<p>This is in answer to the question of when Yale is not the right choice for someone who has been accepted, although my answer is rather particular to my circumstances and will not apply to the vast majority of prospective students. Maybe it will give a few people some food for thought, or maybe someone will have an analogous choice to make.</p>
<p>When I was accepted, I had to decide between attending Yale with no financial aid, or accepting a substantial merit scholarship at Johns Hopkins. It was a tough choice, but I ultimately chose Yale. Up till now, I haven’t had any regrets about that - I’ve taken some wonderful, unique classes; ended up getting really into a foreign language I never thought I’d take; learned an awesome new instrument (carillon) and consequently got a subsidized tour of Europe; and have a great lab research opportunity coming up. With the exception of the last one, these are things I am pretty sure I would have missed out on had I gone to JHU (there may have been other wonderful, unique courses at JHU, of course, but they definitely do not have a carillon, and the circumstances by which I ended up taking my particular foreign language are likewise pretty specific to Yale). But here’s the catch. When I chose Yale, I was thinking about going for a PhD in bio later on, and hence didn’t think I had to worry too much about saving loads of money for grad school (PhD students frequently can get stipends and/or fellowships). Well, now I think I want to apply for veterinary school in a few years, and I’m going to end up in a load of debt then because I’ll be all out of money in my 529k, and vet school is very expensive. So now I kinda wish I had made the financially smarter decision, even though I’m getting a lot out of Yale on a personal development and quality-of-life level. In terms of academic quality and career prospects, I certainly wouldn’t have lost out on anything by choosing JHU, and frankly in the long run I’m sure I would have been just as happy, only for different reasons than the things that make me happy at Yale.</p>
<p>The other thing is that for pre-vet students, animal-related volunteer/work opportunities are not that easy to come by during the semester unless you have a car (or are willing to walk through potentially sketchy parts of town). However, as I mentioned above, I expect this is not relevant to the vast majority of students.</p>