As freshman, she will probably want to go to Harvard-Yale the first year. My D went. It is indeed an experience. It will also give her an insight into how they live at Harvard and give her a new appreciation for Yale (that is of course that by then she would have been at Yale for almost 4 months).
My D does not go to football games, only the Yale Harvard game for the experience. She would not be caught dead at another football game. This is not something you’ll be able to determine ahead of time for her. It will depend on the friends she makes and what they are doing. If her friend group is going, she will want to go.
I also caution about making plans ahead of time for travel since there are so many variables. My D got stuck with a final on December 22 at 2:00. Didn’t get home until early a.m. on the 23rd. Her Korean professor let the international students take the exam early so they could get flights, but this was negotiated at the beginning of the semester. Domestic students had to take the exam at the scheduled time. While students do try to take classes that have early exams or no exam requirement, this is not always possible due to classes required for their major or a class they really, really want to take.
You should know relatively early about when she is coming home for Christmas break since the exam schedule is in the Blue Book and she will see whether an exam or paper is required in the syllabus. Even with my kid being a train ride away, I wait to see what she is doing first. It does end up with tickets being a little more sometimes.
These are typical pre-freshman parent jitters. Believe me, and other CC parents will testify, when they go off to school, our day to day control of them diminishes greatly and we just kind of learn to go with the flow.
Good luck.
This may should completely nuts but have any of you parents just flown in and had Thanskgiving in Ct? We are Ca so it may work better. Would the Yale area be holiday friendly?..
And I know my kiddo will want to do THE GAME…would be horrified if we asked him to skip it.
@tonymom - interesting thought. Never heard of anyone doing that though I am sure it must have been done. Do you have relatives on the East Coast? If you did that, I would go to NYC and have your kid come down there. Then you could go to the Macy’s Parade and do the whole NYC thing.
@Tperry1982
Relatives in NJ, and VT. I like your NYC suggestion. Had an uncle who lived in Milford, Ct but he’s long passed away 
Great childhood memories of traveling the Merrit Parkway and “feeding” the toll booths…a novelty for a Cali kid 
I have a friend who flies from CA to Boston to see her college kids for Thanksgiving so no reason you could not do that at Yale.
My D went to her first Yale football game when we were up for Parents weekend Junior year. She then went to The Game, but left with her friends at half time. She tried to go to The Game at H last year, but could not get a ticket. She had fun there anyway.
She takes the train home so we do not have to purchase that far ahead. She gave herself plenty of time to get back to New Haven and have a day to rest and pack to come home for Thanksgiving.
She usually brings some work home at the end of the semester - papers that can be handed in online. Only one time she had a final on the very last day.
It’s not a strange idea at all. We live too far away for my son to come home on Fall break or Thanksgiving break (especially because he would not want to miss the football game.) Freshman year my husband went to NH for a few days over Thanksgiving break and visited my son and saw the campus for the first time, and then had Thanksgiving dinner with relatives in NJ. Sophomore year I met my son in NYC over break.
@Tperry1982 Thank you for the words of wisdom! I was reflecting on my own college travels - I went to school 1700 miles from home and my parents would make ticket reservations when I knew my schedule, usually just 6 weeks ahead of time. I typically went home only for Christmas and summer breaks (never had a week off for Thanksgiving). It all worked out in the end. I think it is such a relief to know where my daughter will be for the next four years that I am in planning mode, but I need to just relax and allow things to unfold in her first semester.
There’s that five day break in October too, when some kids go home. That’s never been an option for my son because he has team commitments.
Normally, I’d say Thanksgiving isn’t worth it, but they have a long enough break, even with Harvard-Yale, that we fly our kid home. Another option to consider: we send him back early to avoid airport chaos and sky-high airfares. I’ve found that a Sunday to Friday or Saturday trip can be booked at a reasonable fare in early October.
It is a bit trickier when it’s in Cambridge–and the celebrating afterwards isn’t nearly as fun at Harvard–but there’s no way my boys would miss the Big Game. As far as the end of the semester goes. as Tperry points out, she should know pretty early on in the semester whether her teacher allows early finals or not. My son has always been able to schedule his earlier, though I think he needed to ask for it a couple times (and he doesn’t study Korean 
).
I saw the 5 day break on the schedule, which is pretty close to family weekend. When I was a freshman, I wanted to fully embrace my new “adult” life and I would not have wanted to come home so soon! I suspect my daughter will feel the same way and I am going to encourage her to stay in the NE. She is an avid mountaineer/outdoor enthusiast, so maybe a trip with the Yale Outdoors Club? That’s up to her, of course, but it seems like a great time to relax on campus, take a small trip, and recharge.
Lots of kids stay in New Haven for the October break. As you said @Faulkner1897, a lot of the kids hang out in NYC or go to the mountains, etc. There is plenty to do. The dining halls are open for all breaks except for Christmas, when the campus closes down. My D always comes home, no matter how short the break. Still a momma’s girl and she likes to catch up with her high school friends. I also usually send her back a day early to take into consideration delays on the train, etc. The worse thing is having a traveling delay and having to get up the next morning and go to class. I always send her back the Saturday before a break is over, gives her Sunday to re-adjust. For Christmas, she will go back on Sunday, since they have Monday (MLK Day off).
When I was at Yale we did not have the October break and Thanksgiving was only Wednesday - Sunday. They added the extra days either my Sophomore or Junior year.
To change the subject completely - I wonder if anyone could help with a Financial Aid query, please?
When our daughter was applying for US universities (we don’t live in the US) we had to fill in loads of paperwork, some was common to all applications and some was specific to each university, but it all had to be done by 15 February, if I remember correctly.
She’s now enjoying a good Financial Aid package (the only way we could afford Yale!) and we know we’ll need to fill in some forms again, ready for the 2016-2017 academic year.
Can anyone point us in the right direction for the forms, please? Are they available yet? And is the deadline still 15 February? Do we still use the Common App website, for example?
I feel I should know the answers to this but the whole Financial Aid thing has been very confusing so far!
http://finaid.yale.edu/applying-aid/continuing-students
The website was redone. It looks like the early deadline for everyone is April 8, and you get the award notification by June 3. It is only in February the year you apply so that they can get your aid package to you for comparing offers.
The Common App website would not be used any more. All forms should be available from the links on the Yale website. Most forms are available now. In fact we were just gathering info. for the CSS yesterday. But our taxes will not be finalized for a while. It is much less rushed in returning years.
Thank you! That makes sense.
Now just need to dig out the CSS user name and password…!
@fro123, this is beyond OT, but I wanted to chime in about username and password. I use a password app (RoboForm, but there are others) that keeps my passwords on my PC, iPhone, iPad, Mac synchronized and lets me fill in much form information. I won’t say more, because it’s OT, but it has been an appreciated tool with my logins and the various accounts I keep track of for 3 college kids.
So this may seem like a stupid question but what is the point of doing both the CSS and Fasfa?
Does Yale drawn on the Fasfa to put together FA packages or is it just another layer to confirm CSS info? It just seems redundant…
Sorry - can’t help there as Internationals don’t get involved in Fasfa…
Thanks for the tip @IxnayBob!
@Memmsmom - The part about looking for your publicly-educated daughter to struggle against her prep-school classmates is interesting to me. My son (now 1 semester into Yale) had some nice encouragement in his freshman comp. class. We thought he was bright and well-prepared, but really didn’t know how he might stack up against his peers that had the benefit of prep school or generations of academia. He’s only one generation away from farm life and we don’t know another soul that went from our public school to Ivy. He told me on the phone some time in October that the freshman comp. classes are pretty small (there are about a dozen other kids in his class) but that all the sections seemed to be on about the same schedule. Everyone was writing their first papers at about the same time and getting the graded papers back at about the same time. One of his suitemates said that when his section got their papers back, folks were very shocked with the grades… there were a lot of C’s.
It must have created enough of a buzz that the professor got involved with the discussion, in which he said, “Look, department-wide, my colleagues and I decided that we would only give A’s to papers that were ready to be published.”
At this point, my son whispered into the phone, “That made me feel better about my A-minus.”
This story makes me burst with pride - 75% for my son and 25% for my public school system, with 70% of the population on free/reduced lunch fees.
I have an odd question. Why is it that Yale does not have a traditional “Deans list”? I have found articles about the time that they decided to eliminate it but I have not found any reasons for it. Not that it really matters all in all but as my kids friends are all seeing names being posted or not in the local paper, it might be nice to have a reason behind the questions she has already started getting. I figured that some of the alums or more seasoned parents might have answers. Thanks!
When did Yale eliminate the Dean’s list? It must have been a long time ago, because I’m pretty sure they didn’t have one back in the late '70s. I think it just isn’t necessary–there’s enough competition at Yale already (although more focused on extracurriculars than on grades).