<p>Hello, I am an athletic recruit who has been offered liklies at both Yale and Princeton for hockey (Class of 2016). I’m having a hard time making a decision between the two and was wondering if anyone had feedback.</p>
<p>Things I loved about Yale:
-residential colleges with lots of places to develop hobbies in their basements.
-historic feel and prestige equal to that of Harvard
-architecture
-dining halls</p>
<p>Things I loved about Princeton:
-athletic team seems to be a better fit; meshed well with the team
-ease of getting to the train (i.e. Princeton Junction)
-sponsered abroad trips if they’re “for your thesis”</p>
<p>Let me know what you think/have discovered!</p>
<p>There are lots of micro differences between the two colleges, and there are a few departments where one might be noticeably better than the other if you are 100% positive that’s what you want to study and you are already at an advanced level. Other than that, it’s a question of rich suburb vs. small city, and where you feel most comfortable. As you already suspect, there isn’t any one killer objective reason to prefer either over the other. The things you love about Yale – which are things I love about Yale, too – are things you could absolutely love about Princeton as well without hardly changing any words. Meanwhile, Yale has plenty of little money-pots for things like subsidizing travel/research, and the train station is maybe 3-4 blocks farther away from the center of campus.</p>
<p>If I were a recruited athlete, I would think your first pro-Princeton point would be pretty definitive. The team is going to take up a lot of your time and be one of the centers of your life in college. If one fits better, that’s awfully important.</p>
<p>I agree with JHS. Although I like Yale better than Princeton for a lot of reasons, if you’re playing a sport like hockey, that is going to be the core of your experience. Go where that’s better.</p>
<p>As a hockey recruit, the OP’s goal may not be – should not be – merely to go to the school likely to win the most hockey games. If I were he, I would be looking for the school where I thought I would enjoy playing hockey more, or where I had the best combination of hockey and academics. Yale and Princeton are close enough so that those factors could result in picking one college, even if one believed that the other had somewhat better academics in a general sense, or that the other’s hockey team was higher ranked.</p>
<p>^^^ Besides academics, a top priority for any athletic recruit is playing time. I know many athletic recruits who went to colleges with winning teams that sat on the bench for their entire freshman year. Oftentimes, it the relationship with the coach that matters most to a recruit, rather than which college has the better team.</p>
<p>I think that Princeton campus architecture is infinitely better than Yale’s. But if you want to have a heck of party time, it would be Yale. Yale may have many more courses to get you a good GPA without too much sweat. If you are serious about Hockey but don’t want to screw up your GPA, Yale is the place to go. Brown may be even better. In terms of prestige, Yale is nowhere near Harvard, but is on par with Princeton.</p>
<p>Just to add another point of view…If you are going to be spending most of your time outside of class devoting yourself to hockey, then you absolutely should consider the quality and ranking of the team. There is nothing worse than spending hours upon hours on a sport, only to lose most games you play. If the call is close enough, pick the better team, especially if you have aspirations to play after college.</p>
<p>“if you want to have a heck of party time, it would be Yale. Yale may have many more courses to get you a good GPA without too much sweat.”</p>
<p>Tell that to my friends who pull all nighters many nights of the week. Unless you manage to place into classes which are way below your level intentionally, the workload here is very large. And that’s a good thing - you learn a lot.</p>
<p>Saying Harvard has “infinitely” more prestige than Yale is a foolish and erroneous comment. There’s a reason they call it HYPS - those 4 schools are the four best in the country, the four most prestigious, none more than the others</p>
<p>@ OP - You should ignore the comments regarding prestige. People who actually go to these schools could care less about which acronym is most widely used on CC.</p>