough to wear a Yale t-shirt. It goes with the territory.
Frankly, I’m surprised that you’ve not gotten some of the push back from your peers (or perhaps you already have but haven’t noticed it?). I’m sorry but human jealousy is an ugly and common thing.
The rental cost of a Yale fridge is $135: http://www.yale.edu/sfas/agencies/refrigerators.html
The cost of a new fridge at Target is $85: http://www.target.com/p/emerson-1-7-cu-ft-mini-fridge/-/A-14041809?ref=tgt_adv_XSG10001&AFID=google_pla_df&LNM=14041809&CPNG=Appliances&kpid=14041809&LID=3pgs&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=14041809&kpid=14041809&gclid=Cj0KEQjw_YKtBRC7zZjFp8bF_foBEiQAfyigcyyxO9i5zp3KqAO8NU4n2I44TsGowIxHAAbgQHY0PLYaAmeh8P8HAQ
It does not make economic sense to rent a fridge, even if you opt for Target’s $25 shipping charge and your child cannot store the fridge during the summers, and must resort to giving it away or throwing it out.
Yale beds are on 3 foot legs, so items such as refrigerator’s, dressers, or luggage can be stored underneath the bed. Fridge’s can also be stored in the common room, although the freshman common rooms are rather small, so there isn’t room for more than 2 fridge’s in the common rooms.
FWIW: Yale’s mattresses are also covered in heavy duty plastic, so parents do not have to purchase bed bug covers for mattresses, as we had to do at Harvard.
@gibby, I can’t speak for other rooms, but a fridge would not have fit under DS’s bunk bed in L-Dub. Not even close.
^^ It did in Saybrook, which is where my son kept his fridge for his sophomore, junior and senior years. The beds are adjustable and when kids move in they are at their lowest setting, but can be raised an additional 3 inches, which is what my son did.
@T26E4 None of that really is an issue for me or my son. 10% of my high school class went to Yale and probably a third of my sons class are headed to Ivies. He certainly avoids the topic in conversation but wears his “Y19” cap liberally. I meant more that I look at the course catalogue and can’t help thinking “oh my god”. It’s an academic candy store that you get to browse with some of the smartest and interesting people of your generation. It’s really awe provoking to me. I don’t think it will happen but what I don’t want to occur is that my son is so busy being unimpressed that the magnitude of this opportunity doesn’t soak in. I’m pretty sure that it will.
I see where you’re coming from. Then I agree --getting the Blue Book (course catalog) was like Christmas morning to me. I was extremely charged up at the prospects of taking course A with Prof X or course B with lecturer Y, etc.
For me, course topics were more important than celeb instructors (although I made a conscious choice to take them when possible).
Hmmmmmm… if your kiddo isn’t somewhat excited, I think I’d share your exact disappointment too.
@T26E4 As I say I do think it will soak in, he keeps saying that he doesn’t want to “premake” his experiences by thinking his first year suite mates will be his best friends for life etched. Which I actually think is a pretty mature viewpoint, certainly more mature than I am. But I do worry somewhat about the “Excellent Sheep” phenomenon of what it takes to get into these schools being so ridiculous and in many ways an end unto itself that they are intellectually poorly equipped to take advantage of their achievements. My niece just graduated from Harvard, I love her dearly, she is brilliant but I don’t think she learned a think at Harvard. Don’t quote me on that:)
@wchatar2, I have only a few scattered data points for this opinion, but I think you might have hit on one of the differences between H and Y. I will deny saying that IRL. And, lacking data does not diminish the strength of this belief.
My son alternated between being thrilled by the thought of attending Y and a desire to be cool about it. I think these kids know that they’ve been lucky (in addition to being well qualified), but that they would have had a good experience at Michigan or Penn or UChicago. Very different, but good.
Wait until you get a text that says: “I frickin’ love Yale!” Your son is probably more articulate than mine, but I think the sentiment will be the same.
Btw, my son’s suitemates will not be his best friends for life. One he will never socialize with, the other he’ll hang out with every now and then. But, in his first year, he made some wonderful friends through classes taken together, being on the same hall, etc.
@IxnayBob My son is going to Yale, not Harvard so the following should be taken with more than a grain of salt and further to generalize about two really peerless academic institutions is laughable. But what truly impressed me about Yale students in general is that they excel in more than one thing, more often than not continue to do that, or those things in college and often pick up another thing at Yale. In my experience (much more limited) Harvard students have done their “thing” to get into Harvard and often let it drop. Obviously this is a caricature.
My son sounds like he is about as articulate as yours. I cant wait to get that text, I will die happy.
^ a caricature exaggerates a striking characteristic, but doesn’t create out of whole cloth.
For the record, I had this opinion about H and Y before DS applied to any schools. The opinion became more entrenched once I had a dog in the fight :))
Bulldog bow wow.
Having a kid graduate from each school, I haven’t observed the caricature. One difference I have noticed though – and I’m not the first person to comment about it this way – is that Harvard professor’s assign infinitely more reading assignments for each course. The net-result is that Harvard professor’s acknowledge the impossibility of doing a close-reading of all the assignments, so student’s must learn to skim and pick out the most salient information. Whereas Yale professors assign a much more manageable reading list, but expect student’s to have done a close-reading of everything assigned.
Upon graduation, there may be a carry-over. Recently, my Yale son, who graduated this May and is now working full-time as a CS Data Analyst, commented to me, “How do adults do it? How do they go to work, do everything their job demands, go to the gym, eat dinner, have time for themselves and get 8 hours of sleep?” My reply, “Welcome to the real world. We don’t. Adult’s prioritize and choose what’s important for them to accomplish today, as it’s impossible to get everything done.” That seemed to be a foreign concept to him, but something my Harvard daughter instantly got.
@Gibby, I was thinking of your children when I wrote about H vs. Y, but your family might be the exception that proves the rule 
DS might have learned to prioritize readings doing IB in HS. He reports that most Directed Studies kids do not read a good portion of what’s assigned, as doing so would obliterate their social lives. He shared a room with someone who apparently read every page.
@IxnayBob - I think it’s interesting that your kid could say that they “frickin’ love Yale” but shared a room with someone with whom he’ll never associate again. It seems like a negative roommate would hinder the enjoyment of the whole experience of the school year. I’m glad it wasn’t so for yours. A relative is concerned that my son will be the outsider in his suite. I can see her point, but I think that he’s comfortable being different and also a likable guy, so I’m less concerned.
Fwiw, the feeling is probably mutual Yale is both a small and large place, and one can seek out whose with whom one is sympatico. My son is pretty friendly, and instances of people not getting along are relatively rare, so I think it was just “one of those things.” Their classes don’t overlap, and it never came close to getting physical. Neither of them is likely to remember the other in a month. My son has friends, I assume that the other fellow has friends, and Bob’s Your Uncle
In retrospect, perhaps it would have been wise to separate them, but learning takes many different forms. Getting along when you really don’t care for what someone represents is a valuable lesson.
For what it’s worth: After first year, I rarely spent time with two of my three freshman suitemates (one of whom left college), and although I was reasonably good friends with the third, and we were suitemates again as sophomores, he was never among my really close friends. My wife’s freshman roommate was nasty to her (and recently apologized to her on Facebook for failing to appreciate her). My kids, at a different college, never had much, or anything (respectively), to do with their respective first-year roommates after the year ended. And all four of us really loved our college experiences.
In the end, it’s great if your freshman roommate becomes a lifelong friend, but one way or the other it doesn’t have that much impact on your overall college experience.
Pretty much all of the kids who attend yale are experts at analyzing the pros and cons of every situation and look at ways to get a competitive edge or try to get what is the best. The bottom line is that there are pros and cons of each of the RCs, so that it basically becomes a wash or such minor differences that there is no reason to stress over it. Your kid’s RC will be the best. And if it is not, there are a small number of kiddos who change their RCs in soph year.