Social life and “vibe” of USC, Princeton, Duke, and Yale

Hey! I’ve been fortunate enough to be admitted to 2 of the schools I’ve listed in the title (!). Now with coronavirus, I won’t be able to visit the schools before deciding where to go and am still awaiting responses on Ivy Day from 2 more schools. I was really counting on the visits to help me decide where I wanted based on the students and the (for lack of a better word) “vibe” of the school. I know each of the schools has amazing academics for what I want (politics/philosophy on the pre-law track), but I was wondering if any of you could give me insight into the student life and social life at these schools. What do students do for fun? Are students live to work or work to live? (As naive as this sounds) How are the parties and social gatherings? Is there a collaborative environment at the school or is it very individualistic? Is the culture purely academic? Does it get boring? What kind of student goes here? (And I know there isn’t a specific mold, I mean what ties such a diversity of students together?) I have so many doubts, and so many stem from lack of knowledge and the going into the unknown of college, I think! Any help is appreciated and as much detail as possible is helpful!

You are unlikely to experience boredom at any of the four listed universities.

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You may want to watch how well each college does distance / online education, since there is a significant chance that they will be doing that next fall.

The locations have an impact on general vibe. Duke loves college basketball and has a huge tradition around this too. USC is SoCal of course. The weather is different, the campuses as well. Both have similar students in terms of academic achievement. Probably more of a southern ans east coast vibe at Duke. It does snow in Durham.

So really you are parsing USC v Duke for now as you wait for Ivy Day? IMO (which is all anybody has, really), those 4 schools are more similar in overall vibe than some. I would bet that you could be happy at any of them.

In another post you were worrying about internships from Duke, v a NE school, and imo that is not a differentiator: you will be able to get just as good internships from Duke.

Substitute college football for USC.

By several metrics (faculty strength, per capita alumni achievements), Duke is a level above USC.

Honestly, it’s hard to generalize about the questions you ask about schools this size, however. These aren’t LACs.

You’ll likely be challenged more academically at Duke than USC.

For Princeton, read about their Eating Clubs.

Wait to see where you get in. Good luck tomorrow!