Back in my day the Yale Police understood that their reason for existing was so that New Haven Police wouldn't bust people for underage drinking around campus.

My lasting impression of Yale and New Haven comes from an experience I had there just after college. A bunch of my friends from undergrad went to NH to visit another classmate who was in graduate school at Yale. After an afternoon stop at a bar/rest following a football game, some locals tried to mug us as we were walking back to our friend’s place. I don’t think they got they response they were expecting. Perhaps the typical Yale grad/undergrad student would fork over their wallets but since the would-be muggers didn’t have weapons, it didn’t end well for them.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I got into Yale early action back in the 90s but attended an orientation weekend for admitted students and was completely weirded out. I went elsewhere.

Congratulations you got into Yale. You’re wonderful, smart and talented.

It’s crazy, how back then, you could actually get into Yale and then turn it down! I wasn’t anything super special. Excellent grades and high SAT scores at an east coast public school. That’s basically it. No special talents, no diversity, no legacy, not recruited for sports. No hooks at all.

This was me too, except when I got in EA, I attended that February weekend and fell in love. Maybe it was just the right kind of weird for me. My parents, who were paying, hated the place and only agreed to send me there if I agreed to graduate early (another thing you could do in the 90s -- skip a whole year of college with a mere 10 APs). Innocent times!

My experience tracked with the Harvard PP -- I felt that Yale undergrads were "the point" of the institution rather than just one of many (mostly graduate) programs. (Yale Law School was the one exception -- that was a crown jewel program. But no others stood out to my undergrad self.)

I'd send my kids there now (if legacy preference survives long enough to help them). And if they could skip a year of undergrad using AP credits, I would definitely urge them to do it, but then do a 1-year master's or something rather than diving blindly into the job market -- a thing for which Yale critically failed to prepare its undergrads, back in my day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I loved Yale. Was more aware while off campus but spent plenty of post midnight days walking home alone or with others and never had any scares.

Anybody else just sick of Yale alums, both on DCUM and in real life, gushing about how much they loooove Yale and how much they miss it!?!

It is nauseating!!! The rest of us don’t care to hear how great Yale is.

I mean what did you expect? With a post title like this one, OP was basically begging for such a response. Yale people seem to have a strong bond to their college, at least based on my experience.

I have found the responses from the alums to be quite balanced in fact. Nobody claims Yale is perfect.

If OP had started a post with beware of my alma mater, which is Penn State, alums would have ripped it to shreds LOL

Anonymous wrote:The more recent Yale grads I know are the least annoying and most humble of the HYP group.

+1

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I would never encourage my kids to apply to colleges in shitty parts of town, regardless of prestige. Yale, Johns Hopkins, or Trinity, etc. There are so many great universities in great settings! Absolutely no reason to apply to iffy ones. But then I’ve never been in thrall to rankings.

Ah, yes, go ahead and raise more sheltered kids who don’t know how to deal with the real world. That’s exactly what this country and the world need.

Yale is definitely not for them. In fact, no college is.

Do you live in Cherry Hill, Baltimore, and send your kids to the public schools there? No? Why are you raising such sheltered kids who don't know how to deal with the real world? Sheesh stop being so fragile and move to Cherry Hill.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got into Yale early action back in the 90s but attended an orientation weekend for admitted students and was completely weirded out. I went elsewhere.

Congratulations you got into Yale. You’re wonderful, smart and talented.

It’s crazy, how back then, you could actually get into Yale and then turn it down! I wasn’t anything super special. Excellent grades and high SAT scores at an east coast public school. That’s basically it. No special talents, no diversity, no legacy, not recruited for sports. No hooks at all.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes, Yale sounds like a truly horrific place to me. Please don’t let your kids apply! The acceptance rate is too low already

+1

I wish nonsense like this would turn people away. Yale is my kid’s dream school!

To be honest, crime concerns and lack of STEM strength have turned people and away and pushed Yale to the bottom of HYPSM, and I’ve seen more than a few posters just using HPSM to refer to the best schools (HPSM are equally strong in humanities and STEM and have “the best of both worlds”).

Reality: no one says HPSM except trolls trying to boost lower Ivies.

I didn’t go to any of these schools, but I’m sick of the Yale, Columbia and UChicago bashing. It’s so stupid.

It should just be HS at this point anyway. They are great in every program across STEM, the humanities, and social sciences in a way the others just are not.
Yale still belongs with that 2nd group of YPM though. Remember that HYP is actually the OG group.

For undergrad, I’d pick Yale and Princeton any day over Harvard regardless of major. Have heard from enough Harvard College alums how much they have hated it. Can’t speak about Stanford.

+1

I’m a Harvard College alum (graduated in the early 2000s) and while bashing Yale, the safety school as we used to call it, is always fun I couldn’t agree more with the statement above. While at Harvard College, I didn’t feel that undergrads were the focus of the university. It felt like just another school among the graduate and professional schools. The feeling is quite different at Yale based on my observations from many campus visits and close relationships with Yalies. At Yale, Yale College is the heart and soul of the university and I could always feel that when I was on campus.

At my Harvard graduation, my friend group was split - half loved their experience, the other half, me included, not so much. My kid expressed interest in attending Harvard, I flat out told him that I wouldn’t pay for it for undergrad. It’s overrated. I’d pay for Yale, Princeton, some SLACS, even some state honours programs, but Harvard undergrad - no way in hell!

Also, some people commented on here how Yale has been coasting on its name. Perhaps. Watching Harvard over the past 20 years, I feel they have been resting on their laurels. Recently, the son of one of the senior partners at my firm got admitted to Harvard College. When the kid tried to talk to admission officers and others and ask why he should attend, everyone said “well, it’s Harvard”. That to me is coasting. It’s not the 1950s anymore. With college coasts at an all time high, with elite employers opening up access beyond the Ivy League and with driven smart kids from state schools getting similar career outcomes to Ivy League students (acknowledging it is harder for them), just saying “well, it’s Harvard” is not good enough for me.

Anonymous wrote:I got into Yale early action back in the 90s but attended an orientation weekend for admitted students and was completely weirded out. I went elsewhere.

Congratulations you got into Yale. You’re wonderful, smart and talented.

Anonymous wrote:Yale is lowering standards for special interest groups like athletes big time. The rich white variety.

Oh, yes, you’re right. Yale is the only one that’s doing that.

Yale is lowering standards for special interest groups like athletes big time. The rich white variety.

Anonymous wrote:Remember that Harvard and maybe Stanford now are the only schools with the global name recognition Yale has. That doesn't mean Princeton and MIT are not as good but Yale isn't going anywhere with the brand name and massive endowment with total assets only behind Stanford and Harvard.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-top-endowment-funds/#google_vignette

Geez…here I am with no dog in this fight trying to defend Yale and now someone has to drop a douche post.

I am pretty sure any person you want to know throughout the world knows about Princeton, MIT, Ivy League, etc. Actually, UCLA is the most recognized school internationally.

Also, endowment only matters when you hit a threshold that you are funding all the priorities you need to fund as a university. All the schools with massive endowments that just grow and are not put to good use are of no incremental value.

I got into Yale early action back in the 90s but attended an orientation weekend for admitted students and was completely weirded out. I went elsewhere.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I loved Yale. Was more aware while off campus but spent plenty of post midnight days walking home alone or with others and never had any scares.

Anybody else just sick of Yale alums, both on DCUM and in real life, gushing about how much they loooove Yale and how much they miss it!?!

It is nauseating!!! The rest of us don’t care to hear how great Yale is.

Ouch. I think you have some issues that need addressing.

Anonymous wrote:
I would never encourage my kids to apply to colleges in shitty parts of town, regardless of prestige. Yale, Johns Hopkins, or Trinity, etc. There are so many great universities in great settings! Absolutely no reason to apply to iffy ones. But then I’ve never been in thrall to rankings.

Ah, yes, go ahead and raise more sheltered kids who don’t know how to deal with the real world. That’s exactly what this country and the world need.

Yale is definitely not for them. In fact, no college is.