Background info: Financial aid is more-or-less the same at both of these places. Additionally, I don’t get homesick or anything but I’ve only ever lived in California, so a big qualm I have is that by going to Stanford, I’d be missing out on a wonderful opportunity to explore elsewhere but I could very well end up at Yale and hate the east coast. Yale is also a completely fresh start which could be good or could be bad. I’m also down to try to go to whatever I don’t pick for undergrad as a hopeful grad school option.
Intended major: Chemistry (not pre-med (I wanna be a prof so I am still looking at grad school)) and maybe sociology too idk.
Stanford Stanford Pros:
Lovely weather year-round
Great for STEM
Able to stay on-campus over winter break
Closer to home in case of emergencies or covid complications
Two of my friends might also be going here
Stanford Cons:
Kinda isolated (Stanford bubble)
Palo Alto/nearby Stanford is priceyyyy
Huge entrepreneur/start-up/silicon valley and pre-med culture
Duck syndrome
Yale Yale Pros:
Residential college system = strong community
Heavily integrated with the city and New Haven COL is much cheaper than Palo Alto
Accessible off-campus part-time jobs
Receiving a $2000 start-up grant to buy winter clothes and other one-time necessities
More opportunity to explore humanities (less CS, pre-med, or start-up culture)
Yale Cons:
COLD. I’m from norcal so I’m not used to snow or anything like that
Not as highly ranked for STEM
Unable to stay at campus over winter break
Across the country so if emergencies or covid issues arise, traveling back is much harder
More expensive to physically get me there since I’d have to fly or go greyhound
Are you sure FA would be approx. the same in the future, based on your family financial outlook? Stanford seemed so much more generous when we checked our COA - of course, I realize this may vary in individual cases.
I don’t think there are many defenders of charms of New Haven, CT, or its immediate vicinity.
Based on location, I’d go with Stanford without hesitation. But then again, we live in Chicago, and D chose Pomona so there is a distinct bias here.
If you need to take Greyhound across the country to get there, I’d say the case is closed.
Seems as though you would be more comfortable at Stanford, but is comfort the point of higher education ?
Nevertheless, based on your posts in this thread, I suggest Stanford over Yale for you because the travel & cold & NH may not appeal to you and both Stanford & Yale should require you to leave your comfort zone academically & intellectually.
Not sure why New Haven is getting a bad rap here. There are parts of the city that are gritty, but the area around Yale is beautiful. Lots of restaurants, some live music, shops, etc. There’s a “rail trail” for biking that passes right through/under campus at one point. You can bike for miles and miles on it - all the way to Massachusetts. Commuter rail makes NYC very accessible with cheap fares. While NH definitely has winter, it’s not like being in Maine or VT. It’s actually pretty mild, similar to NYC. And NoCal has its own issues with weather.
Stanford is fabulous. No knocks on it. Not a wrong choice here. OP did a good job laying out pros and cons. Just saying that NH is not a reason to rule out Yale.
I live 30 minutes from Stanford and used to work there. I’d go to Yale, not because Stanford is bad, but for the experience of living somewhere new, and because the Yale campus is just so damn cool. It’s the only school on the east coast that I would have considered applying to. (Not that they would have admitted me.) And I also think New Haven gets a bad rap. The area right around campus isn’t all that bad.