I’m a Yale booster, but I agree that BDD and Visitas should give you gut guidance. By the way, my wife was an MB&B major at Yale, and went on to Duke Med School. She thought it was pretty good back then.
Congrats on your acceptances! I agree with the advice to attend both accepted students programs and try to trust your gut.
We were not faced with this exact decision because my son did not apply to Harvard. He had a very long list of schools, our trip to Boston was cancelled due to weather, and based on everything he read and heard, he felt like Yale was for him. I’d love to visit someday though and see for myself!
I want to comment on some of the earlier comments that Harvard is much stronger in STEM than Yale. Is Harvard stronger? Maybe. But much stronger/ no comparison? I don’t think so. Yale has been pouring money into STEM for years and the thousands of kids applying to STEM aren’t expecting a subpar education. My son is a science major. He has already had one class with someone considered a leader in his field. The professor was willing to write recommendations for my son and help him find his freshman summer internship. He just found out he will be staying in NH for the summer to do research as part of the Freshman Summer Research Fellowship. The professor is world class and he excited to start working in this lab. So I’m not sure what he would be getting at Harvard that is better. I’m not saying you won’t get an excellent education at Harvard, but you also will at Yale.
So, if you believe me, you can focus on the things like how you see yourself fitting in, what are the students like, and what other opportunities exist. One small anecdote… From my name you can see my child is a musician. When looking at schools, we always researched the music opportunities and tried to meet with someone in that area when we visited. Researching the availability of private lessons, Harvard’s website says basically " we do not offer lessons. Students should find their own teachers in the Boston area. ". For Yale under do you offer lessons, it says Yes! My son reached out to a student at Yale who plays the same instrument. He took our son to a quartet rehearsal and then one of the other students took us all to see his suite and swiped us into the dining hall for dinner. It made such an impact that it was mentioned briefly in one of his essays. This other student is now a friend. So I encourage you to think about the communities you wish to join and to try to meet those students at BDD and at Harvard. It may make your decision a little clearer. ( not knocking the music scene at Harvard, I’m sure there are lots of talented students :))
Good luck! Two fantastic choices.
@nondescript1 My son faced the same decision last year (and also had Princeton and Stanford, which he ended up choosing, in the mix)—as I’ve written elsewhere, it was an extremely difficult choice. Think hard about what kind of person you are: Do you tend to be sentimental, and are you prone to regret? Try to imagine yourself a year or more from now wearing a Harvard T-shirt (with pride) and suddenly seeing someone in a Yale shirt. How might you feel—will there be a pang of regret? Now try to imagine the opposite—what is your heart saying? If you’re a bit sentimental—and it sounds like you might be—and tend to regret things, choose Yale. Yale didn’t not love you back—it just needed to get to know you a bit better and decide. It loves you now—as does Harvard. Just because Harvard declared itself first doesn’t mean it wants you any more than Yale does now.
Harvard is rated number 1 by US News and World Report in Biology. It is second place with Stanford in Chemistry. I have heard some horror stories regarding the CS department at Yale. Does that mean you will get a bad education at Yale. Probably not. But you are in the extremely fortunate position of having the opportunity to chose the best. Yale has been pouring money in science classes because they needed to upgrade just to be competitive
Musicmom mentioned music. In Boston they have the Boston symphony and the Boston Philharmonic. I venture to say they are a little better than the New Haven orchestra. The office of arts at Harvard also helps you find people to give music lessons and it provides subsidies for the lessons. Yale has a part time radio station. Harvard has a full time station If you like professional sports Boston has them New Haven does not
We all hear stories. I have very personal knowledge of one Yale CS kid knocking it out of the park. 
ETA: that same kid might have considered Stanford, but had zero interest in Harvard.
@musicmom49 Harvard is better at STEM, particularly the life sciences. You discuss the availability of private lessons at Yale versus Harvard and how Yale has much better musical opportunities? Sure, that’s probably true. But the funding for that and all the other humanities programs that Yale offers trades off with funding for STEM. Just look the number of undergraduates in STEM fields at schools like Stanford/Harvard vs Yale, its much higher at Harvard.
Yes, both are great at stem, and there are excellent opportunities for research at both universities. That doesn’t mean that one isn’t better or even significantly better in STEM than the other.
@IxnayBob maybe you didn’t hear about the petition signed by hundreds of Yale Students complaining about the CS department
http://www.businessinsider.com/yale-computer-science-petition-2015-3
or the extensive thread on CC
I am glad to hear that at least one CS student at Yale is doing well
@proudparent26 , of course I heard of those. I previously said that I think the top 10% of Yale CS students are probably very well placed. I concede that the median CS student at Stanford is probably better off than the median CS student at Yale, but on the basis of my admittedly limited sample, I’m not prepared to say that for Harvard.
@IxnayBob I realize Yale is trying hard and they are to be admired for that . However John Paulson HBS gave 400 million to Harvard , Steve Ballmer gave 60 million, and Zuckerberg and Gates both went to Harvard. Also Yale chose to import CS 50 this year.
Perhaps an even more important problem is of the 100 or so CS students at Yale 85 per cent of them are male. There are about 3 times as many CS students at Harvard with an active recruitment process and support groups for women
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
I will assume the the OT conversation about CS and Stanford is over or will be relegated to PM’s since the OP has mentioned neither of those, and this conversation serves only to derail the thread. Thank you.
Something interesting my daughter mentioned to me the other day on this topic. When we visited Harvard every summer, we could not walk a certain way to the bookstore because we would avoid homeless sleeping along the wall and the smell of urine two or three doorways down from the Coop. She was saying how glad she is that she doesn’t have to worry about this going anywhere on Yale’s campus. For all the talk about how great Boston is and how crime is big in New Haven- There is just as much crime, larger amounts of it over a larger city and there are other elements directly affecting the campus. You will not find that at Yale because the police and security presence is felt everywhere. Just something to consider. You will really have to visit both to see more than what people who are obviously bias consider the better option. Like I said before, my kid was obsessed with Harvard from the time she was nine years old but in the end wanted Yale first and then Georgetown before Harvard.
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If you really want to compare departments, you have to do some research. I think it is true that CS at Yale has been controversial, and a person interested in that major should look closely. I don’t think the same is true of the life sciences, although I’m sure it’s true that they are rated more highly at some other top schools. But you have to get into the details. Thus, for example, nobody who really delved into the music departments at both schools would think that Harvard is a better choice because there are better orchestras in Boston.
@Memmsmom My son had a similar reaction to Harvard—he actually couldn’t wait to leave the area. Too many homeless people (and way too many other people), too much traffic, too much noise, and too much construction. It was hard for him to envision living there, even though we did see other, quieter areas of the campus. Although he didn’t apply to MIT, he much preferred that part of Cambridge—far less congestion.
Similar to what you said @Memmsmom and @Planner, my daughter just didn’t like the area around Harvard either. In particular she was appalled at the tour bus groups walking through Harvard Yard, taking pictures of students, peeking into windows, etc. She wanted to get out of there fast. I was surprised at how strong her reaction was actually.
I don’t mean to knock Harvard as obviously it’s a fantastic school . . . just sharing one student’s viewpoint.
@memmsmom Did your daughter actually get into Harvard? I thought she didn’t.
Also, I’ve always heard the problem with homeless was much worse at Yale. They used to sleep on the warm grates on campus during the winter months. Has this stopped?
@Multiverse7 she was deferred scea which was why she looked much deeper into the different schools. She was wait listed from Harvard in the end but at that point she didn’t care. It wasn’t where she was focused on. And I don’t personally attend there so I don’t know- as far as I have ever seen they don’t. And from what she has said about not seeing them around campus, my guess is that they do not. This was an actual conversation we had the other day because we were talking about safety between Georgetown and Yale- it was when she brought up that it was better than how she felt visiting Harvard.
FWIW: About 20 years ago, Yale made a strong commitment to improve the area surrounding it’s campus by buying commercial properties surrounding the school and selecting merchants it approved of to fill those stores. Today about 80% of the commercial property directly surrounding the school have Yale as their landlord (including the Apple Store), so things are quite safe around the school. In fact, Yale’s success in cleaning up downtown New Haven has actually become a model for other cities. Here’s a good blog about it: http://bhambricks.com/lessons-from-new-haven-real-estate-and-recovery. Both the New Haven Police and Yale Police departments patrol Yale-owned commercial properties and do not allow the homeless to gather by stores like the do in Harvard Square. That said, there are just as many homeless in New Haven as Cambridge – you just don’t see them as frequently.
Homeless people for the most part are extremely harmless. It is a tragedy how this country deals with them. If you don’t like the homeless you shouldn’t go to New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco. UCLA has a lot of homeless people in Westwood which is right next to Beverly Hills. Berkeley , the area around Columbia and Washington DC all have a lot of homeless people. Neither me nor my kids have any problems with the homeless
It doesn’t sound like New Haven is doing a very effective job of dealing with their homeless. That makes me sad. They are not commodities that should be pushed out of sight for the convenience of the ivy leaguers
http://wtnh.com/2016/01/05/homeless-fight-the-cold-in-new-haven/
^^^ Unfortunately, Cambridge doesn’t do a better job.
A couple of thoughts based on my Yalie’s experience (and since this seems to matter to the Harvard parents on this thread, yes, he could have gone to Harvard. He also has several close friends from high school who attend Harvard).
Freshman dorms: There seems to be a misconception here about the freshman housing at Yale. In fact, the freshman are housed in dorms together on the centrally located Old Campus, similarly to Harvard. My son’s dorm contained freshman from at least one other residential college, with suites were organized by college. There was plenty of opportunity to socialize with and meet students from other residential colleges, and many of his best friends from last year are now living in other residential college. Freshman screws–where freshman from one college invite other freshman on blind dates with their suite mates is one example of how they mix.
STEM: my son, who started out as a humanities oriented freshman but is now considering a math major with as much comp. sci as he can squeeze in, just brought up the Harvard-Yale STEM difference in a conversation the other day. Because many of his friends at Harvard are STEM majors, he was wondering out loud whether Harvard might not have been a better academic fit. But he has, for the most part, enjoyed his math and c.s. classes at Yale, and isn’t having trouble finding other interesting classes to take (an undergraduate can only take so many!) . Some of his friends went in to college with particular interest and chose Harvard for the particular equipment or specific programs it had that Yale did not. On the other hand, Yale has offered my kid lots of cool internship opportunities-he has a spring internship right now doing statistical research and another this summer doing data analysis. One thing to ask about at Harvard is how competitive the kind of research opportunities you seek are, especially for undergraduates.