https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2018/11/15/off-campus-housing-on-the-rise/
My son’s experience with the residential college system was somewhat disappointing, especially relative to the rest of his Yale experience, which was beyond his hopes.
On the bright side: he’s become quite a good cook
FWIW: My Saybrook son had a wonderful four year residential college experience. He, and 23 of his freshman year entryway mates (a total of 12 men and 12 women), continued to room together on campus in some configuration for the next 3 years. They even went on Winter, Spring, and Summer trips together. And now, three years out of college, my son’s roommate in NYC is one of his Yale entryway mates. What he hated was the dining hall food. In fact, he would post instagram pictures of the awful food, including a series on hard boiled eggs --as in how many ways can the dining hall ruin a hard boiled egg!!!
@gibby, the dining hall food, especially in a foodie town like New Haven, is inexcusable.
There are many schools that serve great food, so it can be done.
I live in Franklin and the food is great! @gibby and @IxnayBob - the administrators must have listened to your sons’ complaints, 'cause students no longer complain about the dining hall food. They praise it!
@zoebrittany , that’s good to hear. There have been few complaints about Yale in my house (post office, for example), and it makes me happy that a major one has been remediated.
The food in the new colleges (Benjamin Franklin and Pauli Murray) is apparently on another level from the rest of campus, given the modern facilities and the fact that the chef there used to be the executive chef at Goldman Sachs: https://benjaminfranklin.yalecollege.yale.edu/gallery/facilities
That said, in recent years there has been an unfortunate increase in juniors and seniors living off campus. I think the root cause is that New Haven has become far more livable (the areas near campus have been transformed since the ‘90s), but rents are still cheap (it’s far more expensive, generally speaking, to live off campus in, say, Cambridge, Princeton or Palo Alto). Additionally: the drinking age of 21 has increased the attractiveness of off-campus social options (e.g., frats), which can afford to rent houses; I understand that some find the dining plan too expensive and not flexible enough; some number of kids with particular dietary requirements find it more congenial to cook for themselves; and there are some rich kids whose parents can afford palatial digs for them.
The administration seems to be taking this quite seriously, and I would guess there will be some steps taken that encourage more students to remain on-campus for all four years. The residential college system is one of Yale’s crown jewels; it’s a shame that some kids don’t take full advantage of it.
My daughter will live on campus all four years, and the majority of her friends will live on campus all four years (out of her close group of 10 friends, 1 lives off campus). She loves the residential college system and her assigned college. She raves about the food. She realizes that there is plenty of time to live in apartments after she graduates, and she appreciates the strong and tight knit community that she has in her college and at Yale. I have no data on this, but I wonder if the percentage of students who live off campus varies by college. In my daughter’s college, so many juniors and seniors wanted to live on campus that she ended up with a less desirable room and location within her college because she got a bad room draw.
I think when we hear “off campus,” we often have an image of an apartment in a complex miles from the school. In my son’s case, his apartment was across from The Green, not too far from Pierson (his college). The entire building seemed to be an unofficial dormitory for Yale students, and rent checks were made out to Yale.
His AC’ed apartment was especially well visited during hot weather :))
It’s really upsetting to hear about bad food in Saybrook. Many years ago, when all of the college dining halls were independent of one another, the food in Saybrook was outstanding.
In addition to the factors noted by @DeepBlue86 , I think two other factors have contributed to the increase in off-campus living: (1) The serial renovation of the colleges a decade ago made off-campus living a lot more attractive (compared to the swing space), and essentially established an inventory of apartments that undergraduates would rent, and (2) even before the opening of Franklin and Murray, the size of the College seemed to be creeping up. Essentially, the Powers That Be were creating a fait accompli by admitting a number of students that would effectively force people off campus.
I lived on campus for four years (one on the Old Campus, three in Saybrook) and loved every minute of it. My wife spent one semester in Saybrook and begged to get out; she really couldn’t stand living in the college. So she lived off campus for 2-1/2 years, and she was happy with that. But she has very warm feelings about Saybrook College – the dining hall, the people. Her closest friends (unlike mine) were mainly from other residential colleges, but whenever she is among Saybrugians of our generation at reunions and the like she acknowledges that she knows and feels comfortable with those people. She has a Saybrook College sticker on her car, and she bought a picture of Saybrook to hang on a wall.