<p>“Why Yale?” is probably not largely generic for successful applicants. It isn’t a matter of saying that you love the residential colleges and think Yale has a strong (fill in the blank) department. It might be about a specific professor whose research you’ve followed and would like to work with. It might be about how you go to Caltech and have discovered that you want to be a theater studies major. My understanding is that Yale is more swayed by people who can describe what they can’t get at their current school that they can at Yale.</p>