Is there any place like Yale?

Colleges & Universities Yale University
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UChicago is the closest thing to Yale we could find. They are extremely similar. Chicago is a little more intense, and Yale has more social cachet, but otherwise the parallels are strong.

And don’t take Chrchill too seriously. He is stirring the soup (which is fine and fun)

PS - I guarantee you that Amherst and Williams provide every bit the education and the career possibilities that Yale and Co. do. The placement and achievements of the grads of those two schools, given their tiny size, speak for themselves.

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I’m not familiar with U Chicago so I can’t say how similar the schools are. But, I do know that U Chicago is another tough admit. You really need to be looking for match and safety schools that are “similar” to Yale. This is hard! I have an old thread about this topic. Most people advised that you have to be willing to sacrifice on something, like school size, for example. So think about what you love most about Yale and look for some schools that share that characteristic. Just having alternatives like U Chicago and Brown isn’t a great plan - although applying to several reaches is totally fine.

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In terms of the Residential College system and happy students, Rice fits the bill, but may not be ideal for a humanities kid.

If you were seeking a program like Directed Studies at Yale, you might want to consider Princeton’s Humanities Sequence, Stanford’s Structured Liberal Education (SLE) program, or Chicago’s core. I’d also consider Wash U. for it’s programs and its vibe. For a more open curriculum, try Brown.

LACs might be another good choice – Williams, Pomona, Amherst, Swarthmore, and Carleton. A bit further down the prestige scale, Haverford, Grinnell, and Kenyon. For women, Scripps and Bryn Mawr.

As I see it, there are two big problems with Yale: 1) it’s hard to get in; 2) it’s in New Haven.

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Swarthmore’s admit rate this year was 10%. Just saying that listing other tough admits isn’t really helping much.

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Putting aside the “reach” schools listed like other Ivies and the top LAC’s, you should consider “honors” programs within good state university systems. They often have separate housing and advising in addition to access to smaller and more advanced classes to compete for top students. Even if you go out of state, you may have a chance at decent merit scholarship money on top of need based financial aid. I encourage you to research these programs to see how they fit with your intended course of study, size of school and location. These honor programs often fill “target” or “safety” slots and many have rolling admissions so you may know pretty early if you have been accepted, often around the same time frame as EA and ED decisions if you get in your application early. Applying to an honors program with rolling admissions will still allow you to apply to most if not all EA and ED programs at the highly selective schools.

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For Great Books-type programs that are less selective and have higher admit rates, Saint Johns College in MD or NM might be interesting as a safety. Reed might be another consideration for the academic/intellectual piece. (A bit hipper and easier to get into than U Chicago, but with a similar intellectual vibe).

If you are going to look into the Public Honors programs, I’d suggest the New College of Florida.

I think Wash U might be a real contender – their “Texts and Traditions” and “Focus” programs look quite good, and they have a strong interdisciplinary humanities program there. You’ll definitely want to show demonstrated interest for Wash. U.

It was a very strong contender for my D who applied and was accepted EA to Yale without having visited and who was terribly disappointed with Yale’s campus when she did finally visit. Stanford and Wash U were like breaths of fresh air for her after Yale and U. Chicago. YMMV, though.

The top LACs (Williams, Pomona, Amherst, Swarthmore) are equally hard to get into as Yale. Carleton might be a good bet. They have a summer humanities program that might be worth considering.

A bit further down the prestige scale and higher up in the admit rates, Oberlin, Wesleyan, Haverford, Grinnell, and Kenyon. For women, Scripps and Bryn Mawr.

You might also want to consider UVA.

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It’s hard to compare Wesleyan admit rates with Williams these days since it receives about 4,000 more applications a year.

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I agree with the UChicago - Yale, comparison. I would also say Princeton. Personally I see UChicago as the closest Yale & Princeton equivalent amongst the non-HYPSM top 10 schools.

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This is not an easy admit–or further down the “prestige scale”–but you have described Haverford in your first post. You say that you see Yale as a more fun version of Swarthmore. As you may already know, Haverford is part of the consortium that comprises Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr. The kids who choose Haverford tend to be kids looking for a nicer version of Swarthmore. They are a collaborative but very smart community of thinkers. The students I know who have attended are smart, academic, and also fun and very happy with their experience at the school. I don’t know the specific admit rate for the school but I do know that it is misleading. The school’s community revolves around its honor code and admissions looks for a specific sort of intellectual, ethical kid who will take the honor code seriously and will contribute to the vitality of the community.

My daughter attended Bryn Mawr. If you are a woman and are open to the idea of a women’s college, I recommend that you visit at the very least. It’s a warm, supportive community and an admissions bargain, much easier to get in as compared to Haverford or Swarthmore with a lot of the same benefits.

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Just wanted to say, Haverford is not down the list from Carleton in terms of prestige. Both schools are usually in the latter half of the USNews top 10. They are peers, IMO.

Regarding Yale:

It seems there isn’t quite a Yale doppelgänger yet, a school that is highly similar in all main aspects (academics, social vibe, environment, dorms, etc.):

Academic rep/emphasis:
Yale is known most (academically) for its Humanities, so a school like Wesleyan, Kenyon, Oberlin or Vassar – as mentioned previously – would fit the bill there.

Academic breadth/quality:
UChicago, yes, in terms of overall breadth of program quality. (and limited Engineering)

Social vibe:
Yale is liberal but also has a mix of preppy/artsy/nerdy – any number of schools have a similar makeup.

Housing:
Yale has the aforementioned residential colleges. Other schools that have them, like Rice, have been mentioned.

Look and feel of campus: Gothic, grandly so. UChicago, Princeton, Washington U and many others have that style of architecture.

Environment: What places are similar to New Haven in terms of size, feel, cultural opportunities?

Anyway, I clearly am having a hard time finding a school like Yale in all of these key facets. Maybe if you decide which things are most important, we could aim our casts at those parts of the lake. (and if you already have, I apologize for missing it)

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If one determines prestige by admit rate (which I don’t personally, but some do) Carleton and Haverford are about equal. Haverford was actually slightly lower for 2017 (19% vs. 20%). I’m not sure about Grinnell, Kenyon etc.

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As the person that (I think) first put Carleton and Haverford on the list, I did not mean to imply anything related to one having more or less prestige vis à vis the other…I meant that they – along with Wesleyan, Grinnell, Kenyon, etc. – are several notches down the prestige scale (and easier to get into) than HYPSM or WASP.

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What is WASP?

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Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, and Pomona.

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Why not just say Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, and Pomona? In any event, I don’t think any of them are intrinsically more prestigious than Carleton.

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And, Wesleyan has the whole “vibrancy of the social scene” thing down, IMO. And to a far greater degree than Williams and Amherst and those other schools you mentioned.

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Because it’s easier to type WASP, just as it’s easier to type HYPSM (not Harvard, Yale, etc., etc.)

Whether or not WASP schools are more prestigious than Carleton is arguable. They are harder to get into and rated more highly. OP was looking for match schools (i.e., easier to get into than Yale) that are like Yale.

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Sounds like an attempt at canonization (which only works when you don’t have to ask what it means.) Given Yale’s unfortunate history in that regard, referring to four prestigious colleges as Wasp schools just sounds like dog whistle antisemitism. Why not WAPS? No, wait… You know, if you take out Pomona, and add Middlebury and Grinnell, you can spell AWGSM? I have nothing against awgasms.

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MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Please move on from the discussion of college rankings and of the etymology of acronyms - neither was requested by the OP.

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@lightsgoout have you visited Yale? Did you stay over? Academically there is going to plenty of overlap among the other Ivy/top schools. ‘Vibe’ and culture on the other hand is going to be very different. As a parent who went through this process last year and going through it again next year with kids who are very much into ‘social justice’ and the humanities that Yale most closely matches to Brown and then to Wesleyan in that order.