There’s magic to the word “Yale” as you go through your life. I’d take Yale given the two. New Haven is a fine city. Sure it has problems, but it’s not like Boston doesn’t. New Haven at least has its own energy, plus it’s on the MetroNorth line to NYC, if you really need a “bigger city”–it’s easy to get to NYC and back in a single day. The word “Yale” strikes wonder in people’s hearts and minds in a way that explaining that marvelous scholarship rarely if ever will, so much so that you will gulp back the word rather than stop a conversation. You will start saying quietly “well I went to college in er New Haven.” The college system there, furthermore, offsets to my mind the ability to choose a dorm at any other school. Boston, I’ll admit up front, is NOT my favorite city. I’ve spent time there and in New Haven and I prefer NH for the reasons I’ve stated. NH is small but it’s got arts that spring from its soil–amazing theater productions that go from there to Broadway often (Long Wharf and the Yale theater both are places where new plays work out their kinks before progressing.) The Yale art museums are really quite fine on their own and then–zoom on the MetroNorth line into NYC for the marvelous museums there–the best in the world some of them. The food in NH, while the selection is smaller, it’s still rather sophisticated as, you know, the Yale Crowd is there. Yale has traditions that are fun to be part of. I’d choose Yale in a heartbeat too.