princeton vs yale?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Princeton, because Reunions at Princeton blow Yale reunions out of the water. Twenty plus years since graduation, going to Princeton Reunions every May or June is always the most fun I have all year.

I came on here to say this! I'm a Yale alum (chose between Yale and another school- dismissed Princeton because I was naive and 17). I have a lot of Princeton friends and am very envious of their reunions, which are representative of their ties among their alumni. I also appreciate Princeton's campus. It's much more compact and accessible. Yale's academic buildings are strewn up a long, skinny stretch of hill and it doesn't have the same campus feel as Princeton, nor the same beautiful surroundings off-campus. I feel like I spent my entire Yale career waiting at lights to cross the street. Yale is very focused on the undergraduate experience compared to Harvard, Penn or Columbia, but Princeton even more so than Yale because they don't have a law, medical or business school.

The reason I didn't consider Princeton was because I was intimidated by eating clubs and worried about whether I could find a group of friends to do that with. In hindsight, Yale was just as socially fragmented within its residential colleges and I managed that, so it would have been fine.

Final petty reason: Yale has terrible licensing and their gear has sucked for 20 years since they turned everything over to B&N, plus they're an Under Armour school and that stuff fits weirdly and looks awful. All of my classmates complain about it. Princeton is a Nike school and does a much better job with licensing and has better gear because they still have an independent bookstore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If you really want a top CS program, you'd do CS at Princeton, not Yale, but it's very demanding

Been there, done that. It’s way too theoretical, very disconnected from the real world. Lots of “rigor” for very little real world skill building.

+1

If your kid wants to do CS, neither Yale nor Princeton is a good choice.

Princeton is top 10 for CS.

Well, the Princeton CS grad I was responding to clearly did not feel that the training had any real world relevance even if Princeton is rated top 10 for CS.

There are more detailed and thoughtful posts about this topic (the extent to which CS at Princeton emphasized research over applications) on Quora than will ever get posted on DCUM. It’s a top CS department and certainly stronger than CS at Yale, but some CS students may be better served elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Yale.

Of course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yale.

Of course.

explain your reasoning if you want anyone to take you seriously

[Anonymous]

Congrats! I hear of more kids getting into Yale and not Princeton vs. vice versa so wonderful to have a choice of both. My kid (Yale legacy) had the same choice, and chose Princeton (CS major although started as humanities). I was initially a little disappointed, but it was the absolute right and best choice for my DC. I'd say definitely Princeton for CS. And they can minor in CS if decide to go the SPIA route. Yale is still not strong in STEM and although they are trying to invest, they're a bit late to the game. Yale looks beautiful on sunny days and may seem "more fun" as Bulldog days are 2 nights/3 days and Preview has not gone back to an overnight visit since Covid. So not exactly apples to apples comparison.

[Anonymous]

Princeton grad here. Princeton was the only Ivy that I applied to for undergraduate, but when I visited Yale friends (undergraduate and law school), I really liked the look and feel of Yale. I know some brilliant people who went to Harvard, too, but the school itself always seemed less welcoming than Princeton and Yale.

In any event, the things about Yale that seemed/seem more appealing were/are: (1) the four-year residential college gives students a home for four years without forcing them to make the decisions that Princeton students eventually have to make about whether to join an eating club, stay at a residential college, or go "independent"; (2) the liberal arts focus is stronger; and (3) the architecture is more impressive (i.e., the buildings tend to be taller and more ornate). The things I liked/like more about Princeton were/are: (1) the campus as a whole is beautiful and just about the perfect size/scale; (2) the focus on undergraduate education is even greater than at Yale; and (3) you are close to both NYC and Philadelphia, and not in rather gritty New Haven.

In any event, OP's kid has a great choice. If I'd gotten into both, and attended sessions for admitted students first at Princeton and then at Yale, I probably would have ended up at Yale, if only because it would have been more in my head when I was finally forced to make a decision. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in Princeton and was shocked when I recently visited with my kid as literally a third of the campus has been torn down and is under contraction. New is nice, of course, but as my kid pointed out, these new buildings look generically like every other campus. So points to Yale for campus ambience. Personally have eliminated Princeton from my kid’s list due to bad reports from some current STEM students but may be fine for social science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Princeton, because Reunions at Princeton blow Yale reunions out of the water. Twenty plus years since graduation, going to Princeton Reunions every May or June is always the most fun I have all year.

I came on here to say this! I'm a Yale alum (chose between Yale and another school- dismissed Princeton because I was naive and 17). I have a lot of Princeton friends and am very envious of their reunions, which are representative of their ties among their alumni. I also appreciate Princeton's campus. It's much more compact and accessible. Yale's academic buildings are strewn up a long, skinny stretch of hill and it doesn't have the same campus feel as Princeton, nor the same beautiful surroundings off-campus. I feel like I spent my entire Yale career waiting at lights to cross the street. Yale is very focused on the undergraduate experience compared to Harvard, Penn or Columbia, but Princeton even more so than Yale because they don't have a law, medical or business school.

The reason I didn't consider Princeton was because I was intimidated by eating clubs and worried about whether I could find a group of friends to do that with. In hindsight, Yale was just as socially fragmented within its residential colleges and I managed that, so it would have been fine.

Final petty reason: Yale has terrible licensing and their gear has sucked for 20 years since they turned everything over to B&N, plus they're an Under Armour school and that stuff fits weirdly and looks awful. All of my classmates complain about it. Princeton is a Nike school and does a much better job with licensing and has better gear because they still have an independent bookstore.

Same here! I'm a Yale alum, secretly regret choosing it over Princeton (got in SCEA) and am also envious of Princeton reunions. Princeton alums have such strong school spirit and very loyal. I have mixed feelings about Yale's residential college system, and while Cross Campus is pretty especially on sunny days, Princeton's campus is much nicer and I read they have started building a new state-of-the-art engineering campus. Both are great schools -- your child should go with their "gut".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in Princeton and was shocked when I recently visited with my kid as literally a third of the campus has been torn down and is under contraction. New is nice, of course, but as my kid pointed out, these new buildings look generically like every other campus. So points to Yale for campus ambience. Personally have eliminated Princeton from my kid’s list due to bad reports from some current STEM students but may be fine for social science.

There is a lot of new construction but it's certainly not 1/3 of the campus and the dorms that were torn down were among the least attractive on campus. It's not like they are tearing down any of the Gothic dorms, and the newer dorms you call generic have features that older dorms often lack.

And Yale was certainly a construction site when Benjamin Franklin and Pauli Murray were getting built.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in Princeton and was shocked when I recently visited with my kid as literally a third of the campus has been torn down and is under contraction. New is nice, of course, but as my kid pointed out, these new buildings look generically like every other campus. So points to Yale for campus ambience. Personally have eliminated Princeton from my kid’s list due to bad reports from some current STEM students but may be fine for social science.

There is a lot of new construction but it's certainly not 1/3 of the campus and the dorms that were torn down were among the least attractive on campus. It's not like they are tearing down any of the Gothic dorms, and the newer dorms you call generic have features that older dorms often lack.

And Yale was certainly a construction site when Benjamin Franklin and Pauli Murray were getting built.

No need to be so defensive. It felt like a third of the campus to me and I am pretty familiar with it, having grown up in the town. It’s far more than the removal of one set of dorms. In any case, it will be complete in the next year or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in Princeton and was shocked when I recently visited with my kid as literally a third of the campus has been torn down and is under contraction. New is nice, of course, but as my kid pointed out, these new buildings look generically like every other campus. So points to Yale for campus ambience. Personally have eliminated Princeton from my kid’s list due to bad reports from some current STEM students but may be fine for social science.

There is a lot of new construction but it's certainly not 1/3 of the campus and the dorms that were torn down were among the least attractive on campus. It's not like they are tearing down any of the Gothic dorms, and the newer dorms you call generic have features that older dorms often lack.

And Yale was certainly a construction site when Benjamin Franklin and Pauli Murray were getting built.

No need to be so defensive. It felt like a third of the campus to me and I am pretty familiar with it, having grown up in the town. It’s far more than the removal of one set of dorms. In any case, it will be complete in the next year or two.

I won't argue over relative acreage or your perceptions thereof. And the current construction is more than the removal of one set of dorms, but a fair amount of the ongoing construction is the renovation or expansion of existing buildings that will largely retain their prior appearance. The biggest project is a new residential college, Hobson College, that will replace First (formerly Wilson) College, which was the most generic set of dorms then on campus.

At various times in the not too distant past, both Princeton and Yale have built new residential colleges (Whitman in Princeton's case, and Franklin and Murray in Yale's case) that were intended to look like older, existing dorms. At then at other times, they've built more modern dorms. Neither has dorms in a single style, and that's fine. It's not like there's a shortage of Gothic architecture on either campus, especially Princeton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If you really want a top CS program, you'd do CS at Princeton, not Yale, but it's very demanding

Been there, done that. It’s way too theoretical, very disconnected from the real world. Lots of “rigor” for very little real world skill building.

+1

If your kid wants to do CS, neither Yale nor Princeton is a good choice.

Princeton is top 10 for CS.

Well, the Princeton CS grad I was responding to clearly did not feel that the training had any real world relevance even if Princeton is rated top 10 for CS.

Nonsense.

I've heard the same thing from a Caltech grad. They are theoretical - heavy on theory with no hands-on trainings. If you ask the young Sheldons to connect printers to PC for you in the office, they are totally lost. Not theoretical enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If you really want a top CS program, you'd do CS at Princeton, not Yale, but it's very demanding

Been there, done that. It’s way too theoretical, very disconnected from the real world. Lots of “rigor” for very little real world skill building.

+1

If your kid wants to do CS, neither Yale nor Princeton is a good choice.

Princeton is top 10 for CS.

Well, the Princeton CS grad I was responding to clearly did not feel that the training had any real world relevance even if Princeton is rated top 10 for CS.

Nonsense.

I've heard the same thing from a Caltech grad. They are theoretical - heavy on theory with no hands-on trainings. If you ask the young Sheldons to connect printers to PC for you in the office, they are totally lost. Not theoretical enough.

I think you meant "Not practical enough."

The question really ought to be whether Princeton CS graduates acquire skills that will benefit them later in their careers and professional lives, not whether they'll make the best IT support staff on the call line.

This line of criticism of CS at Princeton - which OP's son apparently is not considering as a major at Princeton - aligns with a common attack on Yale Law. It's one of the most prestigious law schools in the country, but its graduates are often criticized as having learned no practical lawyering skills, to the extent where law firm partners would rather trust someone with a paralegal certificate to file a brief rather than leave it up to a Yale graduate.

[Anonymous]

I would decide based on the campus. Princeton if you want a bucolic country club or garden vibe, Yale if you want more energy and a viable off-campus scene.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would decide based on the campus. Princeton if you want a bucolic country club or garden vibe, Yale if you want more energy and a viable off-campus scene.

Have you been to New Haven? No thanks to that off-campus scene.