<p>I am almost at the end of my college selection and I am confused why I want to apply to Yale. Yale’s economic department attracted me but the surrounding city, academic excellence of other deparments, number of internationals (important factor to me), etc. pulls me back. Why do you guys want to apply to Yale? What is attractive about Yale?</p>
<p>Honestly, if you have to be convinced to apply to Yale, then you may not need to apply.
Having said that, I have a number of reasons:
-The opportunity to live and learn with 5,000 diverse, talented individuals is simply amazing.<br>
-The faculty is one of the world’s best, and they seem to have a passion for educating undergraduate students - something not present at all elite universities.
-I like the theory of the residential college system.
-The school has tremendous resources for study abroad.
-The alumni network is very strong and Yale alumni are everywhere.
-Yalies have a deep sense of pride in their institution. I can’t put my finger on it, but if you ever talk to a Yale student or alum about their experiences at Yale, there is a remarkable affinity for the school that is almost always present. </p>
<p>BTW, what issue do you have with the number of international students?</p>
<p>What’s wrong wih the academics of other departments, anyway? Are you afraid the other departments will be 0,001% less excellent? I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe there is such a thing as a ‘bad’ department at Yale.</p>
<p>therealmj - you make it sound like EVERYONE should apply and that Yale is the perfect school for EVERYONE. But that’s really not the case. Yeah, it has a lot of characteristics that make people like you and me absolutely want to be there. But, come on now, it’s not perfect.</p>
<p>Anyway, to answer the OP’s question. I first liked Yale when I visited the campus (and knew nothing about Ivy League schools and all). I loved everything about it. Now the major pull factor for me (besides it “feeling right” whenever I visit, of course) is the School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences. Yale is one of only a handful of top schools that has a specialized graduate program for this field. Oh and you can’t forget the prestige of the university. It shouldn’t be the only reason why you apply, but - even I’ll admit to this - it certainly helps that it’s widely recognized as one of the world’s top institutions of higher learning.</p>
<p>Here are a few descriptions that may be helpful to the OP:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=237609[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=237609</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=2935269&postcount=5[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=2935269&postcount=5</a></p>
<p>Like others above said, the only reason to really find out is to visit and stay for three or four days. Yale is unlike any other school, and really has a uniquely strong campus social scene. I have been blown away by Yale’s social life every time I visit and see the kind of activity that goes on on the central campus relative to other universities, as I’ve explained in one of the posts linked to above. In addition, Yale’s undergraduate academics are stellar, and I think that is reflected in any type of objectively-measured success rate of its alumni, which surpass those of any other university.</p>
<p>Consider the following excerpt of an article by Gary Glen Price, a famous professor at U-Wisconsin (and not a Yale alumnus):</p>
<p>“Any placement of colleges on a scale or in a ranked list begins first with selection and relative weighting of criteria. If one selects different criteria or changes the weighting among criteria, another ordering of schools results. Trying to place Amherst, Swarthmore, and Williams in a definitive order is like trying to place Beethoven, Einstein, and Monet in a definitive order. Schools do have distinctive strengths and institutional cultures. Overnight stays give some glimpse of this. So do the post-graduation activities and accomplishments of alumni. For instance, the relative proportion of Williams alumni who were corporate executive officers (CEOs) of Standard & Poor companies in 1990 was 1.6 times greater than the proportion of Amherst alumni and 4.6 times greater than the proportion of Swarthmore alumni. Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and Service 500 companies in 1990, the proportion of Amherst alumni was 1.25 times that of Williams alumni; Swarthmore had too few to be included in Fortune magazine’s analysis (Yale had the highest per capita rate of CEOs; Princeton was second). In Loren Pope’s analysis of the percentage of alumni featured in of Who’s Who in America, all three schools were very high and closely clustered. Relative to Yale’s rate (the highest in the country, here set to 100), Amherst was 56.5, Williams was 54.2, and Swarthmore was 48.2; among the notable schools lower than all three were Dartmouth (44.8), MIT (43.3), Stanford (29.5), Penn (19.1), and Duke (14.9). The proportion of Swarthmore alumni who earned PhDs in science, math, or engineering during 1985-1990 was double that of Amherst and Williams; in other PhD fields, Swarthmore’s proportion was 1.5 times Amherst’s and 2.4 times William’s. Swarthmore counts several Nobel laureates among its alumni, whereas Amherst and Williams count none.”</p>
<p>Regarding international students, read the following Newsweek cover story, which, incidentally, was written by the President of Yale University. In the same issue, Newsweek ranks Harvard, Yale and Stanford as the three “most global universities” in the world.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14320413/[/url]”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14320413/</a></p>
<p>theoneo-
You’re completely right, and I apoligize if my post seemed a little harsh. What I mean is that in general, you really should not have to be convinced to apply anywhere; to accept an offer of admission could potentially be tough, but to just make the decision to apply isn’t that difficult - either you’re really interested in the school or you’re not.<br>
Of course, I could always be wrong.</p>