My daughter is a freshman. She is absolutely in love with her school. She is not a CS or Engineering major but she is on a premed track. She is taking 4.5 credits and is doing fine. She is social and very active in several groups and has also secured two very limited hour jobs on campus. She loves the feeling of family and how she has been embraced as a freshman by her residential college. Her only negative that she talks about is that it took a bit to get used to not being the smartest one in her classes. It was hard to embrace the fact that she is now an average student compared to her peers. She thought she was having issues with being a regular kid from a public school but that changed once people got to know her. In fact they have done quite the opposite because they are very impressed with how she did it the hard way and without the help of legacy, money and prep schools.
I applaud Applegrit’s honesty but think that my son who attends a different college could have written the exact same thing about his school because it matches his personality. I literally heard my son’s voice in it from the lacking social life and gf to the struggling for average grades. Much of what you like in college is how you look at it. This will go for any school you decide on. The grass may look greener but it rarely is.
As for cons- you need to just chalk off the biggest con to being the level of difficulty of getting in. It is truly a lottery in some ways. It is perhaps one of the biggest crap shoots in the college process. My daughter applied to 3 “reach” or Ivy schools which were reach because they were so competitive to get into and not because it was a reach for her. She also applied to 3 really good schools that she was pretty sure she could get accepted to and then 2 safety schools to see how much money they would give. In her mind it was like winning the lottery to get into Yale. She would have been just has happy to pick one of the others she was accepted to. She decided that the day she applied. Perhaps you should take a similar approach. Take a chance and apply but realistically apply to other schools that you would love as much. In the end if you don’t get in it was perhaps more about what they needed for the class and less about who you are and what you have or will accomplish.
@Applegrit … I feel your pain. I studied engineering, and was insanely jealous of the experience that my liberal arts friends enjoyed. I found Nuclear Engineering insanely difficult. Earning my degree was the most difficult thing I have ever done. There will be times that you question your decisions. That’s normal. It’s OK to make a change if you want. Life is a one trip salad bar, don’t waste it.
Now the good news.
The easiest assignment at Yale… will be more challenging than the hardest thing you do in industry.
The skills and abilities that you earn will give you the ability to analyze any situation, form a reasonable plan and execute the plan. The skills you build will help you for the rest of your life.
Really liked the different views in this thread. Yale is a school I’m planning on researching and I like it when people offer different views on Ivy’s and top schools that conflict the usual glorification of them on this site. As a junior I still have to decide what major I want and where I’m going to apply. All I know is I want it to be interesting. Also, how’s the sporting scene at Yale? I really want a college with good sports and I know Yale doesn’t have national championship level teams but are the games still fun?
@superbowser12 Yale and other Ivies actually have more varsity teams than many other, supposed sports schools. They may not get 90,000 at a football stadium but there’s tons of sports. National championship teams (Mens Hockey, Crew, Squash – likely some others I’m forgetting) occur as well. Great thing about Yale is that the athletes are very integrated with daily life and the social fabric. One’s circle of friends will likely have several varsity athletes as well as the prodigy painter, poet and science god. Indeed, some may be the same person.
The scholar athlete ideal exists strongly at Yale.
Since likely many of your friends will be on teams, there are plenty of events to attend to cheer them on. One of my funniest memories is attending a friends home Women’s hoops game. There were a about a hundred people in the stands. Our goofball roommate, at one point in the game, went over to sit behind the opposing teams basket (it was empty of spectators). Then when one of the visiting women was fouled and had to take a free throw, he started going NUTS to distract the shooter – which was extremely effective in an otherwise quiet arena! Everyone was cracking up, including the players from both teams.
Yale is in the midst of a billion dollar investment in STEM. As part of it, they launched YES-W to try and capture 100 top STEM kids each year who were also accepted to schools like Harvard, Stanford and MIT. These kids are the Siemens, Intel, RSI, USAMO, etc kids. The kids at the top that @applegrit is talking about. They are the kids that are pulling the A’s as hard science majors and still share his complaints. You will hear them grumbling compulsively on the order of “I chose Yale instead of (Harvard, MIT, etc.) because Yale has better ec’s and more interesting liberal arts classes, yet I’m doing 3/4 psets a week when I could be sailing through more liberal arts courses that I want to take but don’t have room for in my schedule. Why am I doing this to myself?” The answer is that STEM majors aren’t easy and it is very common for the best students to have a love/hate relationship with their chosen fields… Applegrit’s comments also speak to a more basic college decision: Is it better to be a star at a lesser institution, or an average student at Yale, Harvard, MIT etc? By definition, the vast majority at Yale have to be “average” at Yale, and yet the results over the last two hundred plus years indicate that Yale grads seem to do OK for themselves…
@tdy123 You said "Yale is in the midst of a billion dollar investment in STEM. As part of it, they launched YES-W to try and capture 100 top STEM kids each year who were also accepted to schools like Harvard, Stanford and MIT. These kids are the Siemens, Intel, RSI, USAMO, etc kids. "
Does the STAM kids you mention are mainly engineering and computer science kids or it also includes life science (mainly biology, biiochem) kids? Thanks.
It all depends on fit. Some hit on academic fit which is very important.
But so is the location, culture and social opportunities.
What might be great for one student, is not for one who seeks an urban school, a big sports school or fraternities and sororities.
DS brought up another negative: the cafeteria food. When he was considering applying, the food was actually a plus. Freshman year, it was okay. This year, he characterizes it as crap. Apparently in an effort to save money, the food is now cooked at a few central locations, and reheated at the residential dining facilities; that leads to crummy food. Dry chicken. Hamburger hockey pucks. You get the idea.
DS still loves Yale, but hates the food. I reduced my donation to cover his increased eating off campus. Stupid decision by the administration, as far as I’m concerned.
@love2cheeses covers the full range of the sciences. A bit more info at http://seas.yale.edu/news-events/news/top-stem-applicants-share-their-yale-spirit-yes-weekend
@tdy123 thanks, looks like it is more for engineering kids.
@love2cheeses Not really, much more varied. the lead speaker was a bio med nobel prize winner. The article I linked to about the weekend was from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences so they naturally quoted many engineering kids, but the overall makeup of the invited students covered the full range of the sciences with many bio kids.
@tdy123 good to know. Thanks.
Cons:
- Not a big fraternity or sorority scene
- Not a big football scene
- In a moderately gritty urban environment
^^^^ I’d say #1 is a positive not a con!
^^^ … and I’m not sure that #2 is entirely negative (family is more into hockey that football 
).
^^^^ I’d add that #3 is understated.
This may have already been asked, but would those of you who have close ties say that a con is that Yale is an environment hostile to diversity? Are there often racist incidents beyond what happened this fall, with the “white girl only” party?
I am only curious because although I am not a person of color, it is important to me that there be levels of understanding and appreciation of diversity, which is what is holding me back from fully embracing Yale.
@dumspirospero34,
The “white girl only” party is mostly allegation. Three people were manning the door that night: an African American, a Costa Rican, and a Caucasian. DS says that the comment would be out of character for any of the three, and his most likely explanation for what happened, if anything at all happened, is that something was misheard in the noise and hubbub of a frat party. Have you been to a frat party? Nobody confuses them for a study group at the library.
Tbh, there might well be things that might prevent you from fully embracing Yale. IMO, lack of diversity should not be one of them.
A calumny (unless I miss your drift, and you’re implying New Haven is wonderful).
@dumspirospero34 the headline incidents not withstanding and as an alum from an inner city urban district, I’m extremely proud of Yale’s inclusiveness when I was a student and today, many years later. I never hesitate one second in my recruiting of other students of color.