<p>My son got accepted to Yale for SCEA in Biomedical Engineering, he is very happy with the result. But I wish he could go to Stanford which is close to me and better weather here in California. Plus, Stanford had a stronger enginnerring than Yale. I want to listen to other people's opinion to convince me why he should go to Yale instead of Stanford, or vice versa. (My son did RD on Stanford, he is pretty sure he will be accepted).</p>
<p>If your son is into research, he should check out Yales “Perspectives on science” first year course. Else, Yale has put a whole lot of cash and effort into improving their Science and Engineering facilities so it is not the art school it once was. So, while I admit that I do not know everything about Stanford, Yale is pretty good for engineering.</p>
<p>I know that location is pretty important - the reason why I am applying East Coast instead of West coast is that it is closer (20000 not 25000km lol) to home, so up to you. In reality, both will be awesome for whatever one wants to study. Whichever “feels” better is better. </p>
<p>And congrats to your son :)</p>
<p>Edit: I am sort of hoping that I don’t get accepted to too many other places so that I don’t have to make an impossible decision, maybe that would be best for him too…</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for your opinion. I heard Yale put a lot effort in engineering too. Since Yale engineering is small group and more private, probably the research opportunities are more accessable than Stanford. My son want to explore other humanity courses while studying engineering, that’s why he chose Yale. His final goal is not engineer, he want to be in Mecical Schools after graduation.</p>
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I don’t see any need to count your chickens before they hatch.</p>
<p>michelle, I agree with the above poster that both schools are great and that it is best to be guided by your son’s preferences (assuming he is actually admitted to Stanford RD–why is he “pretty sure” he’ll be admitted?). Yale is devoting resources to improving its engineering departments, but Stanford has long been a major engineering powerhouse, and research opportunities in all the sciences and engineering are absolutely abundant and accessible as soon as freshmen set foot on campus. (You might also post your question in the Stanford forum to learn more about this.) Best of luck to him and I hope he has this choice to make in April.</p>
<p>Congrats for your son’s acceptance. Dbl congrats if he gets into Stanford as well. My advice to anyone in that situation would be to consider the social aspects of each school. My Stanford girlfriend was in amazement at the closeness of my large (12-14) circle of friends. She wasn’t in a Stanford sorority nor any team sports – she was a pre-med student-- but really had an extremely small circle of connected friends. I felt the expanse of the campus and absence of something akin to Yale’s residential college system was the cause for this. </p>
<p>In all honesty, she enjoyed her time there – eventually going onto med school. However, I (and most other Yale alums) can honestly say I loved my time spent at Yale and the dear friends gained from that time.</p>
<p>My daughter will likely investigate Yale, Stanford and others when it’s her time. If she gets multiple accepts, I’d tell her what was most significant to me when I was in New Haven. Then she can make up her own mind.</p>
<p>Good luck w/your son’s continuing application process.</p>
<p>BTW: you’re 100% correct in that Palo Alto’s weather is heavenly! OMIGOSH I loved the environs there whenever I’d visit.</p>
<p>Appreciate you all for the suggestions!</p>
<p>I probably should not say for sure my son will go to Stanford. I just want my question looks like a valid one. But my son feels his essay for Stanford is much stronger than what he did for Yale. Also, he had been doing research in Stanford for quite some time, and got a strong recommendation from the Department Dean. If the school count the rec letter the same as legacy, it would be a big plus for him.</p>
<p>The reason I would like him to go to Yale is to let him experience different cultrure and meet different people. He has been grown up in the Bay Area, even though we travel a lot for vacation, he never lived in the east coase.</p>
<p>Congratulations on your son’s acceptance! For our son the decision was simple, he preferred Yale’s residential college system, a city to suburban location, the look & feel of the campus, the history, the museums, etc. Each of these have a important implication on the students lives. Bulldog Day just reconfirmed his impressions of Yale & he had a great time with the students he met. Highly recommend for you & your son to attend if he is still making a decision at that time.</p>
<p>Weather was not a factor (maybe now lol) and he’ll probably enjoy how the weather changes the look of campus. Especially a change in seasons. Stanford will look the same in winter as summer. OK, drier in the summer</p>
<p>The residential college system did give us confidence that he would have the support if needed being far from home & family. Distance was not a factor for us and may not be a factor for you as far as seeing him. There is cost factor for 1st yr and we did decided to go help to move-in, quickly followed by parents wkend, he is back at Thanksgiving & now Christmas. We are a little surprised by how often we have seen him since he left, which will probably change over time. It was money well spent on the visits, since it made us into a Yale family. It was important to make our connections to Yale and our son’s new life.</p>
<p>We are from Washington State and my son graduated from Stanford in 2009. When he and his friends were choosing among various schools, they visited campuses on the Admit weekends. That is a good way to decide between several real, not hypothetical, options. I think students get a good feel from these visits. Some commented on the difference in East coast vs. West coast culture. Others just felt at home on a particular campus. I should add that I was often surprised that my son certainly did not agree with me about the vibe at every school we visited in the college search. Stanford was one place we both felt was just right…and I feel so very fortunate that he had the chance to experience the education that he did.</p>
<p>To the OP, wait till your son gets in Stanford to consider this. It is really a difficult decision while choosing those two schools. My son virtually flipped a coin when he made his decision at the last minute. He was a science/math kid, so Stanford was better for him. You can take classes in CS, Stats, math, economics, engineering, all at the very top level at Stanford, but it is difficult to do at other schools, except maybe Harvard/MIT combo. The program my son tried to get in at Yale was math/econ, but it seemed that a similar program was better at Stanford.</p>
<p>I had to make this decision myself, and my parents had the same stance on the situation that you do. I chose Yale because I liked the passionate atmosphere that I thought was less prevalent at Stanford and because Yale’s music opportunities are far, far beyond those of Stanford’s.</p>
<p>I was also a prospective engineer when making my decision. It’s my opinion (only an opinion) that the ultimate decision should not be made on the “strength” of the undergraduate program. The reputation of the undergraduate program is based on the reputation of the graduate program, and admittedly, Stanford’s grad engineering program is far superior to Yale’s. But at the undergrad level, does it really matter? Will it really significantly improve your education, as an undergrad, if Stanford does more and better engineering research that is likely beyond your understanding? It’s up to you/him to decide, but I don’t think it does, because research as an undergrad is more about experience than anything else. And the research opportunities at both universities are abundant. Are the engineering professors at Yale not capable of teaching undergraduate courses? Are they necessarily worse teachers because they are less accomplished? Of course not. Plus, Yale is making an obvious effort to improve their science/engineering reputation through funding and through accepting more science/engineering candidates.</p>
<p>In the end, I know I made the right decision. I am happier than I could’ve ever imagined. I didn’t find the passion and musical nerdiness/talent at Stanford that I wanted and trust me, my life would be so different if I didn’t have that in the friends I have here. Ultimately, I look at college as an experience. If he likes Stanford better, that’s great. If he likes Yale, I don’t think it’d be in his best interest to choose Stanford because of a “stronger” program.</p>
<p>I also had to make this decision, and I have quite a few friends who had to do the same.</p>
<p>My decision didn’t involve engineering, per se, but I am a science major. Really, at the undergraduate level, science departments at Yale and Stanford are pretty much comparable. Of course, Stanford has the better graduate programs, but that’s not really relevant for undergrads. The professors are all sufficiently knowledgeable on the material and research is easily accessible at both. However, I will say that I felt like Yale had a better social atmosphere, tighter-knit community, and overall greater appreciation for the humanities (major turnoffs were the facts that SLE was somewhat stigmatized and that everyone seemed to hate IHUM).</p>
<p>My friend, who’s into BME and had to make a similar decision, said that Stanford didn’t even offer a BME major. Not sure if this is true, but it might be worth investigating.</p>
<p>Just my two cents.</p>
<p>^ SLE? IHUM? BME?</p>
<p>I hate not knowing acronyms, especially when I feel I should :)</p>
<p>^BME=biomechanical engineering, and yes, Stanford has an excellent interdisciplinary undergraduate program in BME. IHUM=Introduction to the Humanities, one of Stanford’s freshman humanities programs. SLE=Structured Liberal Education, another of Stanford’s freshman humanities programs. </p>
<p>I have really enjoyed IHUM so far, as have many other students I know. The professors in my IHUM conveyed great enthusiasm and a sense of discovery, even though they have been teaching their courses for quite a long time. There is bound to be some variability in a program of this size though.As for SLE, I’ve never met, nor even heard of, anyone who regretted choosing that program, though it does involve some insularity (with the upside of tremendous bonding among the participants). It’s not really stigmatized much on campus–most of that is totally tongue-in-cheek. </p>
<p>I will say from experience that I believe the amazing depth and quality of Stanford’s engineering and science programs make a huge difference at the undergraduate level, because Stanford makes research opportunities easily accessible to undergraduates as soon as they arrive on campus. These opportunities are so abundant that any undergraduate who wants to take advantage of them can do so at any point. The professors actually reach out to the incoming students about these opportunities. I had several professors email me before Fall quarter even began to let me know about research opportunities. I think they probably learned of some of my interests from people in admissions, and maybe from faculty I met at functions for admitted students.</p>
<p>I am sure Yale is wonderful all around and I hope not to be perceived as being disparaging in any way. Just providing some information for those who have expressed interest here.</p>
<p>@op, although your son is looking UG in ENG, the 2010 doctoral program rankings by NRC of electrical engineering are as follows: stanford, princeton, harvard, ucsb, caltech, urbana-c, mit, ucla, yale, berkeley, … (top ten only) … i am surprised by mit and berkely’s low ranking and ucla’s high ranking. stanford would impart another intagible – the entrepreneurial spirit on top of the technical competency. If your son is applying for engineering, stanford will certainly be more competitive than yale, so I wouldn’t be so sure about acceptance. yale is a good school … but good luck on stanford</p>
<p>@op, re:“The reason I would like him to go to Yale is to let him experience different cultrure and meet different people. He has been grown up in the Bay Area…”</p>
<p>I think this is a valid concern in the long run for your child. An experience I had … I knew three people who grew up in socal … two went to MIT and one to caltech for UG … and they all went to caltech for grad school. The one who stayed all his life in socal landed a job in NJ, and the two who went to MIT for UG and cameback to caltech for grad study insisted on staying there because of family or wheather or whatever reason. I was an international student, so I did not have any such ‘location’ issue. This is a story from about thrity years ago when I finished my grad school. I am encouraging my S2, grown up in the east, to go to a west coast school for the same reason as yours.</p>
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<p>That might be true, but it does not make a huge difference at the undergraduate level because the same can be said for Yale. I literally e-mailed five professors about research and got five positive responses within a week. All of my older friends have had similar experiences. I’m now set to start research at the med school next semester. So if the argument is based on research availability, I’d say Yale is comparable or perhaps even better.</p>