What's Your Story? How we all ended up here

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
1

<p>So how did YOU get to know about/love Yale?
What brought you here?</p>

<p>Here is my story:</p>

<p>For a long time, I was only focused on local colleges, but soon I started to broaden my horizons. I started actually researching universities, and that's when I came across Yale.
And wow.
It has been my absolute first choice for a while now and I have never wavered in my loyalty.
I like many other places too, but Yale....Yale really soars above them for me.
When I first started telling people where I wanted to go, I got mostly weird looks, guffaws and phrases like:
"You're kidding, right?"
"[giggle]"
or just blank stares.
I was really discouraged.
I didn't understand it. They didn't think I was stupid or that I wasn't capable of succeeding at Yale, but for some reason so many people found the idea of wanting to go to Yale ludicrous. As if it were impossible.
Even my parents tried to dissuade me, using lame excuses like it was "too far" and "too cold."
I considered never mentioning it again, but I decided that would be stupid.
Yale is where I want to go and I am not going to let what some people think stop me.
Having visited Yale, I am even more sure in my decision.
And I am so happy to have found this forum, where there are people who share my passion for Yale!</p>

<p>Your turn: What's YOUR story?</p>

2

<p>Yale model congress. I went on the tour of the campus and I fell in lub. ;)</p>

3

<p>Mom was associate university chaplain there a while back. I grew up hearing stories about Yale. And then I visited... Oh, baby!</p>

4

<p>My parents first brougt me to Princeton and I love it. They suggested that since I like Princeton so much that I check out Yale. The week after I saw Princeton, we went to Yale and I absolutely fell in love with it. I've been to campus four times, 2 normal visits for tours and the like, one visit for an on campus interview, and a fourth for a meeting with the Cross Country and Track coach. I'm totally obsessed now.</p>

5

<p>i watched gilmore girls :] teehee it's true.</p>

6

<p>truthfully?</p>

<p>it all started on July 3rd, 2003. I mean, before then, I'd been to Yale all the time since I live right next to it and my dad works there, but then I began working there. </p>

<p>I was in for a surprise.</p>

<p>My first day on the job, I walked into the lab, greeted by the funny British guy who does accents, the cool, bald black guy, the tall Russian woman who would become such a good friend after two years, Uncle Fred, the Other Lab's boss, and Jon, my all-around chilled out and down-to-earth boss. And there was Stephen. </p>

<p>It didn't begin like that, actually, with there being Everyone and Stephen; no, it just kind of happened over the next few weeks. And over those weeks, not only did I get to know Yale's campus, I got to know Yale's finest, and I got to know love. </p>

<p>That's right, everybody. My first love happened right here, as part of Yale. The first place we had lunch together was at Gastronomique on High Street; the last place we had lunch together (while we were together) was at Yalie's Pizza on York Street. We studied together in the medical school library and we listened to music together in the music library behind Sterling. We took walks past Skull and Bones, to Payne Whitney and to the British Art Gallery. </p>

<p>And after he went away for a month, and I patiently waited, sustained only by pieces of emails and packages with chocolates from Germany and pictures of him in Hawaii, he came home, and we ran to each other, him at Chapel and College, I at Elm and College. I was wearing white flip flops from the J.Crew on Broadway and it was raining and his birthday. He was 21. A senior at Yale University. Applying to medical schools across the country. Valedictorian of the class of 2004. </p>

<p>Yale has a little piece of my heart. It's hidden in one of those residential colleges, and I intend to go take it back sometime during the next 4 years. I've heard returns are only exchangeable, so I'm pretty excited.</p>

7

<p>This may seem silly, but I first heard of Yale when I read Vladimir Horowitz's biography and learned of his connection to Yale - besides giving several piano recitals to Yale students, he donated many of his private, unpublished recordings to the Yale Archives. I decided then that I wanted to go to Yale one day, if nothing more to have access to these recordings (I told you this was silly! I am a real fan of Horowitz). That was before I knew of the Ivy League, and of how difficult it was to get in. Coming from a small public primary and secondary school in Malaysia, I didn't know much about U.S. universities.</p>

<p>Just last year I came across this book, 'The Cognitive Computer' by Robert Schank. I had always been interested in A.I. and this book piqued my interest further. At the back of the book, it was written that Robert Schank was a professor at Yale. I was so excited - I thought, I want to take his classes and if possible assist him in his research! Only recently I found out he was no longer in Yale, but in Northwestern. No matter - by then I'd done more research on Yale and found it to be the school of my dreams. I wouldn't know for sure unless I visit it, of course, which I will if I'm given a choice between Yale and, say, Harvard or Wesleyan. I'm particularly interested in the double-degree program in which at the end of five years you'll graduate with a Bachelor of Arts from Yale College and a Master of Arts from the Yale School of Music, which I'm really hoping to be accepted in.</p>

8

<p>frecklybeckly: You could probably use ur explanation as an essay</p>

9

<p>i was thinking about it, but it's risky.</p>

10

<p>My dad insisted that I apply to Yale. I know 2 kids who go to Yale, and they both love it. 3 guys in my graduating class are also applying, I hope I get in.</p>

11

<p>I hate to admit it, but when I was first starting to get interested in college (early junior year or late sophomore... probably the former), I was very into Princeton. It was the one school in which I had any interest, and I even got to visit and interview a Princeton employee for an otherwise infinitely lame school project. 2004, however, was supposed to be the Year of College Tours: a trip to Virginia and that region (for UVA, Richmond, and Georgetown), a trip to NC (Wake Forest, UNC, Duke), and the obligatory New England trip (Harvard and Yale). Everything went as expected until I got to Yale, which I had expected to dislike when instead I fell in love. I absolutely love libraries, so anyone who's been to Yale can pretty much see how I was immediately sucked in.</p>

<p>At first I was pretty conflicted as to whether I liked Yale or Princeton more, so when I got back home after the last set of tours I headed back over to Princeton (it's not too far) to check it out again. For whatever reason, it just didn't get to me the way that it once had. And the more I think about Yale, the more I so badly want to go there. How many days left until EA replies, anyway? 31? 30? Eeee.</p>

12

<p>My cousin went to Yale and graduated in '95. I always wanted to be like her, and we visited her a couple times, but then I went through a Princeton phase in the beginning of high school. Weird how similar I was to dtown -- I visited Princeton, fell in love, then visited Yale, fell in love all over again with the first college I'd ever seen, and then debated back and forth for months. Then I went back to P-ton and it wasn't as amazing as I thought the first few times (EVERY time I saw it, it was snowing, which I guess made it more charming) and then I was sold on Yale.</p>

<p>I honestly wasn't going to apply to Yale except as an afterthought during regular decision because my cousin wanted me to. I wish I hadn't fallen so much in love with it!! Although I know I'll be happy just about anywhere...but Yale is definitely a perfect fit.</p>

<p>Oh, and my favorite hockey player EVER is a student at Yale. This did not have any impact on my deciding to apply early; I was planning to make my friend apply so I could come visit her and rejoice in the fact that I was somehow near him. Then I decided that I needed to apply because Yale was the best!</p>

13

<p>I debated between Penn and Yale...but my heart was/is at Yale. </p>

<p>I think it was my french teacher though, whose son and husband both went to yale, who got me so much more interested in the school. Also, one of my best friend's stepfather went to Yale as a graduate student and loved it. So yeah, a lot of praise of Yale helped my decision. :)</p>