<p>Is Yale really cliquey in terms of social life? Do ethnicities tend to self-segregate and is there a sharp divide between politicos, jocks, science kids, etc.?</p>
<p>Absolutely not. Perhaps it is due to the res. college system, which forces more interaction b/w students; perhaps it is due to the nature of students whom Yale admits; perhaps it is b/c the athletes Yale recruits aren’t the best athletes but rather students; etc, but I can only speculate.</p>
<p>Regardless, that is one of the reasons I chose Y over its peers. Very little division b/w athletes and nonathletes, rich and poor, black and white, etc. In particular, I hear Pton is somewhat “cliquey” on the rich v. poor issue and Stanford on the athlete v. nonathlete and engineer v. nonengineer, but don’t feel that at all at Yale.</p>
<p>My S went to BDD, then Princeton Preview, and is now at Harvard Pre-Frosh. He immediately eliminated P from consideration after the P Preview for the exact reason mentioned above. While he said that the food, dorms & campus were nicer than Y, the kids were cliquey and exclusive, not inclusive, which is the exact opposite of Y. And the pre-frosh were already forming their own cliques and falling in line. He couldn’t believe it and he felt bad for the students that “knew their place” and just accept that they aren’t allowed to go to certain parties, etc. He said it was just like middle school again, where kids self-segregated, and a regression from high school, where the students grew up and stopped doing that.</p>
<p>Based on my BDD experience (which, granted, is a limited sample), I can say this: I felt welcome absolutely everywhere at Yale. Including at the hip-hop dance workshop that I was a total failure at. And the dance party at La Casa Cultural, where I was the only white girl, and was taught how to properly cha-cha. :)</p>
<p>^ lookbeyond, you were at Fusion?! Me too… we must converse.</p>
<p>To answer the OP’s question: My experience is also very limited, but I think that Yale is pretty much an open place. I think that definitely has to do with the residential college system, but also to the overall student body at Yale. My host suite for BDD had 5 amazing guys who were all different, yet got along really well. The class of 2013 also was very outgoing and generally really open. A lot of kids hung around in “groups” in order to make the 3 days less awkward. But everyone was so open to hanging out with everyone, and people would go to random people and introduce themselves, etc. I felt like cliques were sort of a taboo, basically. I think what ends up happening is that people with similar interests end up hanging out together and being the best of friends, but that doesn’t mean they’re completely exclusive. For example, the people on a dance team are all really close with each other and probably each other’s best friends. But that doesn’t mean they’re not friendly with other people or completely exclusive. I think everyone finds their own niche where they feel comfortable, but also branches out when they need to. (This happens everywhere, I think.)</p>
<p>In terms of the “racial” cliques, I think there are a few people who are really active in the cultural scene at Yale and therefore get really close with people of the same race/ethnicity. But, that doesn’t mean that they don’t interact with the general student body. I met a guy at La Casa and assumed he was someone who only spoke to the Hispanic kids. When I friended him on Facebook and saw his pics, I realized that this was not the case at all: he hung out mostly with his roommates (I think), who were white and Asians, and not as much with the Hispanic kids. I think this is the general trend at Yale.</p>