<p>I’m a Yale junior who did research over last summer and stayed off campus.</p>
<p>Unless you are part of a program that includes on-campus summer housing (STARS?) or become an RA for one of the high school summer programs, the only way to live on campus over the summer is at the guest rate. This amounts to something on the order of $1500 a month, which compared to off campus is extremely high. The other problem is that they kick everyone out of the dorms on the day indicated on the calendar (May 8, 2013) and don’t start the summer guest housing until about two weeks later, which is inconvenient unless you want to bring all your stuff home anyway.</p>
<p>I lived in the East Rock neighborhood (on Bishop St. near State St.), subletting. East Rock is safer, in my opinion, than the Howe/Dwight/Edgewood neighborhood, but less popular among undergrads because it’s further away. It’s OK if you’re working on Science Hill. The neighborhood is mostly Yale grad students and other friendly types. It’s definitely far from the Stop & Shop, though. I can’t comment too much on other areas, but common sense says stay away from the super-cheap apartments anywhere near the medical school, or beyond the divinity school or on (parts of) Mansfield, or certainly anywhere northwest of there.</p>
<p>I looked on both SubletMeYale.com and Craigslist. You may think Craigslist is asking for trouble, but there are Yale people on Craigslist, and also, the place I picked was listed on both, so there’s no guarantee of living only with Yale people just by using a Yale-related site. The Yale housing people were useless. I looked for (and found) one room to sublet from a 4-bedroom apartment, and it was me, another Yale undergrad, and a non-Yale person (yes, only 3). That was fine by me. One bit of advice I would give is that you might be setting yourself up to be ripped off on rent if you sublet from a tenant and have no contract with the landlord - you then have no recourse if they inflate the utility bill, and rent is likely to be higher to begin with (this happened to me).</p>
<p>Good luck, feel free to PM me. (edit: maybe you can’t because I have too few posts)</p>
<p>As Yalies begin their return to campus from winter break, I thought I’d share my dd’s return trip experience with CT Limo from JFK back to campus. Not awful, but not great either.</p>
<p>She had a non-stop flight into JFK from the west coast arriving @ 3pm. I called in an prepaid the $68 the day before her flight because she was flying back with a heavy checked bag, a rolling carry-on, and her backpack. She called CT Limo when she arrived & was picked up within a half hour, which was great. But, the ride back to Yale took over 4 hours, with a stop/pickups at LaGuardia, and dropping off a couple of groups at various places. There were also 4 others going to Yale on her shuttle. By the time she got back to her dorm it was 8pm. Her ground travel time was almost as long as the flight from California. I had expected it to be about 2 hours, but a 4+ hour shuttle ride … yuck! Oh well, at least no weather-related delays this trip.</p>
This may be the reason why we prefer that DS takes the BDL route. The ground travel time is more predictable and is shorter. But the risk by going that route is that there is usually no direct flight and the flight connection at other other airport could be troublesome diring winter.</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing.</p>
<p>It appears that DS is quite used to the train ride between New Haven and NYC. Recently, his friend in NYC asked several of his circle of friends to meet at his apartment (near north-west of Manhattan, I think), just because his friend will soon move to other state far away and it will not be so convenient to get together again in the future. I heard DS took the commuter train there, and was back on the same day. But he traveled without any baggage for this day trip. Hmm…I forgot to ask him how he traveled from the Grand Central Station to his friend’s apartment, and wonder whether he took the cab. During summer, I heard he just walked if it was in the day time. But it is too cold now.</p>
<p>tugtraveller- thanks for the update, your daughter’s experience sounds like a nightmare! We have only used CT limo to and from Bradley and haven’t had that kind of multi-stop, pick up and drop off scenario, probably because there aren’t other airports/major destinations in the vicinity.</p>
<p>On another note, no food for kids until Sunday night?!?! I guess this happened last year, but S must have gone back later. He’s going to Subway a lot and using the student kitchen in the RC to make stuff with friends. I’m making a mental note to have him return on Saturday next January. How are other kids eating?</p>
DS rushed to Subway right after he had arrived around 7 pm.
His mom tried to pack some frozen spagatti (which he could microwave in his dorm room) in his check-in baggage and he took it out at the last minute due to his concern about the weather condition – he went back to the school much earlier as he’s not an UG any more. The food may be spoiled if he could not access to his baggage within 6 or 7 hours when the (frozen) cooling pads are not cold anymore.</p>
<p>He may not object to having some perishable frozen foood in his carry-on backpack but we think TSA would not allow it so we do not want to do it. The problem is the cooling pads that we use to keep the food cold and fresh during the flight. So we do not have a good solution here.</p>
<p>
No food for DS every weekends, and I heard some food at Marigolds needs to be weighed in order to determine the “price” to charge and his meal plan sometimes does not have enough money left toward the end of the school year. I think he must miss those 4 precious years when he lived in his RC.</p>
<p>Our D is returning tomorrow through Bradley. Her flight lands at 4:30, but the next CT Limo shuttle won’t be until 6:00 - I guess she’ll eat dinner at the airport (since there is no food on campus, anyway). Three of her five roommates are back already. I wonder if Yale couldn’t provide food in just one dining hall for the kids who come in a few days early? Oh, well.</p>
<p>I just happened to look at the Yale Dining website last week to check when the meal service would start and they had a link called “Over Break Meal Plan”, and here’s what it said:</p>
<p>“Winter Break Meals:
As a service to those students who will be on campus during winter break, January 7th -12th, 2013 Yale Dining is offering lunch or dinner at Ezra Stiles and Morse dining halls for $7 per meal. Students will be able to purchase from 2 to 12 meal swipes that will be valid only during this time period. Swipes are transferrable and may be used for guests, but unused swipes will expire following dinner on January 12th. You do not have to be a current meal plan holder to purchase the winter break plan, but you must enroll by the end of the day December 19th, 2012.”</p>
<p>It would have been nice to know about this in advance, since it says you need to have signed up by December 19. Also, it does not indicate whether students who are not enrolled in the plan can just go to Ezra Stiles or Morse & pay regular price for lunch or dinner.</p>
<p>It also says on the Yale dining website that Spring Semester meal service in the residential colleges begins on Sunday, January 13 with Brunch.</p>
<p>I should mention that we have always used CT Limo from LGA without a problem until this year. I don’t quite know what is going on with the company, but their service seems to be significantly impacted since this fall. We have switched to GO, a little more expensive, but much better service. </p>
<p>Regarding the meals offered over break, all students were notified about this in advance. My S planned ahead and purchased enough by the Dec 19 deadline so that his meals are covered (he’s been there since Thurs). Sometimes the email inboxes get so full that students miss these things, and it is new this year for them to offer this. So, tell your kiddos to watch for this in the future so they don’t miss deadlines to sign up.</p>
<p>Clarimom,
So if a student did NOT sign up in advance, can they go to Ezra Stiles or Morse today and pay cash for a meal, or charge it to their bursar account?
Thanks.</p>
<p>K1flew back yesterday. Caught the CT shuttle with no problems. Had no issues leaving to come home either. K1 Made reserv through the Yale portal to Ct Limo site back in Nov when we made the flight arrangements. So far Ct Limo has not let us down though we use them for BDL…</p>
<p>after one attempt to use Tweed…we won’t do that ever again…airline cancelled flt and it cost us a HUGE car fare to get K1 to BDL in time for a different one.</p>
<p>Ah the food problem…yes. I think when dorms are open, there should be at least one or two dining halls open. Glad to hear they did that this term though. I would guess the prepaid thing was about budgeting food/knowing how many to plan/prep for so there is not so much waste. IDK what K1 did yesterday afternoon/evening though suspect it included eating in one of the local places.</p>
<p>Hope everyone enjoyed seeing their students. We sure enjoyed the time together. Relaxing etc.</p>
<p>Our D flew back yesterday. 2 flights - changing in CLT, arriving at BDL at 4:15ish. Except the first flight was cancelled (due to fog in CLT). The replacement flight had her fly into LGA instead of BDL. </p>
<p>CT Limo was set to pick her up at BDL. I called them and explained what was going on, and they were very nice about it. They picked her up at LGA instead, for only the difference in cost between the two routes. I am really happy about this - it may have been tough to have to find our own ground transportation in a hurry on a Saturday. So all turned out well.</p>
<p>Except that we were up at 5am for her to catch that flight to CLT that never happened, and she didn’t get back to Yale until close to midnight - it made for a much longer traveling day than anybody had expected.</p>
<p>I just wanted to follow up to an earlier post I made about the optional Meal Plan that was available to students January 7 - 12th ($7 for either lunch or dinner @ Ezra Stiles or Morse). The swipes had to be ordered/prepaid to Yale Dining by Dec. 19 and expired after dinner Jan 12, whether used or not.</p>
<p>I didn’t know about the option until I read it online the first week of January, well after the ordering deadline. I ordered 3 meals online for $21, but was never able to get any kind of confirmation from Yale Dining. Once they re-opened on January 7th, I tried calling but had no success getting an answer. My daughter was convinced that since there was no confirmation, no email to her, the deadline had passed, etc. – it was no go. </p>
<p>I kept trying to get her to go to Ezra Stiles to check it out, and finally she did on Saturday, the very last day. There was the card for her with 3 meal swipes that she and her suite mates shared, as the swipes were transferable. She said there was a huge pile of “Over-Break” meal cards, some with 12 meal swipes, that were never picked up and used.</p>
<p>So, I just wanted to let other parents know of our adventure. With Yale Dining: (1) they DID accept orders after the stated deadline, and (2) they apparently did not send emails to students letting them know they had pre-paid dining cards waiting for them. It’s not that I would expect them to, after all they are adults now. It just made it confusing, because the website did not give us any kind of acknowledgement or receipt for our order. I guess it’s just billed to the Bursar account.</p>
<p>Thanks for the update Tugtraveller, I am going to put a note in my phone calendar for next December 12th to get S2 to buy some meal swipes if he’s going back again early like he did this year. </p>
<p>On another note, anybody hearing about flu issues? S2 has one suitemate who’s down with it and also S2’s girlfriend…so I fear it’s just a matter of time. This time last year, the same thing happened, everybody came back from break and within two weeks half the campus seemed to be afflicted. S2 did not get a flu shot this year…don’t get me started :mad:…but his gf did and she appears to have come down with it, so go figure! Hope everyone else’s kiddos out there are staying flu-free!</p>
<p>It’s not too late for the flu shot! The YDN reported yesterday that “Yale Health is providing free flu shots to those who have not already received them at the Preventative Health Department on the second floor of the Yale Health Center weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.”</p>
<p>DS told me that if he takes one class he is interested in, he’ll miss lunch twice a week. This is my second time around at Yale (as a parent) and I had two kids go to two other schools. I have to say that while I do really like the RC system, the limited dining hall hours are frustrating. Also, I know there is a lot of enthusiasm for shopping period, but it actually seems to be a fairly stressful process. There is something to be said for starting a semester knowing what all your classes are going to be and having your schedule set and knowing which books you will need.</p>
<p>My daughter found shoppijng a bit stressful when she was really open about looking for a class. She found the majority of her suite and friends, although they “shopped”, knew what they wanted and didn’t really change anything because of it.
She also bemoans the dining hours at times, and sometimes spends more money than she likes at nearby delis. She doesn’t complain about the the quality though.</p>
<p>I’m relieved to hear that my DD is not alone in the stress over shopping period. It sounds good in theory, but in practice, I’m not so sure. There are so many courses for which students must pre-register, get instructor approval , or show up and find that there aren’t enough places, then they have to start all over again with new classes for which they are already behind. </p>
<p>Has anyone here had a student reach out to Yale Health in dealing with stress? I suggested it to DD but she has heard stories of waits of up to 5 weeks to be seen by a counselor. Given the stress of college, and a high-achieving place like Yale in particular, that seems irresponsible.</p>
<p>When my freshman was worried about withdrawing from a class, he met with his res college dean who was very kind and reassuring. He felt a lot better after this. Is your D’s dean someone she could talk to, esp. if the stress is centered around shopping period?</p>
<p>Shopping period is much more of a challenge than we anticipated. It sounds great in theory but is not easy in execution. Then again, my son did drop a couple of classes that he had thought he wanted, so this system does have its clear benefits.</p>
<p>Thanks so much Bookmobile! It’s good to keep in mind that dropping classes is an option. Was your son able to do it during shopping period or later in the semester? My DD had a friend who dropped a class first semester (down to 3) and was warned by her dean that she would need to take 5 classes this semester, or a summer class, in order to be considered a sophomore next year. I’m hopeful that she will be able to pick the classes she needs prior to the deadline this Wednesday!</p>