I've never been to Yale...

kwijiborjt
Sun, 18 May 2008 00:20:08 +0000

A few thoughts… (keep in mind that i’m advocating for yale)

If you’re from LA, don’t underestimate the severity of New England winters. Yale is going to be pretty cold over the winter, but New Hampshire has very, very harsh winters.

I wish you could have gone to bulldog days… i haven’t met anyone who had a bad time at bulldog days, it’s really an amazing few days. A lot of people decide to come bc of bulldog days.

Yale has the social advantages of a large and small school. The resco system basically makes it impossible not to make friends, but you’ll also never run out of people to meet, since it’s a medium sized university. There are some academic shortcomings to yale’s size, if you take big lectures while getting pre-reqs out of the way.

Yale def. offers a liberal arts education, don’t think otherwise. The distribution requirements ensure that, and there are so many interesting clases across disciplines that you’ll want to have a diverse course schedule (eg, i’m a bio major, but more than half of my classes have been in classics, polisci, and history).

New haven is a very good college city… there are lots of bars/restaurants/clubs/theaters, but the city is also small enough that social life doesn’t bleed out into the city. There are always parties on campus through student organizations, residential colleges, and just random room parties. People harp on safety, but it’s really the same as any other city, and probably safer than LA.

Yale is excellent. You might consider comparing the strength of the engineering majors at each… that could be a productive line of inquiry before deciding. If you need a few days to research i’m sure you could ask the admissions office for an extension. Now that they’ve accepted you, they want you to matriculate.