<p>Cue7 and I are pretty much in agreement. There are probably a few types of people to whom I would recommend choosing Chicago over Yale. But in terms of academics, the two colleges are very similar, which is to say great, with a very intellectual tone. People at both get very engaged in their studies. Chicago may have a clear advantage in some areas – math, physics, economics – and Yale in others, but academically you couldn’t go wrong either place. Outside of the classroom, Yale has what Chicago wants: an incredible housing set-up that really adds depth to student life and creates a feeling of warmth and intimacy, strong student organizations (compare the 5-day-a-week, high quality Yale Daily News to the twice-a-week-if-you’re-lucky Chicago Maroon), tons of creative outlets, and much better developed internship / career programs. And generally much better lines to the corridors of power in New York, Washington, and Los Angeles. There is a sense of connectedness to the Establishment at Yale that Chicago lacks – although it is certainly possible to register that as entitlement and privilege, and to dislike it. There is more ambition psi at Yale than at Chicago, too, which over time tends to translate into more (and more visible) accomplishment.</p>
<p>This really isn’t meant to dis Chicago at all. In the most important areas, it really offers everything Yale does, and it is moving in the right direction in all the other areas, too. And Chicago has one great thing Yale lacks – a world-class city at its doorstep. If you don’t have the opportunity to go to Yale – and most people don’t – it’s hard to do better than Chicago. (I have similar feelings about Harvard and Princeton, although on the whole I like Yale more than either. Among the other great universities, I don’t think any is clearly superior to Chicago as a package, unless you really want to have an engineering focus, and I think Chicago is clearly superior to all but a handful.)</p>