I hear more people say the SoCal weather is exhilarating than suffocating, but I guess its all in the mindset. In reality though, its harder to give up bigger houses and more relaxing lifestyle to move from east coast to SoCal than the other way around, especially when you are older. For a young person, the cliche is probably true—go west, as it is easier to establish career and build equity on the west coast when young. And Stanford in that regard probably offers more possibilities IMO.
Having lived in CA all my life, I have rarely (if ever) heard of someone complain about the weather (suffocating?). People complain about the traffic, the smog, cost of living, the “left coast” culture, but not about the weather. IMO, it’s close to perfect, you have the beaches but are only a few hours drive from the mountains for skiing. I know many NE transplants in LA (for example) but not as many others going in the other direction, long term.
Yes, San Diego and Santa Barbara were culturally suffocating. Even the good weather can get boring when it’s good all year round. But I was speaking primarily from my need for cultural stimulation beyond the small fish bowl that was SD and SB – again, culturally speaking. I still remember the day that I moved to the Bay Area, how thrilled I was driving past the Bay Bridge toward Berkeley, being able to breathe again… Now, I’m not sure which one I like better: the greater Boston area or the Bay Area… 
@TiggerDad - Exactly my point. It’s all a matter of fit, which can only be defined for each person individually based upon what type of environment that person craves at that particular moment in his/her life. After a disappointing (dare I say depressing?) visit to New Haven, my daughter sat beneath one of the many Spanish-style cloistered arches at Stanford, and exclaimed “Wow, I feel like I’d be living in Balboa Park for four years!”
That’s not to say that she would want to be at Stanford beyond her college years (she feels like the campus is a much better fit for undergraduate study than for graduate work). Likewise, living in New Haven or New York or Chicago might be more appealing to her as a grad student or young professional. In general, she loves European cities (Paris, in particular) and really likes Washington D.C. She thinks San Diego is beautiful, but a boring place for one’s teenage years. (She’s probably right on that one).
She’s not a tremendous fan of NY either (too fast-paced, too loud, too crowded, too dirty) and likely would not be a great fan of the weather. She found New Haven just plain depressing and the campus not isolated enough from the city.
For my part, I grew up in NYC (born and raised in Manhattan, and lived there for most of my first 35 years, apart from college, studying abroad, and time off to travel). I moved out to San Diego in the early 1990s and have never looked back. I couldn’t imagine a nicer place to live.
To each his/her own.
Yes, @LoveTheBard, it’s all about the individual, in this case, what pulls the OP and his/her priorities and needs as a person, and that’s what keeps me from making blanket recommendations that I see so many times in such threads. I enjoy reading those, including yours, that offer varying perspectives that help the OP in making the decision.
@TiggerDad. Interesting story. I did the opposite. Grew up in Boston but did my training at UCSF and fell in love with the temperate climate and Bay Area, so happy to get out of the parade of winter blizzards a la Blizzard of 78. Stanford to me is very suburban, and hence, despite its Spanish architecture a lot like the Boston suburbs. Berkeley, although the city is dilapidated, the campus is not. I like to say the college town/city has its own Bohemian charm, and is very Cambridge-esque more akin to Harvard Square than anything else I’ve seen. With a mall right next to Stanford, and no parking issues, you know you’re in the burbs. Princeton as you know is very suburban also with its strip malls and green lawns and expansive campus that you only get in the burbs.So back to the OP, I’d choose Yale, unless you really love suburban America.
Thank you for all the responses. For those who are familiar with the schools/live in the area, is it significantly harder to get to San Francisco from Stanford as opposed to Boston/NYC from New Haven? As I mentioned, I might be interested in roaming the city occasionally (though I doubt I would go more than every two months anyways). Is public transportation not as developed around Stanford?
You pretty much need a car to get to the Bay area. You won’t be going to SF on a regular basis. Even kids from Berkeley rarely get into SF. From Stanford, forget it. From New Haven, it’s a train ride away to get into NYC. Much more accessible.
Stanford. Fewer snowflakes than at Yale.
Depends on what you mean by snowflake?
No idea about New Haven to NYC.
There’s a CalTrain station right by the Stanford campus. Of course, the Stanford campus is huge so it’s a long walk or a bike ride from the dorms already just to the CalTrain station. CalTrain unfortunately doesn’t run very often on the weekends, I think maybe once an hour or so? It’s more frequent on weekdays. The stop in SF is near the Giants stadium, which is a nice enough area but not really close to anything else interesting. If you want to be more downtown, you would either Uber/Lyft/bus around SF or change from CalTrain to BART in Millbrae.
Some of the prettiest things to see in SF are not anywhere near the downtown area so again, you’d have to bus or Uber from the BART station. Or rent a car.
On the whole… it’s nice to have a friend with a car if you really want to explore SF. Or save that for parents’ weekend and have them drive you around.
There are 1-3 trains an hour from New Haven to Grand Central Station. You can walk to the station in New Haven from central campus or take a five-minute cab ride. The train takes 1:45-2:00 and I believe costs $24-$30 one-way. Then it’s buses, subways, cabs/ridesharing services or shoe leather to get around Manhattan.
SF is readily accessible by Caltrain at Stanford… takes about an hour… I used to do it all the time… and Berkeley was fun to visit too.
or you could just pretend you work at google and hop on their bus… not recommending that though:)
Palo Alto - SF: https://www.rome2rio.com/s/Palo-Alto/San-Francisco
New Haven - NYC: https://www.rome2rio.com/s/New-York/New-Haven?source=adwords&gclid=EAIaIQobChMItJbj3ITj2gIVlsBkCh0XKQ1KEAAYAyAAEgK-nfD_BwE
It is about 1 mile from the center of the Stanford campus to the Caltrain station (Palo Alto). Distances may be different from the dorms.
Schedules are here: http://www.caltrain.com/schedules.html
there’s a free Stanford shuttle that drops you off at the Calstation… The Stanford shuttle is a great way to get to PA for free pretty much anywhere on campus… and there’s an app that shows you by GPS where the shuttle is so you can time it perfectly
Stanford is also building a redwood city campus and will have free shuttles there too fyi.
Ha. I have friends who have tried that. It doesn’t work.
From the Caltrain station in SF, it’s about a 20 minute walk to Market Street, which you could consider the main drag downtown. Or you can take a bus or the light rail line. I have heard people say that as Stanford students, they didn’t visit SF for over a year after first arriving in Palo Alto. But there are lots of people in Palo Alto and further south who commute in SF daily, so it’s not that difficult.
There are two problems with Caltrain to San Francisco. First, it’s a 1.5-mile to 2-mile walk from the dorms to the Caltrain station. (Stanford has a shuttle service around campus called the Marguerite, but only the SE route runs on weekends, and that route runs only hourly.)
Second, Caltrain runs infrequently on weekends, because it is used mainly as a commuter train on weekdays. Here is the current schedule Northbound for Saturday and Sunday:
Depart Palo Alto: 9:12 am, 10:13 am (bullet), 10:42 am, 12:12 am, 1:42 pm, 3:12 pm, 4:42 pm, 5:43 pm (bullet), 6:12 pm
Arrive San Francisco: 10:22 am, 10:57 am, 11:52 am, 1:22 pm, 2:52 pm, 4:22 pm, 5:52 pm, 6:27 pm, 7:22 pm
So, if you miss your train, it’s a 90-minute wait for the next one, and likewise, you would have to plan your activities in San Francisco around the Southbound train departure.
This is one reason why, when I was an undergraduate at Stanford, essentially no one left campus on the weekends. The other reason, of course, is that students were too busy studying to have that kind of free time.
Give stanford students a few more minutes and they probably will make it work soon.