<p>Does this afflication truly exist among the undergraduates of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut? Do Yalies really cry themselves to sleep with their feelings of inadequacy as compared to Harvard students? Is the rampant Harvard-hating in New Haven an outlet of self-hate for the decision to turn down Harvard or rejection by Harvard? Is YIC real? Your thoughts.</p>
<p>Absolutely not! For me – and many other Yalies – Harvard was never even on our radar because we considered it to be a bad undergraduate education. I “look up to” Princeton, Stanford, Caltech, etc on a day-to-day basis far more than Harvard.</p>
<p>I and most Yalies could care less about Harvard beside as a butt of jokes. The only thing I mock is their arrogance for thinking that they are actually any objectively better than YPSM. It is part of a Cantab’s mindset to think that the whole world “envies” them and “wants to be in their shoes.” GET OVERRR YOURSELF! </p>
<p>(And, fyi, most Harvard students did not get into Yale either. We consider them to be the “inadequate ones” because Yalies are soooo in loooveeee while Harvard students seem to be in love w/ their diploma, not their school or their education)</p>
<p>Inferiority? No, not for me. H wasn’t one of the schools I investigated. No real reason but Y and other Ivies sought me out so I replied in kind. However, once at school, the H aura or mystique seemed more real since we knew it closely resembled what we had at Yale. </p>
<p>However the Harvard curiosity was natural. </p>
<p>Here’s a post grad anecdote: at a large alumni function in Chicago once, then-President Schmidt came to speak. Afterwards, I was chatting with one of the other Y administration that attended. In conversation, he mentioned that he had attended H for college and Y for grad. Jokingly I said to him: “As much as we want to deny it, we Yalies are curious about Harvard. What’s your take on it?”</p>
<p>He said:“Well, graduating from Harvard, I felt there was nothing I couldn’t accomplish”</p>
<p>I thought: “Wow, that’s quite the compliment!”</p>
<p>He continued: “But I LOVED Yale.”</p>
<p>That encapsulates it pretty succinctly in my book.</p>
<p>In addition: Yalies’ curiosity complex is probably matched by Cantabs’ curiosity of “Can those Yalies really be that happy or are they faking it?”</p>
<p>Not kidding.</p>
<p>Again, my personal experience is old, but there was no inferiority complex. I enthusiastically turned down Harvard for Yale, despite liking Harvard’s campus and atmosphere a whole lot more. (Yes, Cambridge is nicer than New Haven.) At the time, in terms of faculty quality, Harvard really wasn’t that competitive in my main areas of interest, and Yale was the Center of the World, and even then it was absolutely clear that Yalies were happier on a day-to-day basis. The amount of student-generated art, music, and drama at Yale dwarfed that at Harvard, too, although Yale didn’t have anything like the Lampoon.</p>
<p>I didn’t labor in ignorance about Harvard, either. I had three cousins, three high school classmates (and several friends from other classes), a sort of girlfriend (briefly), and an uncle on the faculty there while I was in college, and four other cousins had been there while I was in high school. (My parents had met there, too.) I visited once or twice a year from mid-high-school through college. I stayed in dorm rooms and went to parties. At the time, Yale had lots more parties, although I would have to admit that one of the best college parties I ever attended was an all-Barry-White party at Harvard (when Barry White was an up-and-coming cult artist, not a pop culture punchline). That was cool! The music at our parties tended to be less edgy, more current hits and classic rock.</p>
<p>Anyway, there was really very little difference between the people at Harvard and those at Yale. Harvard was a little – a little – more nakedly ambitious and competitive. People talked in terms of carving out a niche for themselves. I thought they sometimes seemed anxious and oppressed by the idea of Harvard, beating themselves up a little if they had an unproductive day (or week) at the most famous university in the country. Although, sometimes they were tremendously turned on by the intellectual excitement there (as was true for those of us at Yale most of the time).</p>
<p>Then, as now, the colleges were much, much more similar than different (and much more like each other than like Princeton, Dartmouth, Stanford, or other principal rivals at the time). </p>
<p>I agree that these days there seems to be a lot more trash-talking on the Yale side, but that wasn’t my experience a generation ago. As the first Yalie in a very Harvard-loyal family, I took a lot of look-down-the-nose crap from my relatives. (“Of course we’ll still talk to you if you go to Yale. We’ll just talk down to you. With a Harvard education, one can afford to be magnanimous.” “You can’t let yourself make a mistake this big while you’re this young.”) My mother was so concerned when I told her I was definitely going to pick Yale, that she called up a friend who had a son there to ask if Yale was intellectually stimulating enough. The friend assured her that it was, and my mom felt a little better.</p>
<p>My experience, also old, is that there was no real inferiority complex, but there was always a joking one, along the lines of “Avis is No. 2 so it has to try harder.” Perhaps another way to put it is that Yalies don’t think they are inferior to Harvard students, but they tend to think that Harvard students think they are superior.</p>
<p>Actually, I think I have developed a huge superiority complex around choosing Yale. Because I’m too good to choose based on the common people’s prestige barometer.</p>
<p>[mostly kidding. mostly.]</p>
<p>bahahaha, despite attempting to claim otherwise, #2 totally validated the OP’s question. I’m not saying all Yalies are like that (it was, alas, my first choice) but methinks he/she doth protest too much.</p>
<p>Sorry, kma, but saying that I was never interested and didn’t apply is certainly not a validation of an inferiority complex. My issue with Harvard is their arrogance… but that certainly doesn’t mean I envy them (merely that I hate hubris). </p>
<p>And, kma, LEARN YOUR SHAKESPEARE. It is: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” Common misquotation but evident of a greater ignorance.</p>
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<p>Hahah… Actually, all of the people I know at Harvard (and I know at least 20) were not admitted to any other comparable school. So… I definitely don’t feel inferior to them.</p>
<p>Plus, realize that VERY few people get into both Harvard and Yale anyway. So there’s no need for an inferiority complex. If there is one to be had, it should be by the Harvard students interested in majoring in the arts (the reason why I personally chose Yale over Harvard was because of Harvard’s lacking arts department).</p>
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<p>JHS said it best! That’s pretty much what did it for me. Letting down the H was relatively easy because of this fact alone.</p>
<p>Lawl, no, I turned down Harvard for Yale.</p>
<p>Didn’t apply to harvard even though I was well aware at the time it was the second best school in the country. Just wasn’t a good fit for me. Chose Yale over Brown though which wasn’t easy.</p>
<p>I have two kids currently attending Yale College. Neither of them cared to apply to H or P even though they did visit those campuses before they started their college application process. While I’m sure H & P are both great universities, neither of my kids liked them enough to apply, and it’s not because of any inferiority complex whatsoever! They are both doing very well at Yale, both academically & EC-wise!</p>
<p>FWIW, my husband and I are not Yale alumni or affiliated with Yale in anyway. We had both attended state schools for undergrad and we turned out just fine, so we did not push or specifically encourage our kids to apply to Ivy League schools.</p>
<p>I will be turning down Harvard for Yale this year (wasn’t even close in my mind)</p>
<p>A Yale professor told me that out of the HYP cross admits, Princeton tends to get more of them than Y or H. But he did not present data, so I just shrugged and assumed he knew what he was talking about.</p>
<p>It’s a tough call for anyone making the decision. Hell if I hadn’t been rejected at Stanford, my brain might explode from the four tearing desires to attend mutually exclusive places. </p>
<p>But none of the Yalies I have talked to, which is not too many, but more than your average '13er I would guess, seem to have any regrets about their decisions whatsoever. Some people say that when they grew up, they only knew of HY, they applied to both, only got Y, and are now glad they only got Y.</p>
<p>When our daughter attended admitted student days at Harvard, the room they chose for the President’s welcoming remarks was too small to accommodate all students and parents. Two other rooms were available to watch a live feed of his address. On the other hand, the welcome by Dean Salovey at Yale was warm, welcoming and very lighthearted. The contrast seemed to sum up the differences between the two schools. I don’t think my D has ever second-guessed her decision to go to Yale.</p>
<p>I have to make this same choice between H and Y and I am very, very torn :|</p>
<p>I am turning down Yale for Harvard. Number one, don’t make your decision based on what random people say on the Internet. Take their comments with a grain of salt. If at all possible, visit both campuses and make a decision for yourself. </p>
<p>I also am slightly unconvinced by people who claim New Haven is more “racially tolerant” or whatever – because at both campuses you are going to see a vast diversity of thought and experiences as well as a small number of close-minded people. You can’t escape that reality. There is no statistically significant difference in the amount of close-mindedness between the two campuses. I can’t remember the link but there was a great article in the YDN about the undercover, implicit, suppressed prejudices on Yale’s campus that some students find shocking simply because they are led to believe they will be shielded from those types of people at a place like Yale. Just not true.</p>
<p>In the end, it’s about you and what you’re interested in (in re. departments, fields, etc).</p>
<p>Both schools are excellent. Thirty years after graduation, Yale alumni are still talking about how great it is, and thirty years after graduation, Harvard alumni are still talking about how great they are.</p>