<p>This is not at all surprising. The rape, sexual assault, and assault rates at virtually every American college and university are far higher than in the surrounding communities. (The incident you cited, though horrific, was certainly not the last “major issue”, though perhaps the last murder.)</p>
<p>(When my d. asked the question, she was seriously interested in how she might go about community work in New Haven while in school, so the answer caught her - and us - totally by surprise. But it was “admissionspeak” directed at the parents).</p>
<p>(Full disclosure: my college roommate was murdered three blocks from Harvard Square.)</p>
<p>When my brother attended that little school in New Haven, he walked around in a Yale Judo t-shirt (not sure how he got that) with his hands in a karate-chop type pose (well, you get my drift) when he walked downtown.</p>
<p>I guess the point I am trying to make is that students and parents are lulled into thinking that the inside of the school is so safe… and we townies are such horrible people. Mayhem lurks everywhere! The irony is that this young woman would have been completely safe in my company and I’m “a person from the hood” vs her own colleague… And yes, that is the last major issue that I can remember happening with a Yalie… please forgive me if I am mistaken.</p>
<p>No, I think that’s an exception. Lots of schools don’t even look at those for admission, plus they administer their own placement tests. To me, “optional” means “mandatory” when it comes to teacher recommendations and essays. I told my children NEVER to skip an essay unless it is irrelevant (like explaining how any family hardships have affected one’s grades/ability to participate in ECs/etc. when there have been no family hardships).</p>
<p>“No application fee” - Of course, you still need to pay $50 for each standardized test that we require plus $15 to send your scores to us. We are just trying to boost our application numbers with a gimmick.</p>
<p>“Meal plan” - We will show you our dining hall options that compete well with cruise ships. However, we will not mention the prices that in eight months for one person will exceed our 12-month family budget for five people.</p>
<p>“Housing options” - We will charge you $1,000/month for half of a small room with a common hall bathroom. But utilities are included.</p>
<p>“Co-op program” - we offer this for all students but you are on your own to find jobs with companies. Engineers are the only students who actually find positions.</p>
<p>“Common Application supplement” - we want to be part of the Common App so that our application numbers stay high, but really there is nothing common about our school so we need you to write five more essays to prove your love for us.</p>
<p>Seems we have evolved from providing 3 meals a day, 7 days a week, with fairly nutritious options, for one price to meal plans which require students to stock their dorm rooms with mac and cheese, junk food, etc just to survive. And the dining halls are really shopping mall food courts loaded with foods of questionable nutrition.</p>
<p>D noticed one of the food lines in her cafeteria was offering what looked like some delicious dishes, so she got in the line. When she came to the head of it, she was told “Sorry, this is for prospective students and their parents only.” Back to the fried-heavenknowswhat.</p>
<p>“students self-govern”, which according to some on-line reading regarding this particular Midwest LAC entails open underage binge drinking and dope smoking, including alcholic beverages even in library, and certainly in dorms, without intervention by school administration. Supposedly “substance-free housing” demand outstrips availability, to house the “nerds” trying to avoid the partiers.</p>
<p>“dry campus”, which according to its local newspaper regarding this other particular Midwest LAC entails serious drinking problems on-campus and off. “Preloading” apparently occurs regularly behind closed dorm-room doors, where kids silently drink to avoid detection by RAs.</p>
<p>“Six month after graduation, 90% of our graduates are employed” (but some of them work retail) “or in graduate school” (some of them purely because they hope it will help them find a job)</p>
<p>“And yes, that is the last major issue that I can remember happening with a Yalie… please forgive me if I am mistaken.”</p>
<p>Just meant to say that Yale (like other schools) has had a huge number of on-campus rapes, sexual assaults, and assaults. I consider those major, but they are so common, they are rarely even commented upon.</p>
<p>I had the same problem with a non official tour guide. This guy was bored and was just hanging out when we toured the science building. He kept telling dd that drugs were easier to come by right in front of me. She had no interest in the subject but he kept saying it to us. I looked at him like he was crazy to bring this subject up in front of me. I said that most parents do not want to know this information and that it was not helping with our decision. </p>
<p>Oh it doesn’t help that dd was told she make a great bar tender(chemistry major) if things did work out after graduation. This was said as a joke but you never know. lol</p>
<p>I’ve found that the tour guides and sometimes the admissions people are refreshingly honest about the food on campus, but you do have to ask. At Wellesley during the open campus day for juniors last spring, we were served very good sandwiches, fruit that was very fresh, and a huge array of delicious finger desserts. My daughter, by now a veteran of 'these things, asked if the food was usually this good and was told, “It’s very good, but you are never going to see desserts like this again.”</p>
<p>At Stanford, my husband, an alum, asked if the food in a particular dining hall was as bad as he remembered, because he had once been served an omelette with a screw in it. The tour guide replied something like, “It’s not that great, but as far as I know, all the hardware has been taken off the menu.”</p>
<p>This is no joke! What a black hole of time these supplements can take up after an applicant thinks his application is finished! Plus some of the questions seem to be written by sadists.</p>
<p>One crime committed by someone who was employed by a lab does not say anything about a school. That murder in the lab at Yale was horrible on every level but it’s just not possible to extrapolate anything out to the school, the city or the state based on the actions of one person. I went to the meeting this year for Yale parents done by the police and I was very impressed by the many efforts being made to keep students safe both on and off campus.</p>
<p>(This would make Yale certainly no worse that dozens of other campuses, and probably better than Williams, where the President of the College stated that 44 women were raped last year.)</p>
<p>I’m looking for admissionspeak for “rape”; the closest I can come to it is “incident”.</p>
Lots of schools don’t even look at those for admission, plus they administer their own placement tests. To me, “optional” means “mandatory” when it comes to teacher recommendations and essays. I told my children NEVER to skip an essay unless it is irrelevant (like explaining how any family hardships have affected one’s grades/ability to participate in ECs/etc. when there have been no family hardships).</p>