<p>I am visiting Yale next month and I am wondering if anyone can tell me what to expect? I am going to the info session, campus tour, and engineering and science tours as well. Thanks!</p>
<p>Youre visiting in the summer? More or less, expect opulent gothic architecture and a great overall feel.</p>
<p>I would suggest visiting when there are students, if at all possible. Its the people at Yale that make it what it is, and give the campus that “electricity.” Its beautiful without people, Im sure, but to get a full on experience, there has to be people there.</p>
<p>I would expect for you that youll have a good time, enjoy the tour/info session, but leave with a slight feeling of “it was great, but Im not sure how people see it as a magical place” <– the answer will be that there werent people on campus.</p>
<p>actually, yale in the summer is not people-free. Summer programs, mostly populated by high-school students, will be in full swing; the tourist busses keep rolling in, the grad students are mostly around, the staff mostly work 12 months/yr., research labs (with their postdocs, grad students and occasional undergrad) stay in business year-round.</p>
<p>Certain kinds of schools really do seem ‘closed down’ in the summer - mostly LACs, I think. A place like Yale stays pretty busy and lively.</p>
<p>My bad, I knew of the summer programs, etc, but I didnt know that there were significant numbers (I assumed a few hundred or so)</p>
<p>@memake, did you visit in the summer as well, or did you do a program at Yale in the summer?</p>
<p>I visited both during the summer and during the school year, and while Yale is certainly not “closed down” and there are definitely students around during the summer months, you still get a different feel when you visit during the academic year. That being said, visiting during the summer is definitely better than not visiting at all, and at least the weather will (hopefully) be nice :). However, take into account that one of the main pros of Yale (and something that really differentiates the university from its peers, in particular Harvard and Princeton) is the enthusiasm, friendliness, and overall happiness of Yalies, which is probably what thatguy100 was referring to.</p>
<p>thatguy100: I’m a parent of a current Yale student, an ex-New Haven resident, and a few other Yale-related things. </p>
<p>I’m a bit curious: for those of you who toured Yale while classes were in session - did any of you sit in on a class? tour a residential college?</p>
<p>I had both an official visit (recruited athlete) and was there for Bulldog Days as an admitted student. Obviously, Bulldog Days was a planned event with numerous extra things going on, but I got a chance to do the “Day in the life of a Yalie” thing, where I shadowed my host to classes, eating, etc in between tours and hanging with fellow prefrosh. The tours were great, and the classes were precisely what you would expect from an academic institution. </p>
<p>In total, I went to three classes on my two visits: 1st year comp sci, 1st year calc, and 2nd year intro to microecon. The classes were great, the professors were all very nice (I loved the calc prof… being a calc nerd myself, I found him to be an amazing teacher)</p>
<p>The tours were nice, we mainly stayed at TD for the official tour. However, on my visit, the coaches took me on a personal tour of 5 or 6 of the colleges (Pierson, Dport, Old Campus, and I believe Saybrook/Branford)… The tour was awesome, but it was also filled with a tour of the main athletic facilities and the fact that the coaches were recruiting me, so there was a lot of “well, if you come here you have access to this!” chat (I didnt mind it, I was enthralled with the place anyways)</p>
<p>It sounds like your Yale tour experience as a recruited athlete was not really typical for prospective applicants. </p>
<p>I was looking for info about the options people found (or took advantage of) when visiting before acceptance, so Bulldog Days, when Yale puts on a pretty big show and invites the admittees into it’s most intimate recesses, doesn’t count.</p>
<p>I tried! I only got to go the two times, and ya, they were not the typical session I dont think.</p>
<p>my “tour” consisted of running around campus as a high school speech/debate kid and for BDD both were different but the tour guide(at BDD) was pretty awesome…</p>
<p>@memake - when I visited Yale (before acceptance) during the school year, I took the tour, went to the info session, and walked around campus for a little while, but that was all. Aside from being impressed by both “activities”, what really stood out for me was the friendliness of every student with whom I interacted. When I wanted to go look at one of the residential colleges, not only did the first student (who, by the way, did not work at the admissions office) I saw let me in, but she gave me a mini-tour of the college before running off to class. Every Yalie I met was extremely nice and friendly, and they all raved about Yale.</p>
<p>I went on my tour today!! It was fun. Expect Gothic architecture, little campus activity due to the summer days, and nice people who are willing to talk to you. The town of New Haven is nice, and it is larger that what I had expected. It’s a very quaint community with a modern twist.</p>
<p>Thanks for your responses. I go back and forth myself on the importance of touring colleges when school is in session versus touring during summer, when it’s much more convenient. I bet you do absorb something of the character of a college from the people you run into while you’re there, even if you can’t/don’t sit in on classes - nonetheless, I worry that especially at schools that are very popular on the ‘tour circuit’ it’s hard to have much in the way of unmediated interaction. </p>
<p>Although, sometimes ‘mediated’ interaction can also be very revealing…I’m thinking of a Columbia visit which included a student roundtable, about 5 random Columbia students invited to sit down with a group of touring seniors + parents. One of the students dominated the conversation in an aggresive, ambitious, self-focussed way that just seemed to entirely encapsulate some stereotypes one hears…</p>
<p>Happy touring summer to everyone!</p>