You are speaking in very broad terms here when you mention prestige. Also the division you do at the end is not completely correct.
No one is saying that Yale is way less prestigious than Stanford, of course not. However the fact remains that Stanford is super strong in all fields across the board while Yale is definitely relatively lacking in some STEM areas. For example, an engineering degree from Stanford and an engineering degree from Yale are worlds apart in terms of perception and prestige. A person interested in tech would prob not even consider turning down Stanford for Yale.
On the other hand, Stanford is a very viable option for Finance, Wall Street and Law school given its great strength in these areas. (Stanford has a better Econ department and much better business school than Yale, while its Law school is right behind that of Yale, and also Stanford is ranked the same or higher in most other humanities, social science fields). Also one could argue that there are higher chances of braking into Wall Street from Stanford since not as many students view than as the ideal job as at Yale --less competition.
Also no one ever says that Stanford is not good enough to be Ivy league. That would be laughable since Stanford has surpassed all of the Ivies in many metrics, including Harvard, let alone Yale.
No one is pushing an agenda. These are just the hard facts.
In my personal opinion, the only thing that should determine whether someone lucky enough to get in to both Stanford and Yale should be which collegiate environment appeals to them more. Anyone at either school with have plenty of opportunities and resources to do what he/she wants. And there will be accepted students for whom neither school is the preferred environment, which is equally valid.
the conversation would have been very different even a decade ago. back then it was HYP… no MIT or Stanford. Stanford has strengthened in many metrics fund raising, selectivity, nobel prizes… Yale is fading based on those metrics… it’s weak in STEM… it’s an old school humanities school. hopefully students like you will pressure Yale into doing an over haul… it’s getting left behind IMO…and getting bogged down by all the controversy surrounding college names, Halloween dress codes and the like. Meanwhile Columbia and Cornell are seriously beefing up their STEM departments as is Harvard which is building an engineering school (stanford of the east)… the game is different…the renaissance ideal has passed… sitting around discussing Plato and Socrates and waxing about summers in the Hamptons went the way of the dodo bird. that’s reality.
Obviously the OP has already decided at this point, but I have to agree that some of the comments on here are silly. Both are great institutions and it comes down to personal preference.
sbballer, if you are a Stanford student, why don’t you ask some of your professors if they think Yale is fading and going the way of the dodo bird.
weakness in stem and inability to innovate and adapt is going to affect the long term prospects for a school… fund raising… selectivity… ability to recruit faculty. may not be so obvious now but looking out 20-40 years it will be. I don’t think anyone at Stanford thinks of Yale as being a competitor… harsh to say but that’s the way it is. Yale is a great school yes… but it’s lost a couple notches this decade. It’s not even the top five in fund raising or top 10 in nobel prizes in the past 15 years. It’s selectivity has dropped to 4th… you can say it’s silly… I say Yale needs an overhaul and a new vision or it’s going to be left further behind. yes Yale has done a fantastic job with its endowment and hopefully the university will use some of its vast resources to invest in STEM and innovation. Being just a liberal arts school is not going to cut it. that’s reality.
The president of Stanford, John L. Hennessy, spoke to the admitted students at the most recent admitted students days and had no trace of the tone of condescension and embattled rise for positioning among its peer institutions that are rife in your comment above, @sbballer.
the metrics speak for themselves. interpret them as you want. surprised that Yale is not making a big push into STEM…continuing to ignore or not place top priority for STEM is hurting them now and will be even more detrimental to the university in the future.
Hi guys! I picked Yale over Stanford. To give you the brunt and truth of it, it didn’t come down to weather or coastal geography for me. It came down to the people. I loved Yale because there was a great balance of STEMs and Humanities students. I adored the air of seriousness that the students had for their passion. At Stanford, I definitely felt a bit more left by the wayside since every student I talked to, current and pre-frosh, all seemed to be going into the STEMs. Plus my being didn’t agree with the lack of community that Stanford had compared to Yale. And, to be perfectly honest and I mean no offense to any students going there, it felt more like a corporation than an actual school.
@ASJU9511, that sounds like exactly the way decisions should be made. 2 great institutions, but one clearly felt more comfortable to you and resonated more with you. Screw all the talk about rankings in specific departments. There’s plenty of opportunities at either school to do whatever you want.
@ASJU9511 Congratulations, and thanks for letting us know! Your perspective on Stanford was interesting, and I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time at Yale (which, despite the increasingly prevailing perception of it as no longer being a true peer of Harvard and Stanford, is every bit as great overall, in my opinion)!
Agreed with @Planner for your comments on the school that accepted you.
Our pink-noise minds react to the brown-noise exponential changes in a linear fashion. So, the results of the acts appear as white-noise events. Nothing is good or bad but different.
sbballer I have a child at Stanford and a child at Yale but your comments about Yale are nonsensical. It’s like arguing that a 20 dollar bill is much better than two tens. HS students should refrain from such sweeping statements because things will look very different when you are older.
@ASJU9511 - Congratulations on being able to make a decision but don’t look back. There was a parent last year whose son committed to both schools in a span of one week (I think he reversed his decision twice).
@waitingtoexhale - I went to two parent weekends just to listen to Hennessey. He is one of the best speakers I have ever heard. The first year he told a parent who was worried that her liberal arts student will not fare well in the job market that all he needed was to add the beginner CS course to his resume and most companies will hire him. I think the logic was that most tech companies also need many liberal arts majors but they need to feel comfortable that they understand the business. Hennessey has supported the liberal arts programs a great deal and expanded and built all of the right things (Bing, Art Musuem etc) that provide a great future. The growth in the endowment during his term has been phenomenal and Stanford will miss him at the top.
actually the Stanford endowment has been lagging and the returns have been relatively poor. Stanford changed their endowment team last year and brought in a new team headed by a Robert Wallace who used to work at the Yale endowment.
what you may be referring to is that Hennessy was a master at fund raising. Stanford has been the top fund raising university 10 of the past 11 years (last year raised more than Harvard and yale combined)… even more remarkable considering other universities including Harvard and USC are in major capital campaigns and formal fund raising drives and Stanford is not.
Hennessy is staying at Stanford though… he’s going to be leading the Knight Hennessy scholar program which will be the rhodes scholar equivalent (2x as large as rhodes) at Stanford with a 700 million dollar endowment. - Phillip Knight donated 400 million to the cause 2 months ago.
Yes Hennessy has been an incredible force at Stanford and his achievements during his tenure are too many to list here. suffice it to say he’s probably been one of the most transformative university presidents in the US.
@ASJU9511 - Congratulations and Welcome to Yale! I just finished my first year there, and the residential college system, the professors, my classmates, the extracurriculars, the course offerings and flexibility, and the campus have exceeded my expectations. You will love it!
