If you’re looking purely at ACT/SAT scores, Caltech beats HYPS by at least as much as HYPS beats Swarthmore.
Regarding the average test score; many schools could fill their class with students having perfect or almost perfect test scores. They don’t do that so I don’t believe there is any direct correlation between average test score and the students’ potential for success.
Nutty arguments here, some probably making OP wonder about CC adults.
Here’s what started the ruckus: “Why would you surround yourself with less-talented classmates at those other schools.”
Sounds pretty dismissive.
It’s not all about stats.
OP, make your own best decision. But try to get a rounded view of Yale from current students, some in your major or with your interests. You have time.
I just graduated from Pomona (top LAC comparable to Williams/Swarthmore/Wesleyan if you don’t know what it is) but I have a lot of Yale friends from the QuestBridge program and because I attended two different conferences at that school.
You honestly have nothing to worry about, and should be extremely proud of yourself. Yale is a very special place. Being there really made me wonder why it wasn’t on my application list, and I’m looking to apply for graduate school because Yale seems to have a distinct academic atmosphere (plus, most of my favorite professors at Pomona got their PhDs from Yale!). I’ve chatted with my friends about their experiences and they overwhelmingly love it. Certain things they say aren’t so good: first-year advising can be poor, professor accessibility and quality of teaching in the intro STEM courses is mixed, some professors have a difficult time communicating their brilliant ideas in a pedagogical setting. But other than that, the professors are kind and caring, the workload is rigorous, the peers are bright and agents of learning in their own right, and you can find a small, individual feel at many of the humanities/social science/art courses there. I think one thing that distinguishes Yale from most colleges and universities is the sheer amount of resources it offers to its undergraduates. My Yale friends would constantly be posting about seminars or lectures with some of the brightest minds out there. They’d get funding to do just about anything they envisioned related to their academic goals, even in the summers. With 2000 courses+, there would be no lack of interesting, engaging courses to take- as someone pointed out before, the problem is not having the time to take everything you want to take. The residential college system gives Yalies a tight-knit residential community rivaling the experience at a small LAC, and the facilities/dining/dorms are exceptional. And outcomes are incredible- one of my friends is headed to Columbia for Law School, one of them got into the Mt. Sinai FLEXMed program, and another just started investment banking at Goldman Sachs.
Important to add at the same time- I don’t regret my Pomona experience in the slightest, and while the number of people who turn down Yale to go to a top LAC are few, there are people out there who do so. I know of four in my own graduating class. The statement made by @HappyAlumnus is unfair because there’s more to a university than the SAT of its students and its perceived prestige. One of my closest friends agonized over Princeton vs Pomona. Everyone was telling her to go to Princeton. Even I was, largely because Princeton doesn’t allow transfers and she had the possibility of transferring back to Pomona. She wrote a pretty lengthy post justifying why she picked Pomona- student body and faculty coming across as distinctively more friendly and nurturing, diversity that felt genuine and an administration that felt receptive, preference of geographic location, interactions with faculty members who had completed their undergrads and PhDs at Princeton recommending her to pick Pomona, etc. I’m certain that students who’re admitted at the caliber of Yale or an elite LAC can find the answers and perspectives they need to make the right decision for themselves. Another student I can think of “chose Pomona over MIT, Stanford, Yale, USC, Williams, Wellesley and Oberlin because of Pomona’s academic reputation for liberal arts” (search it and you’ll find the article in question, and once you see her name, search that too). She became a Churchill Scholar, which is perhaps the most prestigious science fellowship an undergrad can receive. And she’s now at Stanford for her PhD after completing her Churchill year at Cambridge. I don’t think she’d have any regrets about the decision she made so many years ago.
My son has friends currently attending Yale (and my son attends Princeton). Like at any school, the quality of an individual instructor (whether he or she is a professor, grad student, TA) varies. If you are 100% set on one specific field (humanities is too broad a category in my opinion), you could certainly try to obtain more information about that program and the quality of instruction (but keep in mind that it’s pretty much cliche to say that your academic interests once you are in college will change). Otherwise, have no fear that Yale has outstanding professors. Does Princeton? Yes. Does Harvard? Yes. Does your local community college? Yes. What makes an instructor great FOR YOU is what you get out of the course and how it opens your mind/eyes. Celebrity professors may not often equal quality undergraduate instructors.
Again, based on (reliable) hearsay, Yale can make you happy. So could other schools. Explore them. Have options. You will find your ‘happy’ place.
With that said, from a purely utilitarian point of view, my son received this advice while considering the colleges that had accepted him: “Follow the money.” The more money an institution has to (and does) spend on its undergraduates, the more opportunities you will have. That can help separate one institution from another (but also know that a lot of institutions know this, and will create select ‘Scholars’ or ‘Honors’ programs to provide just these extra opportunities as well).
Congratulations on your success so far!
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Please stay on topic. Keep in mind that CC is NOT a debate website. As a reminder, here were the OP’s questions:
Thank you @MaineLonghorn: With regards to the OP’s question:
My son graduated from Yale in 2015 and had a wonderful academic and social experience. All his classes were taught by Yale professors, and for the most part (75% of his time at Yale), he was pleased with the level of teaching.
One reason for this may be that my son went about selecting his freshman year classes in a highly unusual method. He searched the Yale Blue-Book and Rate My Teacher website for top rated Yale professors – professors that received raves such as “Whatever class this professor is teaching TAKE THE CLASS, it will be the most fascinating, interesting and compelling class you will take in your for years at Yale.” The upside to his method: my son was blown away by the level of teaching from his professors and all the courses he took during his freshman year. The downside to his method: There was no discernible pattern or thread to any of his courses, as they were all over the map. In hindsight, it was a fabulous introduction to Yale even though he had to play catch-up his sophomore year by taking introduction courses required by his major which he had failed to take his freshman year.
Full Disclosure: When my son applied to college, he was interested in majoring in Computer Science. However, during his sophomore year he became disillusioned with how Yale was teaching CS. My understanding is that the CS department has changed for the better over the last 5 years, but when my son was a sophomore he found the courses and professors to be boring and uncreative (his words). Ultimately, my son switched majors to Psychology, but continued to pursue what he considered to be the creative aspects of CS on his own. (My son learned a very important lesson about himself during his time at Yale: he is not a classroom learner. Although he can perform well in the classroom – he graduated Yale with honors – he much prefers self-directed learning rather than being spoon-fed information by a professor in a classroom lecture.) During my son’s senior year, he combined his love of CS and Psychology in his thesis project which involved computer facial recognition software mentored by one of Yale’s noted professors, Marvin Chun. My son was also Dr. Chun undergraduate research assistant his senior year. See: http://psychology.yale.edu/people/marvin-chun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y53EfXv3bII
However, when it came time for look for job my son was not interested in pursuing Psychology, and applied for CS jobs. Even though he did not graduate from Yale with a degree in CS, he made it to the final interview for Google, Facebook, Drop Box, Box and Spotify. He’s currently the youngest data analyst/scientist at one of the above companies (everyone else in his department has their masters or PhD) and is making more money than a 23-year should be allowed to make!
Would my son have had the same opportunities at a smaller LAC? Possibly, but I doubt with such a noted professor. Would he have had a better overall experience in the classroom at an LAC? Possibly. Would he have ended up in the same place if he had attended a LAC? Possibly, but I doubt it. My son was also accepted to Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, Williams, Middlebury, Georgetown, Pomona, Vanderbilt, Wesleyan and SUNY Binghamton – and without question he would tell you that he made the right decision by attending Yale. A huge part of reason had nothing to do with the classroom – it was because of Yale’s residential college system and the Administrations student centric approach to campus life. My daughter graduated from Harvard and had the complete opposite experience of my son in terms of social life – so you should consider all aspects of a college before making your decision.
As others have said, please revisit Yale for Bulldog days and the other invited applicant days for colleges that accept you and make your decision based upon what place feels more like home. Best of luck to you whatever you decide!
the reality is that schools use the same text book… same TA and graduate students to teach… you’re going into humanities and yale is great in humanities.
buy some Yale swag, chill and have a great time at Yale!
That’s not always the reality at a research university, or at least it wasn’t for my kids. One requirement of a tenured professor at a research university is to publish something every few years. And, when university research professors are required to teach undergraduates – which they do at Harvard and Yale – those professors often publish their own textbooks to meet the institutional requirement of “publish or perish.” My kids encountered all too frequently courses that required textbooks (written by the professor) that were not mass produced or available on Amazon. Those professor written text books could only be obtained through a local print shop that produced one (expensive) copy at a time that was revised every year, so student’s couldn’t even buy a used copy from past years. This was more true for Harvard than for Yale, but that’s generally NOT the case at LAC’s which often use standard-off the shelf textbooks.
Yes, I agree.
As a current student, I can tell you the undergraduate teaching quality at Yale is about to take a nosedive as they admit more students to fill those two new colleges without hiring any more faculty or grad students. The grad students are pushing for a union, and you might expect a strike in the next 4 years.
^ nosedive? Interesting first post.
Congratulations on what is apparently your first CC post, @blatheron.
As a Yale undergrad (or grad student, possibly?), you’ll surely know that the effect of the expansion is that the undergraduate population will increase by less than 4% a year for each of the next four years. One would hope that the administration will have ample time to react to and correct any diminution in the quality of the teaching, let alone a “nosedive”. In any case, your statement to the contrary, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences confirmed in February that 40 ladder faculty would be added over the next five years to reflect the expansion. The number of grad students is a function of the graduate departments, not how many students are in Yale College.
Some of the most brilliant, talented and successful people I know did not attend YHPS or even a PWI. There are lots of schools out there, including HBCUs that provide stellar educations - many have top notch engineering programs and are also feeders to top law schools and medical schools. There are so many schools in the US that this recent obsession that one must attend one of these named schools to succeed is absurd. I worked for 30 years - I’ve never had a boss that went to an Ivy. So, while it was the choice for me in 1978 and for my D in 2014, it is NOT the right one for everyone.
@DeepBlue86 Rodney Dangerfield, I would take Swat’s low admit rate (for a LAC) with a grain of salt. It seems the administration has manipulated this rate pretty deliberately, achieving a huge reduction in one year by various marketing gimmicks. This was discussed in some detail on a CC thread that can be found by googling why does Williams have such s high admit rate even though it’s number one LAC. Indeed, as DD is currently a senior she received tons of email from Swat saying please apply, all fees waived, just one little supplemental essay that we don’t even care about, etc. I would say Swat is the most desperate marketer after UChicago.
Not sure why everyone seems to believe classes taught by full professors are better taught than those run by adjuncts. Even at Yale, I had some professors who obviously weren’t a fan of the rules making them teach, and this showed in their courses. My favorite subject was taught by a non-tenured instructor, and I also had a fantastic class taught by a PhD candidate. These teachers put so much effort and passion into their courses. Many professors just want to research, and are awarded for such, and may not care that much about introduction to international studies or whatever they have to teach.
Also had some great professors, but never saw much of a correlation between their research accolades and their ability to teach undergraduate coursework.
I would suggest that the decision point for the OP is not really quality of teaching, which will be excellent at Yale and those other schools, but rather a preferred learning environment. LACs and research universities are different in important ways, and some people will prefer one over the other. The thing to do is to visit, if possible, and to read specifics about the schools.