Who's foot am I rubbing?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
1

<p>So, I'm going to Yale on Wednesday for an interview and (maybe) a tour. I heard you're supposed to rub the foot of some statue for good luck, and I'd very much like to get in, especially since the other day I shook a magic 8 ball to ask if I'd get into Yale early and it was like "ask again later" so I asked again and it was like "no" so then I asked if I'd be deferred and get in later and it was like "I wouldn't count on it."</p>

<p>I need to know where this statue is.</p>

<p>Also, what questions are these guys going to be asking me? Is the tour worthwhile or is it like all other college tours where they just sound like they're reading from a viewbook? Does the tour show you a dorm?</p>

2

<p>haha. i wouldnt worry about the 8ball too much. the statue is nathan yale, and he is in the center of the campus.</p>

3

<p>The statue in question is actually that of President Woolsey on the Old Campus. According to lore, he was a big fan and supporter of the crew teams, attending many of the boat races. After the statue was erected, the crew teams would rub the foot for good luck before their races.</p>

4

<p>You'll find it. It's the one with the overly-polished toe.</p>

<p>John Galt.</p>

5

<p>I think you may have been thinking about the statue of John Harvard in front of University Hall.</p>

<p><a href="http://robert.souther.us/images/John%20Harvard's%20Toe.jpg"&gt;http://robert.souther.us/images/John%20Harvard's%20Toe.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

6

<p>Gosh, everybody is saying a different statue. . .</p>

7

<p>I know. I'm confused now. The Woolsey one rings a bell, though.</p>

8

<p>Both Harvard and Yale have foot-rubbing statues. I've rubbed both.</p>

9

<p>lol and I thought I was being too superstitious with all the coin flippings</p>

10

<p>It's woolsey. When I was there we rubbed his toe. He's the one on old campus about 11 or so yards away form the Nathan HALE statue.</p>

11

<p>The Nathan Hale statue isn't actually of Nathan Hale because nobody knew what he actually looked like. It's just some dude.</p>

12

<p>You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can't tell him much.
Q.E.D. :)</p>

13

<p>The statue of John Harvard outside University Hall in Harvard Yard is also an "idealized image" of that Puritan worthy, as no known painting of him exists.</p>

<p>Google it and you will find scores of photos by Japenese tourists, visiting applicants and their families, etc., many showing somebody rubbing the famous foot.</p>

14

<p>I think I remember a statue on the arts quad at Cornell with a particularly shiny foot, too. It must be a pretty popular thing at universities (foot fetishes?).</p>

15

<p>my bad, it isnt hale.</p>

16

<p>I've rubbed both statues at Harvard and Yale.</p>

<p>I've been told not to walk through these gates at both Yale and Princeton (if I did before graduating, I supposedly wouldn't graduate).</p>

17

<p>i think almost every school has a good-luck or bad-luck tradition involving some element of their built environment.</p>

18

<p>Yeah. I was told that that Nathan Hale statue is just some student who struck the most Patriotic pose in a line up of a bunch of other guys. Also, if you ever go to Langley, the CIA headquarters, there is a statue that looks very similar to the Hale one at Yale. Word has it that the CIA wanted it and Yale said no, so they came at night and took a cast of it and made their own. Just a story though.</p>

19

<p>can you not rub the other foot?</p>

20

<p>wear gloves when rubbing Woolsey's foot. Though polished and shiny from tourists, it is the object of many an undergraduate's drunken revelry... if you know what I mean.</p>