<p>The title is somewhat self-explanatory, but basically I know a bunch about Princeton and Harvard, and Yale is one of the Ivy Leagues I just know very little about. </p>
<p>Typically, why would students choose Yale over say the aforementioned, along with Stanford and other Ivy Leagues? What kinds of students prefer Yale? Why Yale at all, aside from prestige, which all these universities share?</p>
<p>Search several threads about cross-admits and the factors they weighed into choosing Y or not choosing Y. Lots of good info</p>
<p>Take a look at:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/701981-resolved-yale-heaven-earth.html?highlight=resolved+yale[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/701981-resolved-yale-heaven-earth.html?highlight=resolved+yale</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-2013/689665-im-going-yale.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-2013/689665-im-going-yale.html</a> <- lol I wrote this one</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/610751-welcome-yale-college-class-2013-feast-comestibles.html?highlight=feast+comestibles[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/610751-welcome-yale-college-class-2013-feast-comestibles.html?highlight=feast+comestibles</a></p>
<p>yeah this has been done so many times. just do a little research.</p>
<p>So you can read Stover at Yale and repeat the likely apocryphal Frank Lloyd Wright derogatory remarks about Harkness Tower.</p>
<p>OK and just to make it clear, for those who don’t know, I’m a college student, not a high schooler, so this is completely out of curiosity. </p>
<p>I guess the culture at my high school somehow had that literally all the HYP admits ended up choosing to go to Harvard, I myself didn’t apply to any of these, and so I know very little about Yale – somehow found out about the other two from others I know.</p>
<p>Here, let me make it more specific – what’s the academic environment at Yale like? What do prospective/current students like about it? What departments are especially renowned and attractive? What’s the focus on undergraduate research like – especially compared to the other aforementioned schools?</p>
<p>I’m aware there are plenty of threads out there since CC is seemingly infinite, which should have covered these questions, but I ask nevertheless. Thanks for the links eatingfood, I definitely looked at those. If there are specific links that answer these questions, I will be glad to do some reading. Thanks all.</p>
<p>I picked Yale over the other Ivies (Harvard, Princeton, Penn) for several specific reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li>I want to be an English major, and Yale has the best English department in the country.</li>
<li>While not quite as good as Princeton’s, Yale’s focus on undergraduate education is much stronger than Harvard’s.</li>
<li>Yale’s residential college system is absolutely unparalleled and fits me perfectly.</li>
<li>I actually really like New Haven and the campus, because it’s edgy and urban and still beautiful.</li>
<li>The students seemed to me to be really laid back and intelligent, but not self-absorbed, which is the impression I got at Harvard.</li>
<li>Yale’s freshman support system is really wonderful.</li>
<li>I love Yale’s English major with a writing concentration.</li>
</ul>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>^^ Sure, more individual, colorful experiences probably tell me much more than stereotypical ones. Thanks!</p>
<p>How in God’s name do you say that x is better than y and by a slight margin? I’m sorry but it’s all nonsense. Unless you actually go to both schools, you’re absolutely guessing. Sure Princeton has fewer graduate students but Yale & Harvard have more resources and thus more to put into undergraduate education and, in addition, they attract professors because they work with grad students. Bottom line is no one knows and these are impressions only.</p>
<p>I went to Yale back in the Cretaceous Era and that was because my father said, “I’ll only pay to send you to Harvard, Yale or Michigan,” the last being where we lived and with a bunch of family connections. H & Y then gave you ratings after receiving your application - likely meant you were in, possible was a coin toss and the other was no, whatever word they used. I got a likely from Yale and a possible from Harvard so I decided Yale liked me better - and I didn’t want to room at Harvard with my best friend because I could smell that being a disaster. Michigan sent a handwritten note asking me to come. </p>
<p>These are perfectly good reasons. Maybe you’re a New Yorker and New Haven is closer - and believe it or not stays open later than Cambridge / Boston. Maybe Harvard’s more overt paternalism and snobbishness turns you off. Maybe Yale’s sense of show turns you on. Maybe there’s a particular professor you’ve heard of. Maybe some whack part of your brain thinks Yale is somehow more society. Maybe you want to get into Skull & Bones - or at least Scroll & Key - so you can not tell people you’re in a secret society.</p>
<p>But if you’re not from the northeast, then Harvard stands out more as the big name brand so of course more kids pick it. </p>
<p>But I have to say that once there and now with connections to H and to other schools, I don’t see any real differences other than personal preferences. Harvard has its clubs, Princeton its eating clubs and Yale its societies. One can argue the most excluding and thus least welcoming is Princeton, then Harvard, then Yale but that again is a personal ranking.</p>
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<p>So what if they’re impressions? That’s exactly what I said…these are the reasons I picked Yale. I visited all three, spoke to students and friends there, and I also have two parents that graduated from Princeton. I had a professor at Yale, a Harvard graduate, tell me that “Yale undoubtedly has a better undegrad experience than Harvard.” It’s hardly “guesswork,” however.</p>
<p>
75% of Princeton upperclassmen are in eating clubs. The number of Yale kids in secret societies is minuscule in comparison.</p>
<p>OK, I am wondering, before any argument ensues, what do people mean by undergraduate focus exactly? Is it that class sizes are smaller, faculty-student ratios are very small in general, that professors are more willing to mentor undergraduates (and less likely to ignore them in favor of their graduate students), or what?
I’m guessing people mean the experience of feeling like they actually matter + are cared for in the school. However, I am interested in asking what exactly defines “feeling cared for” in the first place. </p>
<p>I’ve heard time and again that Princeton has a great undergraduate focus, but I’m not sure I know what it means. More to the point, to all the individuals out there who love Yale (or other comparable schools), what makes you think there’s a greater undergraduate focus at Yale (or not) if you think so (or think not)?</p>
<p>Princeton has no professional graduate schools (law, business or medicine), and the graduate college itself is quite a way off from the center of campus. As an undergraduate, you therefore feel that you and your fellow students are the hub of life at the university. At Yale, while the undergrads are certainly paid attention to, that ‘center of the universe’ feeling is not the same as it is at Princeton. For some students, that’s a positive thing: they like feeling part of a bigger picture, and they still get plenty of individual attention from professors, but they may have to seek it out a bit more. For others, the more intimate, nurturing feel of Princeton is the atmosphere they’re looking for. As always, YMMV, depending on your major, interests, etc.</p>
<p>(I say the above as a Princeton alum and the mother of a Yalie.)</p>
<p>OK, so in some senses, Yale’s a balance between the levels of undergraduate focus in Harvard and Princeton.</p>
<p>I’ll bet there are Yale fans who don’t like this remark for whatever reason, but I somehow am inclined most to believe what you say, Booklady. I mean, I personally from the sounds of it would have liked Harvard best of the HYP schools if I’d chosen to apply/been accepted to them when I was picking schools.</p>
<p>It’s like living in a castle.</p>
<p>On a beautiful day, its one of the most amazing places ever. I was lucky to visit on a sunny, warm spring day when the cherry blossoms were blooming. It was absolutely gorgeous.</p>
<p>Setting aside the academics, which are stellar at all 3 schools, the social atmosphere is why my S chose Yale. The people were so nice, helpful and, most of all, seemed so happy to be there. He did not like Princeton’s “social heirarchy” which he found to be very cliquey. He liked Harvard, but thought it would be a little isolating in that you really had to work very hard to find your own fun. Bottom line, he just loved Yale. The residential college system seems to have comraderie built right into the very fabric of the school.</p>
<p>Yale buildings + blossoming trees + sun = AMAZING!</p>