<p>No. The Harvard satire wasn’t funny and made a low blow about Annie Le. haha, that’s the inner Yalie in me speaking out :)</p>
<p>okay, in retrospect, this turned out much longer than I expected. sorry, I just like gushing about my future school. disclaimer: I’m a 2015er, so I start freshman year in the fall. This is what has been told to me/what I’ve gathered from talking to other 2015ers, current Yalies, alumni, and more.</p>
<p>I’m not pre-med - I’m more of an engineering/cognitive science prospective major. Just a disclaimer. But I did choose Yale over UCLA, Cal, Rice, Northwestern, Swarthmore, and a few other schools of similar caliber. For me, it was highly motivated by financial aid - Yale simply offered me the most money, an offer I couldn’t refuse.</p>
<p>Throughout the whole college process, my focus was pretty much on Stanford. (Yale was my second choice.) Yes, I gave 100% effort on every single application (all sixteen of them, haha), but I hoped to get into the Stanford pretty much from December to March 29th. Then I was rejected. I mean, I was sad for a few hours, but along the way, as I received other acceptances, I started researching other schools and fell in love with them, as each school is unique and offers many resources that may be unmatched by other schools. At this point, I was all set to attend Rice - no way I was going to get into the Ivies, I thought.</p>
<p>Next day - a lot of emotions. Harvard email first: waitlist. That was pretty cool. Followed by a Princeton rejection, and last but certainly not least, a Yale acceptance. Best day ever, really. </p>
<p>So after seeing my financial aid award, I was pretty much set on attending Yale. but for it being my number two, I still hadn’t done much research on it. So for the next three weeks or so, my life was Yale. I read people’s thoughts online, talked to upperclassman, went to Bulldog Days, talked to my friends, teachers, neighbors, doctors, etc. And what I came to realize was that although Yale is obviously unique and offers many opportunities, there simply isn’t another school like it.</p>
<p>I love Yale for its history. You walk through the halls, between buildings, random small passageways, and you can see the weathering of the walls, the cracks in the imperfect, ancient wood, the beautiful Gothic architecture, and you can feel the history pervading all areas of the campus.</p>
<p>The academics are stellar, obviously. I’ve met a bunch of 2015 pre-med people, so you will definitely not be in a small group. The classes offered are amazing and number too many for you to physically handle in your four years. </p>
<p>And, as my friends have said before, Yale “literally throws money at us to study abroad, start clubs, fundraise for this cause, and basically do what we want.” But when she says “do what we want”, that’s one of the noticeable differences in a student body. Yalies, from how I see it, are truly concerned, down-to-earth, intelligent, inquisitive, and passionate about what they want to do. Most of us certainly do not live up to the Ivy League stereotype. I’m not tooting my own horn, but Yalies are more than willing to go out of their way to help someone, like I am now by gushing about my school. I swear I’m not pompous haha. But at Bulldog Days, anytime I was looking at a map for more than five seconds, a student would come up to me and ask if they could help me find anything. But yeah - I hope I’ve represented my school well. </p>
<p>One final point is something mentioned when I was at Bulldog Days, the admitted students weekend. Among all of the great activities, we got to the discussion of “Why did I get into Yale?” And sure, we all had great test scores, had diverse extracurriculars, etc., but so did the other 25,000 applicants, probably. Our conclusion? Yale chooses YOU for its incoming class - it actively shapes its undergraduate population of diverse, amazing people by hand-picking you from among the many qualified students because it knows that all of you together are unstoppable. Excuse me for the corniness, but after that, it’s your turn to choose Yale.</p>
That being said, your post gave me even more ammunition for “why yale,” so thank you.</p>
and we’ll always have a rivalry, but students at both schools have much respect for each other. And I’m glad you’re going to apply SCEA! It honestly is an amazing school. If you ask other people who have actually been there, I’m sure they can gush even more haha. Good luck to you, feel free to ask me questions along the way! I can probably put you in touch with pre-med people later in the future, too.</p>