<p>I actually got the opposite impression when I visted both schools, and at the time I was trying to decide between Princeton and Yale. It’s probably because I visited Princeton right before move-in weekend in September and everyone there at the time was still in summer-mode, while I visited Yale during move-in weekend and I guess everyone was so busy that they didn’t have time to smile and say hi to anyone.</p>
<p>I really don’t understand how you can be so polarized toward/from a school. The students are really pretty much demographically the same, went to the same kinds of schools, like the same things… you expect them to suddenly become “warm and alive” or “cold and cutthroat” just by landing in different schools (which aren’t really so different themselves)? If you saw groups of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton students sans college gear in nondescript respective campus locations, you probably couldn’t tell the difference. You just happen to have strong feelings about the schools – the differences are there, but far more subtle than you make them. But that’s okay, because without developing strong feelings toward/against one school or the other, you’ll never be able to decide among them.</p>
<p>Another important thing is, life on campus is nothing like the tour. You never get the same magical feeling of being there again, because life will set in, and you’ll start to see “that gorgeous towering gothic building” as just “home,” (or, “just the gym”) and “all those lively students” not as yourself, but as “some random upperclassmen,” etc. Not to say that colleges aren’t that great once you get there – they’re better. Just different from what you imagine.</p>
<p>Oh, and txhorn, Princeton just finished training new tour guides. If you take tours around now, some of the guides have only been working for about a month. Forgive them for being new at it, because every tour guide started somewhere.</p>