<p>Ithaca and Palo Alto are both extremely boring compared to New Haven. Everyone I've talked to who has a non-biased view of things (e.g., Stanford and Cornell alumni and students) agrees with this. There are about 200 restaurants, 50 bars/clubs and 300 stores within a short walk of Yale... probably more than within a few blocks of all the other Ivies combined. Yale is at the exact center of an urban region of more than 800,000 people - it faces the 400-year-old town green and city hall, which makes it easy for students to get involved in anything involving the city. Also, there are tens of thousands of college students in the area (by total student enrollment, Yale isn't even the largest university in the city center of New Haven proper - Southern Connecticut State is) who flock to downtown New Haven every weekend, which explains why there are dozens of coffeeshops, several 24 hour diners, etc. Very few college towns compare, because very few (if any) colleges are located at the exact center of cities that size.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for that! It doesn't sound too bad.</p>
<p>umm..new haven is a dump and there is very little way around it. Palo Alto is, admittedly upscale, but Stanford is a short public transit ride from downtown San Francisco. Plus there is no comparison, the Northeastern weather is crummy, which may help explain some of the depression people feel. Yale is a great school, but c'mon NOONE is going there for the location.</p>
<p>I'm actually thinking of going there for the location--just because it's so different from the one I grew up in. I'm tired of seeing the bright blue sky and sunny sun all the freaking time.</p>
<p>i'll remind myself tomorrow morning when shivering i try to hold steady so i can put the keys in the ignition.</p>
<p>Actually, Yale is MUCH more convenient to New York City (in terms of # of trains and having trains that run around the clock) than Stanford is to San Francisco. And even if they were equally easy to get to, New York City makes San Francisco look like a tiny, crappy village. </p>
<p>Also, if New Haven is a "dump", then Palo Alto is a tiny, rancid septic tank. But honestly there is really no comparison. There are at least 20 times more restaurants, stores, coffeeshops and nightclubs in downtown New Haven within a short walk of Yale than in Palo Alto.</p>
<p>where to start.....for one thing, our profs are all too busy trying to get published/be famous to ever actually TEACH......</p>
<p>we have shootings in New Haven almost DAILY.......</p>
<p>Ithaca is smaller and harder to get to than New Haven and Boston...yeah</p>
<p>Boring? Nah! Unless you don't have a pluse. Great restaurants, great music scene, its a small city totally geared toward college students.</p>
<p>PLUS... you have the great outdoors right at your fingertips...</p>
<p>You will likely have to live in a large urban area once you get your first job...why not live in vacation land during your college years!</p>
<p>eek... i didn't know new haven was like this >< like one of the previous posters, i'm not used to that kind of area... i'm quite comfy here, living in a nice, rather affluent neighborhood, going to nice shopping malls, etc. i rarely see a homeless person... and if i do, it's in downtown dallas or on the highway somewhere... </p>
<p>O_O</p>
<p>Just FYI about Palo Alto being close to downtown SF: I live in SF and it is an hour long DRIVE between Palo Alto and SF nevermind public transport.</p>
<p>hey, guys, before you start knocking New England weather...some people actually love it. I don't know what I'd do without my seasons, without snow and cold, without the leaves in fall, without how gorgeous it can get in the spring. But I guess that's me. I couldn't deal with California.</p>
<p>Look what I found on <a href="http://www.studentsreview.com%5B/url%5D">http://www.studentsreview.com</a> </p>
<p>"Yale has alot of problems. If not for its prestige, it wouldn't be nearly as high-ranked as it is in all of those college books, or at least it shouldn't be. Read on for the details.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The weather here is horrible. Blazing hot at the very beginning of the year and at end of the year exams, freezing cold from Nov.-March and the other months are so dreary/filled with rain that they too are awful. I read a study that indicates people's happiness are influenced by weather (i.e. better weather, happier person). No wonder everyone at Yale is rude/unhappy/unapproachable/etc.</p></li>
<li><p>The about 9/1 student teacher ratio in all the college books is basically a lie. While there may be that many teachers, I most of my class have been 40-60 students, just big enough so the teacher doesn't know your name or care if you're there. a close second for most common class size was 60+ students, and I hardly had any less than 30-40 kids. so, the stats they present about class size are misleading, and all the classes are much bigger than you may anticipate.</p></li>
<li><p>The TAs were very bad. Their English was bad (meaning difficult to understand) and made little effort in getting to know you personally or help you. The assignments that they grade (most assignments) are unfairly and seemingly arbitrarily graded. </p></li>
<li><p>Professors are too wrapped up in their own work to care about undergrads. Many are arrogant and unhelpful and all are self-absorbed. THERE IS NOT AN UNDERGRADUATE FOCUS IN THIS SCHOOL!! If you attempt to talk to them, they'll end up promoting their research and how 'awesome' they are and never get around to your question. many aren't that smart, as you find out when you take a class from a prof who just reads off notes from his computer...every class for the entire thing.</p></li>
<li><p>Grading here is often ridiculous. Classes may be graded by only a exam or two, both of which have a majority of questions as topics that were never covered. you don't have anywhere to turn for help. The comptetive (actually cut-throat) enviroment really wears you down. One kid I knew actually had all his notes and books stolen on time, several days before an exam. Despite his frantic attempts to borrow notes from others, nobody let him. He ending up failing the final and getting a D in the class. TAs can't grade, because they often don't even grasp English, and seemingly slap down a grade with no explanation (for written stuff). even if you go to them they won't explain it.</p></li>
<li><p>Despite so many libraries/books, good luck finding one because right after any assigned project several kids will just take out all books on the topic so other can't get them. </p></li>
<li><p>The social scene here is sad. EVERYONE is social-inept. people will stare at you wordlessly if you say hi to them for a minute before muttering (everyone here mumbles) something, because nobody speaks to each other here, especially to people they don't initially know. The girls here are the ugliest out of any college...period. But besides, everyone is too busy studying to ever relax or drink, or get with someone of the opposite gender. I know of several kids personally that graduated that have never even kissed a girl. Everyone here is unkempt (Yale sweatshirts are worn by everypne 24/7 and nobody bothers washing theirs), smells bad (nobody has heard of deodorant), is unattractive, and mumbles incoherently. </p></li>
<li><p>PEOPLE HERE ARE DUMB! You may be thinking, what? How can that be? But here, people have books smarts but literally no street smarts or social skills, which are more important kids of smarts, at least by me.</p></li>
<li><p>New Haven is awful. New Haven is dirty, too expensive, unfriendly, and worst of all, downright dangerous. About 3 out of 5 kids here get mugged. My roomate was robbed at knife-point. I was fortunate enough to not get mugged (my closest time was when I knew this guy right behind me was about to try so I started sprinting...not stopping until I got back to my room and locked the door. No wonder you don't see fat people in the college catologue). Plus, you can't leave New Haven for any decent city that's close. harvard has cambridge plus boston right nearly. Yale doesn't have that.</p></li>
<li><p>The food is tastless and cyclic, meaning that places won't really vary their serving day by day. Food is expensive, but has really bad quality. Sadly, nowhere in New Haven is there a decent place to eat that isn't too expensive, sketchy, or in a dangerous section (while every section is dangerous, several places are deadly).</p></li>
<li><p>The campus is overrated. While is may initially impress you, throughout the year parts of it aren't kept up, and parts tours will see are given lavish attention. The building don't have AC and their heating system are very bad.</p></li>
<li><p>You have to take 36 credits, unlike most colleges which have 30-32. Another reason why you never sleep. The core curriculum is often cumbersome and forced me to take classes I didn't want to take. The foreign language requirement, 4 semesters worth, was deadly to me especially. How I hate that.... Somewhere in Sophmore years you'll have a similar realization about how the glossy life at Yale isn't real, and that in reality it stinks.</p></li>
<li><p>'Yale' on your resume doesn't help much. People who succeeded didn't do it because of Yale (i.e. the Bushs, Kerry, some Rockefellers, etc.) but because of who they were. Many of my peers had difficultly landing jobs (which i was rather happy about though, because most of them were self-absorbed and had never tasted failure). I couldn't land a job for over a year, and it wasn't even related to my major. at graduation, some of my friends and a bunch of other people were handing out their business cards like some students do...only it said their name and that they were unemployed. I was handed 4 of those cards for every real one, meaning that perhaps only 1 of 5 kids can immediately land a job.</p></li>
<li><p>Sporting events are sparsely attending except for several football and hockey games. Girls sports basically don't exist, to the common student. There is little school spirit generally. Its better to go to games to laugh at the cheerleaders, who are a joke, than to watch our sad teams be perptually defeated.</p></li>
<li><p>The housing system (residential colleges) is highly overrated at over-touted. Nobody even hangs out in the common rooms, so what's the purpose? plus, instead of being stuck with only 1 roomate who may or not be normal, you're stuck with several, and at least 1-3 of them aren't. So instead of taking you chances, you loses everytime. The rooms are small and stuffy to. </p></li>
<li><p>The price. What else needs to be said about this highly expensive, overrated education? I wasted my parent's money, period. Because of that waste, they have to work until they're 60 and then get by on what little they've saved. </p></li>
<li><p>Most people here are conformists to Yale, but claim they are liberal. Most people are liberal because their conforming to the majority of students than because they truly are liberal. ironic, isn't it?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So, please make your own decision about Yale. this is info I wish I had known as a high school student! I was once in your shoes, and so excited about attending Yale. I was proud and happy. Oh how life has changed..."</p>
<p>I think this account is so contrasting of that given by the people here that I suspect the writer was from Harvard. Refute him.</p>
<p>Except for the part about the weather, everything else in this list is basically a lie and I have to wonder whether the person who wrote it actually attended the school. My D is about to graduate from Yale and we live elsewhere in CT so I speak with some authority here. </p>
<p>To take a couple of the more egregious errors:</p>
<p>Safety - three out of five students have NOT been mugged. My D has not, and neither have any of her numerous friends.</p>
<p>Undergrad focus - My D is a history major. It's a very large department that does indeed have many large lecture courses, but she has also been able to form close relationships with several professors who have had a huge effect on her intellectual development.</p>
<p>Employment - I would guess that at this point in their senior years (March), about 80 percent of her friends have jobs or acceptances to graduate schools. Good jobs, too...consulting companies, investment banks, or as in the case of my daughter and several of her friends, exciting jobs teaching overseas.</p>
<p>"cutthroat" environment -- Lie, lie! Students in my D's classes routinely share lecture notes, form study groups to prepare for exams, and in general are extremely supportive of one another.</p>
<p>Social scene -- Lively and fun. The Yale students I have met are attractive, outgoing, and charming. They are not rude nor unapproachable, and almost to a person are extremely happy with their college experiences.</p>
<p>Residential colleges -- Almost all of them have been recently and beautifully renovated. My D lives in one of the few remaining unrenovated colleges and has, since sophomore year, been housed in spacious single rooms. The colleges have huge budgets for programs and amenities. One college organized a 10-day trip to Italy over spring break that was so heavily subsidized it cost participants only $800 apiece. My D has seen many Broadway shows free of charge, courtesy of her college.</p>
<p>Food - No idea about the day to day food in the dining halls except that my D has never complained. New Haven has many excellent restaurants within walking distance of the campus.</p>
<p>I'll stop there.</p>
<p>I spoke to an engineering student at Yale who had a similar opinion of it to the post that's suspected to be written by a Harvard student...maybe the science/engineering departments are cutthroat? I know for a fact many of the TAs there barely speak English, and a lot of the professors are too busy publishing to really care much about teaching (but that seems to be the case for any science/engineering departments with a graduate research focus). The English department seemed nice, laid back, and interesting, while the Art department was also spectacular.</p>
<p>I'm so tired of the exaggeration on CC. I think every post I make is my last, until I'm forced to come back to correct people...</p>
<p>"There are about 200 restaurants, 50 bars/clubs and 300 stores within a short walk of Yale... probably more than within a few blocks of all the other Ivies combined." Yeah, right... 50 bars/clubs? Off the top of my head, I can think of around 6 bars and 3 clubs within short walking distance. But so what? I don't think you could fit 550 buildings of any size within a "short walk" of anyplace. Take this for what it is, an exaggeration. New York City and Cambridge are undoubtedly the most vibrant locations of any Ivies. It's all about personal preference when it comes to New Haven, Ithaca, or Hanover.</p>
<p>I'm going to respond to some points in the lengthy post from studentsreview.com not because I take it seriously but because the issues raised are good ones to think about.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The weather sucks. Deal with it. I'm tired of hearing the griping.</p></li>
<li><p>I don't know about how correct the 9:1 student ratio is; it doesn't really matter because for every student who is too lazy to take anything but huge lectures, there's another who takes only seminars. There are MANY seminars at Yale, although it may be hard to get into the most popular ones. I'm a second semester sophomore. I took six seminars sophomore year (DS) and two seminars last semester (including a graduate school political science course - one of my friends is in a Yale Law School seminar). This semester I'm enrolled in four seminars and one lecture; only two of those seminars are in my major (the others are photography and French). All seminars have been with professors; all professors have shown interest in us as people and my residential college hosts three meals with professors each semester. YES, you can take psych and econ and bio forever and never try to meet a professor one-on-one. But really, that's your own damn fault.</p></li>
<li><p>I can't speak to the science and engineering departments; I've also taken a large number of seminars so I don't have the most experience with TAs. I do know that I took the Crime & Punishment lecture course last semester. My teaching assistant was a law student who had never taught before but was superbly qualified. The hour TA section each week was one of the most thought-provoking hours of my week. Yes, TAs grade everything. Yes, you can often go to your professor if you are unhappy with the fairness of the grading. YES, you can avoid TAs almost completely after freshman year if you try.</p></li>
<li><p>Again, there may be a science/humanities split. The lecturers in my biology course mostly read off PowerPoint slides, but the presentation is well-written and informative. I wouldn't call it a well-taught course. Contrast that with my Crime & Punishment course, designed and written by the lecturer, often delivered off the cuff and involving interaction with the students and the examples they provided. As for the arrogant/unhelpful professors... I haven't had lunch with a Harold Bloom or Sidney Altman or John Gaddis. The professors I have interacted with, though, have been humble and wonderful.</p></li>
<li><p>Hmm... Yeah, Yale sweatshirts are worn by everyone, but that always seemed more like a combination of school pride and laziness than people not knowing how to dress. I haven't met many smelly mumblers. I always find people here very energetic, friendly and excited, especially considering how little we sleep. As for attractiveness, we're not the hottest student body around, but most people's sex lives (if not necessarily dating) seem to be decent if they try. Priorities, priorities!</p></li>
<li><p>3 out of 5? Ha. I personally know a single person who has gotten mugged. I also think the fact that this reviewer sprinted all the way back to his dorm based on no evidence at all says a lot about him. I don't think New Haven is terribly great, but that's not based on its safety.</p></li>
<li><p>Yale food gets old fast (my vegetarian friend also complains constantly); more problematic is the ripoff that is our meal plan. Dartmouth and BC, for example, withdraw the amount of money you actually owe per meal. This makes it easy to pay just for what you eat as well as to cover other people. At Yale, as part of the room/board component of tuition you pay upfront for all your meals for the semester, even if you don't eat them. You basically forfeit food when you go out to eat. As for New Haven, dining - wrong, wrong, wrong. If there's one thing this city has in spades, it's a variety of all sorts of restaurants at all prices.</p></li>
<li><p>I'm glad we have to take 36. I don't know how I would take everything I wanted if 32 was the norm.</p></li>
<li><p>BS.</p></li>
<li><p>Mostly true. In my experience, the only sport that spectators have had loyalty to is hockey - a group of my friends went to a game most weekends this winter.</p></li>
<li><p>This is actually an interesting observation, although for the wrong reasons (all my suitemates are normal, thank you very much). Freshman year, everyone is very psyched about their residential college. I spent almost all last year socializing with my Branford friends and now live with 7 of them. I really like my suite of friends and plan to continue living with them, but I know them well because I live with them. Outside of my suite, I've found new circles of friends in Morse, in Davenport, in the theatre community and in my fraternity, among other places. Because you're stuck with your college and people often begin to grow apart from their college during sophomore year, Yale has a higher percentage of students living off campus (with what have become their closest friends) than you might expect given how touted the RC system is. I would say that to me, Branford now functions more as a place that feels like home rather than my closest group of friends - and that's fine. As for our rooms, they're generally on par to slightly better than universities on our level. You aren't going to get LAC-size rooms and LAC-quality food at at Yale, unfortunately.</p></li>
<li><p>NO idea what this means. Most people here is liberal. That doesn't mean they're trying to be rebels.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Sorry if my answers got boring toward the end. Let me know if you have more questions.</p>
<p>Yotam</p>
<p>I love Yale! :) Thanks Yotam, veteranmom.</p>
<p>Yeah, it's always good for some "real" Yale people to clear stuff up.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for that, Yotam.</p>
<p>I have lived in their residential colleges, and I must say most of them are pretty. However Stiles college has the worst dorms. The food is mediocre, and some of it varies from day to day. However there are great restaurants nearby, and I know since I attend a New Haven magnet school. The broadway district has great places to eat, and Zoroka is a great place to eat indian food. You should check out Wooster place, and two of the best pizza restaurants in connecticut are located here; Sallys and Peppys. There are downsides to living in New England, but Yale students are not dull and boring. I have taken classes there, and I find it it to be a fun and amusing environment. My class has 300 kids in it, but I find the professor to be very reachable. If you make an effort to know the professor, he/she will know you. Most of the times it takes a simple, "Hi, my name is...." Yale is a great college, and please dont choose to not attend it because of its location.</p>
<p>that studentsreview posting is very odd. seems like the poster should deal with his or her general depression/anxiety/misanthropy issues before he starts bashing yale. its not like yale "makes" you such a great happy person. its a SCHOOL, people, and a community, not a miracle drug.</p>