Talent is a subjective word. Your interpretation of talent is not the same as mine, @HappyAlumnus .
No, @Lindagaf, talent can be objective: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/talent; for example, intelligence and aptitude are measurable and objective. My interpretation of talent is by the book and based on the dictionary definition.
You can ignore facts and ignore the plain meaning of words as per the dictionary, too, but doing so doesn’t give you a winning position. Sorry.
Well, I am now convinced! Everyone at Yale is more talented than everyone at any other college, except Harvard, Princeton, and maybe Stanford. Good thing that was cleared up :-B
@Lindagaf, I never said that “everyone” at Yale is more talented than at other schools, with the noted exceptions. I stated that Yale students’ SAT scores are, on average, higher than elsewhere.
I may not have convinced you, but I don’t care what you think.
You convinced me only that you made poorly-reasoned and sloppy arguments, without carefully reading posts or thinking through your positions, and you added spiteful, sarcastic remarks. You didn’t impress me. You probably don’t care what I think, either, which is fine by me, but that’s my opinion.
Come on people, I’d like to think we can all agree that the students at HYPS are wonderful and that those at other tippy top universities and LACs are too.
For what it’s worth, my kids graduated from Princeton and Duke, and I couldn’t discern a qualitative difference between the intelligence or talent of their classmates. IMO, they’re all the best of the best.
Last year, Yale got 31,349 applications and admitted 1,972 (6.3%). Approximately 70% of those admitted accepted their offers. Swarthmore got 7,717 applications, admitted 963 (12.5%) and approximately 44% accepted their offers (thanks to @spayurpets for compiling these and many other useful statistics). So, Yale got 4x as many applications as Swat, was 2x as selective as Swat on a percentage basis, and had a yield close to 1.5x Swat’s.
I have a lot of admiration for Swat - it may be the most academically strong of the LACs - and there are undoubtedly many students who prefer a LAC environment, and Swat in particular, so wouldn’t apply to Yale. Both schools stand at or near the top in their respective categories of LAC and research university, and there are many great reasons to choose both.
Unless Yale and Swat have very little overlap in their applicant pools and are looking for very different students, though, given that Yale is choosing from a much larger pool, is far more selective than Swat in whom it admits from its pool and many more of those it admits choose to enroll, it’s hard to believe that the student bodies are equally “talented” (If we assume that “talented” means “having the qualities Yale and Swat are both looking for”). I’d note further that Yale seems, based on the two schools’ websites, to give somewhat better fin aid, so would be expected to attract more “talented” applicants from the non-full-payer pool.
Having said all that, it also seems clear that Yale and Swat aren’t looking for exactly the same things in assembling their classes. Without comparing the two schools’ CDSs and digging deeper, I’m pretty sure you’ll find more dispersion around the (admittedly higher statistical) mean at Yale - more cockeyed geniuses, more kids with unique skills or backgrounds of some kind that are more likely to find their place at a large university, and more with below-the-mean stats who are there primarily to satisfy certain institutional needs that Swat may not share.
Wow. this kind of went off track. I restate that this individual applicant needs to determine what school is the best fit for them. Having Yale as one of the viable options is indeed a blessing and this argument is truly a ‘first world problem’ that some people would die for. If you are not sure about Yale, then you have till May 1 to decide, the beauty of SCEA and not ED. All the folk, including people that actually KNOW you like your parents and teachers, can’t tell you with certainty which school is right for you. My kid, who was a legacy, had second thoughts after getting into Yale and she knew the campus and tons of alumni. But she did not know it as an admitted student. Still didn’t know if it was right for her and didn’t feel that it was right until she went to Bulldog days on her own. You’ve been on such a treadmill your whole high school career with Yale as the light at the end of the tunnel. You now have the luxury of sitting back and breathing. Good luck and as many have said on this post (especially the actual adults who have either attended Yale or had/have children there), whatever choice you make at this point will be “right” for you. Good luck.
- What are your career goals? Which of those colleges is most likely to get you there? Can your family pay the COA at all of those colleges without loans? Teaching quality may not be the most important factor.
- In my experience, the correlation between a professor being well regarded as a researcher and being great at teaching within a department would be close to zero. I had a Chinese professor who could barely speak English, but was widely published in academic journals. My experience is in STEM, so YMMV.
Yale has better students and you will be competing against them. Professors are not the best in the field. Most of them don’t care to teach (with some exceptions). Yale is a great school for humanities… it is not as good in science and math compared to Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, etc.
Talent can be defined as a natural ability or skill. There are plenty of talented people at all kinds of colleges. I am not sure, for example, that Hugh Hefner is a gifted academic, but he has a degree and is certainly talented in something. @DeepBlue86 you have provided some useful stats, but they simply show that Yale is more selective than the other colleges OP lists. I don’t think we can assume that all of these colleges are looking for exactly the same talent that Yale is looking for. I would argue that Wesleyan has more talent than all the other schools if measurable influence in popular culture is the gauge being used. But that probably isn’t the same talent Yale is looking for. Talent is subjective depending on what is prioritized. And yes, this is all very off track.
To get back to OP’s topic, he/she is worried about the quality of teaching. This is obviously quite important to the OP. He/she has an acceptance in the bag, so it would be good to continue to do research on some of the professors that OP might encounter at the other colleges on the list. It is definitely true that classes at the LACs will be taught by professors and that not all clases will be taught by professors at Yale. If that is of concern to the OP, then it’s a good idea to sit in on classes at some of the colleges he/she gets accepted to.
Back to the original question…
My son had a course taught by a grad student (section for a larger survey course) and had a seminar taught by a world renoun professor. He enjoyed both and was very satisfied by the level of learning and discourse in both. Other classes were taught by profs. I don’t think his experience is unusual. He found the grad student well prepared, engaging and highly professional. It being a large survey course, it makes sense to have grad students assist. Any large university will also rely on grad students. It’s not necessarily a bad situation.
As other Yale parents have suggested, I’d strongly suggest you attend BDD or if you know a current student, make a visit and sit in on a class. Yale is a wonderful place but you will never get a feel for it second hand. Good luck!
Although my kids both went to highly selective colleges, I am unconvinced that higher selectivity or higher yield equate to a “more talented” student body. I have the highest regard for all of HYPS and many others (including LACs), but I also know that these colleges are viewed differently by me and some others than they are in popular culture.
Consider the case of, say, Harvard vs. Swarthmore. Harvard has more than ten times the name recognition and “popular” prestige, and this alone will drive its number of applications, which will necessarily increase its “selectivity”. Further, this increased selectivity makes the golden H ticket even more highly prized, which in turn pushes up its yield. Does any of this mean the accepted H students are more talented than the accepted Swarthmore students?
I don’t think so.
I think the comments the original poster has run into pertain mainly to the fact that professors sometimes lecture and then grad teaching assistants (fellows) teach sections for discussion once or twice a week. They also grade.
LAC’s are undergrad colleges, mainly anyway, so there aren’t grad assistants and professors teach the entire class.
In terms of teaching quality, it depends on what department you are in, and what your learning style is. And even with professors who only lecture, relationships are possible, research assistant positions are available and so on.
There are other aspects to think about, such as the residential house system (wonderful), number of distribution requirements, number of courses taken each semester and of course interesting peers. Have you looked at the course catalog? Ad rather than go to accepted students day maybe consider visiting for an overnight during regular school days. This could include going to some classes where you can judge teaching for yourself.
(Personally I love Brown and Amherst for their freedom of course choices; forgive me if I am leaving out any other school that also avoids distribution requirement.)
Oh brother. There were plenty of wonderful smart people at my little podunk u (and some scarily talented, especially in theater and music. And I of course had many brilliant poet/writer friends).Of course, what would I know? I’m an idiot. My test scores were just slightly above average, and those are the only things that validate your merit apparently.
My dream school was Kenyon–and probably still would be, if I were to do the whole college thing over again, having been on the campus. Because not only is it a perfectly respectable top LAC, but it would also fit MY needs, not to impress somebody else.
Again, the toxic “HYPSM or you are a stupid failure for life” attitude pollutes Cc, which is a shame.
If OP’s top concerns are teaching quality, prof interaction, small classes, etc., and she doesn’t want to go into Engineering or a boutique or pre-professional major, and she doesn’t mind giving up the wider course and major selection that universities offer (and name recognition in this case…), that brings top LACs into the game, IMO:
Williams, Amherst, Swat, Pomona, Middlebury, Wellesley, Bowdoin, Haverford, Carleton, Wes, Vassar, CMC, W&L, Grinnell, Reed, Hamilton, Smith, etc.
-or-
If OP wants to hold on to some of that Ivy name recognition but shoot for one with more of a LAC feel, she could consider:
Dartmouth, Brown, Princeton – these are the Ivies that are the most undergrad-focused. Cornell is also above 65% undergrad, but i think it’s probably too populous to feel like a LAC.
But Yale is an outstanding opportunity and I imagine the teaching there is hardly subpar. In fact, if I were going through this process again, I’d be thrilled to be able to do the shopping thing Yalies get to do with classes, and given the rave reviews the housing system gets, Yale probably would be near the top of my list. (but i’m far past that point in life, so take that with a grain of salt…)
@Allegories, to be fair, the “HYPSM or you’re second tier” viewpoint was voiced by one poster. Having had kids and relatives attend a range of schools, including Yale, none of them were idiots.
@Allegories, you’re the only one who has said, “HYPSM or you are a stupid failure for life”.
There are superbright people in every school, from Podunk U to MIT.
Please understand that I was being faceticious. I understand what you’re saying and will admit that this is probably a topic that I’m still a tad too touchy about. I was mostly just addressing the issue of using only test scores to evaluate the caliber of a school or its students.
@Allegories, if you’re being facetious, then what objective measurements do you use for determining the quality of a student body, and what is your basis for knowledge of Yale’s student body?
^^ Which is why HYPSM et al do NOT rely solely on test scores or a combination of test scores and GPA to determine which students are the best-and-brightest; Admissions Offices acknowledge there are multiple intelligences: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences. And AO’s learn about a student’s multiple intelligences from comments made by their teachers in their letters of recommendations, the guidance counselor’s SSR, a student’s essays and interview report. It’s the reason many student’s with perfect test scores are rejected every year while other student’s with lesser stats are admitted.