<p>Visiting Yale was certainly an eye-opening experience. The extreme poverty contrasting with the opulence of the campus and its architecture was deeply troubling. </p>
<p>The strangest things to me were the dormitories. Each one I saw completely enclosed a spacious courtyard inside, unlike any other college I have ever visited. It really felt like the dorms were gated communities hiding Yale students away from the poverty all around.</p>
<p>I find it hard to believe that Yale spends as much as they say they do on community outreach--on my tour I saw two homeless men panhandling outside the main entrance to the library.</p>
<p>It seems like it would be a sad, sad place to go to school.</p>
<p>It seems like you had a bad visit. Throughout my freshman year, I never knew anyone who felt depressed by New Haven. The area of New Haven right around New Haven is really nice with plenty of restaurants, shops, and businesses. When you go a little farther, you come across some less favorable residential areas. </p>
<p>During the school year, we don't really have a problem with beggars. We have the flower lady and the shakespeare lady (they give out flowers and recite shakespeare for money, but they give character to the campus and are friendly towards the students). Yale students actually bought the flower lady a license to sell flowers, since the police tried to prevent her from selling flowers.</p>
<p>I've never had any issues with New Haven. Yale students are among the happiest college students. Just ask around.</p>
<p>Your post made me laugh out loud. It seems like you are regurgitating stereotypes with little knowledge of the real Yale or the real New Haven.</p>
<p>The reality of New Haven is that it has improved vastly since even the 1990's: crime is way down (far fewer violent crimes and far less than Harvard) and the area around Yale is actually very very nice. I wouldn't exactly say that your roughing it at the Omni or at any of the myriad eateries.</p>
<p>It is anything but a "sad, sad place to go to school." The reality of Yale is that it has some of the happiest students in the nation. Moreover, students do not mind New Haven -- it is typically the outside crowd who is unaware of Yale that spreads the ridiculous message that it is "an unsafe, ghetto, filled with extreme poverty." EXTREME POVERTY?!?! There are less nice areas around New Haven, but you definitely won't seen that directly around the Yale campus.</p>
<p>Believe what you will... just know that perception is very subjective and it sounds like you saw what you wanted to see...</p>
<p>I think Yale students are happy for the most part because students who find the campus/New Haven/any combination of the two depressing end up either not applying or not attending if admitted. That was the case for me over 20 years ago.</p>
<p>Ehh...not really. The part that Yale College is in isn't much of a ghetto. Plus like, a few miles out of New Haven is some really nice suburb (where I live =P), so its really not that bad.</p>
<p>Go seek out the threads about New Haven. That should clear up some of the negative stereotypes. There's no point in discussing something that has been done time and time again.</p>
<p>Kicharo--Yale's residential colleges are its heart and soul. They are modeled after the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge that are similarly gated residential/learning communities with a courtyard inside. You shouldn't apply to Yale if you're so disturbed.</p>
<p>I suggest that you not visit Harvard where you'll find its houses have the same layout.</p>
<p>"EXTREME POVERTY?!?! There are less nice areas around New Haven, but you definitely won't seen that directly around the Yale campus." </p>
<p>Then why were there homeless people begging in the heart of the Yale campus? And people digging through trash cans in a park directly across the street from one of Harry Potter-esque Gothic dormitories?</p>
<p>"Believe what you will... just know that perception is very subjective and it sounds like you saw what you wanted to see..."</p>
<p>I actually was not aware of the bad opinions about New Haven before I visited, as I don't live on the east coast. </p>
<p>"Yale's residential colleges are its heart and soul. They are modeled after the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge that are similarly gated residential/learning communities with a courtyard inside. You shouldn't apply to Yale if you're so disturbed.</p>
<p>I suggest that you not visit Harvard where you'll find its houses have the same layout."</p>
<p>I visited Harvard, and I certainly wasn't aware of that fact from my tour and walking around campus. And even if that is true, it's obvious from walking around Harvard that it has an extremely open campus, which was in stark constrast to Yale's.</p>
<p>You make it sound like yale is a castle (it is) at ground zero of a disaster (it isn't). New Haven is definitely not a cute, upscale suburb, but it's hardly 'impoverished'. It's a pretty average small American city... </p>
<p>Living in a smaller, less affluent city does offer some unique experiences. Lots of yalies are involved with social work in the city, and some even run for office as aldermen. While there are lots of good restaurants, clubs, and theaters by central campus, the small size of New Haven reinforces the on campus social life. I think a big part of the reason why there are so many well attended parties/events on campus is because less people go out into the city for entertainment. It makes being on campus fun. </p>
<p>Crime is something to be conscious of, but not a burdensome concern. Campus safety alerts indicate that the robberies (mostly)/violent crimes (sparingly) that do occur happen very late at night, away from central campus. Why a savvy yalie would be wandering the backstreets of the city at 2:30 AM is beyond me. I'm told that the campus is safer than peers in Boston/NY, but i've never investigated that myself. </p>
<p>But it sounds like you probably shouldn't apply. Yalies are enthusiastic about their college; if you don't like Yale, you're not cut out to be a yalie.</p>
<p>Where do you live, Beverly Hills? Have you never seen a homeless person before? It's a city, there's going to be people below the poverty line. I take music lessons in downtown New Haven, and yeah there are beggars. So? How does that make New Haven a "ghetto"? And seriously about the gated colleges? Have you been to Harvard, Princeton, or Brown? This is not a unique system, and your projected paranoid weirdness does not make it some kind of maximum security intellectual prison, either.</p>
<p>The dorms are gated and self contained for a reason. They ARE communities. On your Yale tour, did they ever mention the Residential College system? Did you GO on a Yale tour?</p>
<p>Have you ever seen an actual ghetto before? What kind of life do you live? I'm pretty comfortably within the upper middle class, and never, not once have I ever felt in danger in New Haven. And I LIVE here.</p>
<p>Harvard is in the middle of one of the most affluent, overpriced cities ever. Yale isn't. Can you seriously not bear the sight of homeless people? Are you allergic to them? I agree with whoever said you're not for Yale; Yalies don't have spasms and post hyperbole on the internet when they see someone who, GASP, doesn't have money.</p>
<p>I highly doubt Yale is exaggerating the amount of community service its students do...you're making it sound like Yale is supposed to CURE homelessness in New Haven or something. Like others have said, NH is many times better than it was 10/15 years ago.</p>
<p>My D chose Yale partly because its geographic location will not allow students and faculty to forget that they are part of a larger, less-fortunate community. Obviously, anyone attending any college in the world is among the privileged, but some students spend those years in a bubble. Once I got accurate information about safety issues at Yale and the proactive approach to protecting students from the dangers that come with living in any city, I was happy to find that she felt a connection to a place where she would have daily reminders that "to whom much is given, of him much will be required."</p>
<p>So let me get this straight - it's fine to separate your campus from poverty by placing it in the middle of a massively wealthy suburb, far from any poor people (like, say, Princeton), but it's not ok to restrict access to Yale buildings by having gates? Courtyards are part of the residential colleges, they aren't meant to be public parks. You'll notice that other parts of campus that are meant to be public, are not closed off by gates (cross-campus, Old Campus during the day). But I honestly don't know of any college that allows free access to its students' living quarters to people other than students.</p>
<p>Yeah, there are homeless people in New Haven - it's a city. There are also homeless people in Boston, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, etc. Obviously it's a problem that some people in this country are homeless, and a problem that needs to be addressed, but to blame Yale for it is silly. Yale could certainly do more in the community (though it already does a lot), but it's interesting that you seem to think universities only have a duty to the poor if those poor people make an appearance on the university's campus. That is, separate yourself off geographically and it's all hunky-dory, you can pretend the world has no problems. Yeah, at Yale you won't be in as much of a bubble as at Stanford (though, to be frank, it's still a bubble) - why is that bad?</p>
<p>But if you can't deal with reality, and need to go to school someplace like whatever lily-white suburb you come from (and I'm not using that term as an insult, I'm from a white/Asian suburb myself), fine, don't apply. It's not for everyone.</p>
<p>Kicharo, I'm glad that you saw a homeless person. I'm sure it opened up your horizons and exposed you to "extreme poverty," the "slums" of America. These slums are filled with poor "black youth" who "don't speak English good" and they live off food from the trash cans of Yale's "gated elitist campus." They "steal", they "rape," and they can't get jobs because they are "lazy." Going to Yale essentially will guarantee that you are "mugged" and "kidnapped."</p>
<p>I think you are a great match for Harvard. They will appreciate your "global" perspective and "awareness" of the world around you...</p>
<p>
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Then why were there homeless people begging in the heart of the Yale campus? And people digging through trash cans in a park directly across the street from one of Harry Potter-esque Gothic dormitories?
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>Just because there are beggars in close proximity to the Yale Campus does not make the surrounding area "not nice." If you've ever been to NYC, you'll notice that there are beggars EVERYWHERE (even where you lease expect it). I'm sure one wouldn't classify these areas as "ghettos" just because there are homeless people.</p>
<p>About the "gating": Yale was built, like, a really long time ago, before New Haven became what it is. The purpose of these gated communities, therefore, are what everyone on here is saying they are. I don't think the architects foresaw the need to "hide Yale students away from the poverty all around."</p>
<p>I second what everyone else said... I see no point in your post. You clearly don't like Yale so there is a simple solution to your problem: don't apply. I hope you don't apply to any school in NYC or Boston or DC or else you'll be one of the biggest hypocrites out there.</p>
<p>I really hope you're a troll, Kicharo. If not, just how sheltered were you? Seeing a homeless person near campus is NOT extreme poverty. Beggars are a fact of life in all American cities, wealthy or not, and isn't a reflection on the state of the city as a whole. Have you ever left a suburb? (By the way, Harvard has its fair-share of homeless, too)</p>
<p>Even the most open campuses in the United States (Berkeley comes to mind), still would -never- let the public have access to the student living quarters. Ever. It's a fundamental matter of safety for any campus... suburban, urban, or rural.</p>
<p>Would you prefer to segregate yourself from all poverty so you don't have to be constantly reminded of America's realities? I don't think it's a sad, sad place at all.</p>
<p>Isn't it funny whenever someone says something about Yale someone else has to mention Harvard in the rebuttal? It's like there's nothing more effective in a debate about Yale than to bring up Harvard. Just an observation, if you don't mind. This conversation was about Yale and notice how ppl start talking about Boston and Harvard's campuses.</p>
<p>Harvard was mentioned as a point of reference to show that many colleges, even Ivies, are surrounded by at least some beggars, and many have the same "gated community" design. I don't think anyone mentioned it in a degrading manner or meant to start another "Harvard versus Yale" thread.</p>
<p>I also love how Kicharo has failed to respond to any of these rebuttals. Perhaps he stepped outside his sprawling mansion and witnessed a homeless person strolling down his 90210 boulevard and was too flabbergasted to return.</p>