<p>I've been a lurker for over a year, and I suppose I'll try to come out of my shell now that I'm actually applying. I thought it would be interesting to hear everyone's experience from their visits to Yale.</p>
<p>I went last week. It was like I imagined, except bigger. The architecture was just beautiful. All the students seemed cool and really involved with the school. Plus, they all seemed to like each other, yay. They looked like the people I hang out with now, except the college version (as opposed to my visit to Brown, which to me was like a bloated high school). The admissions people were awesome, well-spoken, and just "with it." The officer who sat in on our session was young, and I felt like I could really relate to her. The senior presenter was totally cool and very easy on the eyes :) . Haha yeah. But besides the people there...the residential colleges were amazing to see in real life. So was the library. Holy smokes. And the MUSIC LIBRARY. It was like paradise. I'm such a sucker for music libraries. And just the whole environment of all these amazing resources and minds and all this knowledge coming together. It was awesome. My favorite part was going into Woolsey. There was an organist practicing. I could have cried the music was so beautiful, not to mention the room it was played in. It looked like an amazing place to play music, to meet, whatever. Wow.</p>
<p>New Haven is pretty ghetto in spots, but I'll take it if I can have Yale.</p>
<p>I got to spend a whole month at Yale this summer for the Junior Statesmen of America Summer School. It was amazing...I got to live in Timothy Dwight, which is kind of far from Old Campus, but it was so roomy and nice. The restaurants are fabulous, the shopping is great (Urban outfitters!!), and the campus is obviously gorgeous. I can tell you writing a paper in the Sterling Law Library is probably the most exhilirating experience- sitting there in complete silence, surrounded by amazing books..definitely wow. I totally agree about the Music Library too- my jaw dropped when I saw it!! I also got to work out in the Payne Whitney Gym (2nd largest gym in the world), which is a little bit old, but huge and the main exercise room is very new and has excellent facilities. Basically, I really loved Yale and am just keeping my fingers crossed for December 15!</p>
<p>Here's my Yale visit story from last week (copied/pasted from a blog):</p>
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<p>I dont have words for the level of awesomeness that I found on the Yale campus two nights ago. Well, maybe one word: orgasmic. Holy <strong><em>. Even for a night when the campus was a little subdued due to a) Parents Weekend and b) midterms, this was the happiest group of people Ive ever seen. Everything was amazing: the gorgeous campus, the food (has **your* school ever served calamari?), the rooms (these peoples suites were decked out), the lack of Friday classes (unless youre a loser that likes science), the never-ending list of stuff to do, and most importantly, the people. For a group of *</em></strong>ing geniuses, these people were as laid-back as you could imagine. And they had some awesome stories too: I met Art Spiegelmans (writer/drawer of Maus) daughter. Plus I met the daughter of the leader of one of the revolutionary factions in Cambodia that fought for control after the Khmer Rouge lost power. She lived alone in Paris at age 14 when it became unsafe for her to live in Cambodia. Makes you wonder what you ought to have accomplished by now. Even the "normal" people were awesome in their own way, like the guy who gave an impassioned speech for why his dorm building was better than my hosts, which went something like this:</p>
<p>"It is true that L-Dub looks like the projects. But whereas you guys in Vanderbilt are facing the streets and have to make a conscious effort to be part of the social scene, I live in the middle of it. I live in the throbbing, pulsing, beating heart of Yale..." </p>
<p>That was the first, and I suspect the last, time they served calamari. Overall, the food isn't bad, but I can't say the food is very good either; it's very hit and miss. The other problem is that they don't hesitate to repeat the food. They've served macaroni and cheese at least four times this week....</p>
<p>Also, almost all introductory foreign language classes meet every day, unless you're taking languages most people don't take, like Hindi or Tamil, which don't meet on Fridays, but actually meet longer per week than the other languages. Czech doesn't meet on Fridays either, and neither does Coptic.</p>
<p>I visited Yale from Oct 5- Oct 8. It was a blast. I already felt at home and didn't want to leave. I went to four classes: Spanish, English, Eastern Philosophy, and Political Philosophy. By and large the classes were engaging and the professors and students were all so nice. Most of the time I hung out with one of my friends who attends Yale, and he took me on a tour of the whole place. I saw Bichony,and the Sterling Library, and for a while I just walked by myself on Old Campus. People even stopped me to ask directions! All of my friend's friends were all so nice, and random people would just come up to me and introduce themselves, and when they heard I was a pre-frosh they got really excited and basically tried to recruit me. In my friend's house (Calhoun) there was a birthday party, so we went to that and had cake, and then later that night there was a party at SAE (one of the frats at Yale). That was really disgusting and kinda was the seedy side of Yale. It was just weird, because I live in a college town for a state school, a party school, and the atmosphere was exactly the same between the two schools. The same kind of drunken lu****lness. It was basically a party where you wouldn't have any fun if you weren't drunk or getting drunk. So we left after like 15 minutes and spent the rest of the time just talking and hanging out. It was great. The people at Yale are the best part, I think.</p>