Yale V/s Stanford

<p>Hey guys,</p>

<p>I have managed to get through two Universities-Yale and Stanford for their respective undergraduate programs. I am damn confused between the two--</p>

<p>I wish to pursue Economics at the Undergraduate Level and then join a B-School for a MBA degree. Which place is better suited for me?</p>

<p>I have been told that Stanford does not have an undergraduate college whereas Yale has one-Yale College. Will this make any difference. I am also told that Law at Yale rocks. But I know nothing about Economics at Yale or Stanford. Please help me out. Locations are NOT an issue for m. I am not concerned about financial aid either. I want to go to a place where I will get a better overall undergraduate experience- academics, extra-curricular, et al.
Where should I be- Yale or Stanford ? (Ultimately I WANT to do an MBA)Replies will be appreciated- It will frame my career guys!</p>

<p>Graduates from Stanford's Bschool and law school have higher starting salaries than those from yale... i read it in some book on graduate schools...Id pick stanford</p>

<p>
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Graduates from Stanford's Bschool and law school have higher starting salaries than those from yale... i read it in some book on graduate schools...Id pick stanford

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</p>

<p>But since you were asking about undergrad and not grad school, I would say you should go where you feel most comfortable or comfortably challenged. </p>

<p>Don't assume 'cause you go to either one of these schools that you'll have a better shot getting in for grad school at the same campus. Nor, in my opinion, should you want to do so. If you know now that you want to end up on the West Coast, go to Yale and then return to the West for grad school, perhaps at Stanford.</p>

<p>Stanford and Yale's econ programs are for your purposes equally superb. Maybe a slight edge goes to Stanford, but this is negligible.</p>

<p>I had to make same choice 4 years ago, and chose Stanford. I loved Yale - I just didn't like New Haven and gloomy atmosphere. Past four years have been gorgeous, got great education in both Econ and Bio (I am double majoring).
Stanford is definitely place to be if you have an entrepreneurial quality. It really encourages students to launch there own venture company or license the ideas. I started out as a premed, but got interested in business and am headed to a private equity firm next year. I see a lot (I mean a LOT) of my friends getting into a prestigious b-school such as HBS, Wharton and Stanford GSB, so you can build excellent crendentials at Stanford. Not that Yale would be any worse of a choice in that matter - but if you are interested in Business Stanford is definitely a great choice.</p>

<p>Stanford definetely. It was my top choice, I didn't get in, but I love the school and its campus. You're lucky to be able to go there. I would've taken it over Yale at least.</p>

<p>Yale is stronger in economics, particularly at the undergraduate level (Yale in general has much smaller class sizes than Stanford). In terms of where people go after graduation, Yale sends its alumni on to the top grad schools in much larger proportion than Stanford -- particularly when you break down the numbers into who applied to grad school, not just who graduated.</p>

<p><a href="http://chronicle.com/stats/productivity/page.php?primary=3&secondary=29&bycat=Go%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://chronicle.com/stats/productivity/page.php?primary=3&secondary=29&bycat=Go&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Yale's campus life is much stronger than Stanford's. There is much more going on on the campus, so it is always vibrant and filled with activity. Stanford's campus is not totally dead like Harvard or Columbia, but it doesn't have the same kind of vitality to it. I know several people who went to Stanford who would have preferred Yale because of that.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Yale's campus life is much stronger than Stanford's. There is much more going on on the campus, so it is always vibrant and filled with activity. Stanford's campus is not totally dead like Harvard or Columbia, but it doesn't have the same kind of vitality to it. I know several people who went to Stanford who would have preferred Yale because of that.

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<p>Really? My cousin is a junior at Stanford and he says there always something to do and he loves it there. Plus, he says the weather is absolutely incredible almost all year.</p>

<p>It's not just about things to do, it's whether you run into 50 people you know while you walk one block from one thing to another. The density of a campus is a very important differentiating factor in terms of vitality (it's not the only one, though). </p>

<p>Yes, weather is also important. But, unlike certain other Northeastern schools, Yale sits on the ocean and therefore is generally above freezing even in the depths of winter. The difference between a 40 degree day at Yale and a simultaneous 20 degree day at, say, Dartmouth or Cornell, is actually larger than you might think, because it means people are actually going to be out and about without feeling the need to rush indoors. Also, winters (the part of the year when most of school is in session) are actually sunnier on that part of the East Coast than they are in many areas of California, where it is rainy. So the effect is that students at Yale, even in the middle of winter, are out and about outside, running into their friends, more than you might think.</p>

<p>Well of course with 2 golf courses and a particle accelerating on campus Stanford would be less dense than Yale. Plus, you find a high density of people in the quad, people just aren't randomly dispersed across Stanford huge campus, they concentrate in areas where stuff is going. This is also a plus because if we just want to be completely alone for whatever reason, you can do so because there so much space to use.</p>

<p>Well considering I live on the water and a mere hour south of Yale, I can say that I would take Stanford's weather over my weather any day, especially because I just got 4 feet of sewage in my basement from the last Nor'easter</p>

<p>Wow, that sounds bad. Some of those houses were eligible for FEMA. Nor'easter storms can be bad once or twice per year, but they make you appreciate the week after week of sunshine and beautiful temperatures that follow them that much more, no? In terms of being alone, there are plenty of spaces for that at Yale too. Maybe some Yale student can count the number of private libraries and courtyards on the campus and post that here - it seems that there are more of them than there are students. Each one of those amazing residential college buildings has several libraries. Also, New Haven has easily one of the best park systems of any city in the country -- close to 20% of the city's area is a park, versus, say, 1% in L.A. and most American cities if you're lucky. Because New Haven is a smaller city and developed its park systems with Olmstead (the same architect who did NYC's Central Park), there are ocean beaches stretching for miles, several kayakable rivers, endless rail-trails, vast parks and large mountains with literally hundreds of miles of hiking trails within a 10-15 minute bicycle or bus ride from the center of town... although I would guess most Yale students don't take advantage of them as much as they could because the campus itself is so beautiful.</p>

<p>posterx, I love Yale as much as anyone - I'm a freshman here, and think it's the best possible university for an undergrad, but, frankly, many of your claims about Yale, while managing to make it sound even better than it really is (and it's really good), are irresponsible and ultimately detrimental to your goal of convincing students to come. For example:

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the week after week of sunshine and beautiful temperatures that follow

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This claims is simply absurd. While the weather is perfectly liveable at Yale (most of the time, even for a Southern Californian like myself), "week after week of sunshine and beautiful temperatures" has little relation to reality. Stanford has better weather, period. There is absolutely no arguing that.

[quote]
there are ocean beaches stretching for miles, several kayakable rivers, endless rail-trails, vast parks and large mountains with literally hundreds of miles of hiking trails within a 10-15 minute bicycle or bus ride from the center of town

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Again, simply not true. Most of this is massive exaggeration (large mountains? there aren't any large mountains in the Northeast, and there aren't mountains at all within 10-15 minutes of Yale). New Haven isn't at all as bad as many anti-Yale posters make it out to be, but neither is it the paradise you describe.
Additionally, your claims (in other threads) about Yale being the greatest engineering school on the face of the earth are also hogwash. While I think that at the undergraduate level, following the rankings would far undervalue going to Yale as an undergraduate engineering major, that does not mean that Yale would provide an engineer with a better education than other top undergraduate schools.
In general, perhaps if you moderated your claims a little, people would take you somewhat more seriously. Of course, it's also possible that you are an anti-Yale troll trying to make Yale look bad by making your absurd claims.</p>

<p>Regarding "mountains", East Rock and Sleeping Giant State Park, which are both within a 10-15 minute bicycle or bus ride of downtown New Haven, are hundreds of feet tall and cover thousands of acres. East Rock has about 100 miles of hiking trails, Sleeping Giant close to 1,000. And those aren't even the only ones. No, they aren't the Berkshires, but someone from the midwest would classify them as mountains. Large refers to more the amount of land area they cover (which is huge), not their actual height, although even at hundreds of feet they do still take a while to climb. Regarding the rivers, beaches, etc., all very much true.</p>

<p>All I know is posterX didn't go to Yale. Thank God that this is the case or it'd be an embarrassment to one of the greatest universities in the world.</p>

<p>Please don't post misinformation on class size (from Princeton Review):
Yale Most frequent class size: 10-19
Stanford Most frequent class size: 10-19</p>

<p>Yale Student/faculty ratio: Not Reported
Stanford Student/faculty ratio: 6:1</p>

<p>To calculate a true student/faculty ratio, you can't rely on any published stats because they are all calculated very differently, and they also have no meaning to the average student (who is likely majoring in something like history, economics or biology, not australian studies). You have to do the following:</p>

<ol>
<li>Pick 5 departments that are most popular or you think you might major in.</li>
<li>Total up the number of faculty in those departments, being careful to adjust for faculty who are on leave or emeritus, etc.</li>
<li>Determine the number of students majoring in those departments. (you can also factor in graduate students if you would like, even though they have a different student-teacher relationship than an undergraduate would).</li>
<li>Calculate the true student/faculty ratio.</li>
</ol>

<p>If you do the above, Caltech/Yale/Princeton are leaps and bounds ahead of Stanford (and even farther ahead of the so-called "lesser Ivies", which have much smaller endowments and therefore fewer resources per student), or pretty much any other schools in the country for that matter, including the top LACs.</p>

<p>After you do this, visit your choices for 2-3 days, including a weekend day, and sit in on tons of classes, so you can see what teaching is really like. It varies in quality significantly from one university to another.</p>

<p>For what it's worth, according to US News, Yale and Stanford both have 6:1 student:faculty ratios. However, at Yale only 8% of classes have more than 50 students, while at Stanford, 11% do. Moreover, 77% of Yale classes have fewer than 20 students, compared to 70% at Stanford.</p>