Yale University

Date: Jan 19 2007
Major: Political Science (This Major's Salary over time)
So I have several general, sometimes unrelated points to make here. We'll start with people:

People: Any singular description of "the people" at yale (or probably any university) is wrong. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone here is a genius (although, of course there are some). There are nerds jocks, people who drink, people who don't, people who are shy, people who are outgoing, and even more people who are largely normal. That being said, everyone has at least one reason why they got in here. This can .be being from Uzbekistan, building pumpkin trebuchets, participating in scientific research, playing football, or any of a variety of characteristics that makes them "interesting", at least to the admission's committee (and probably to your conversation with said yalie as well).

Social Life: Is fairly varied as well. There is drinking, and more frat involvement than you'll see in the guidebooks, although they come nowhere near dominating the social scene (about 10-15% of the studfent body is in a frat i think). They do host numerous parties to which the entire campus is invited. There are of course numerous concerts plays and other cultural experiences should you be interested in more highbrow entertainment, as well as dances and stuff not hosted by frats, and of course chatting and watching TV or a movie in a friends' roomm or any of the basic stuff like that.

Academics: Avg class size 17ish. Your average class size: 50ish. This is because you are more likely to be in bigger classes, as more people are in them for a reason (that is, you are much more likely to take, say, Strategy Technology and War than intermediate Akkadian and so is everyone else. That said, as you get older, your classes will probably shrink, as seniors and juniors can get in to the smaller seminars that freshmen and sophomores get booted from. The professors are, in my experience, very good and knowledgable, and often renowned in their fields. They will rarelygo out of their way to get to know you, but they make it reasonably easy for you to go out of your way to get to know them. The difficulty and workload is extremely variable. If you want to, you can give yourself about 15 hours of work a week (or less), or you can completely bury yourself. Likewise, you can probably give yourself a fairly high GPA, or you can take hard courses and get a lower GPA. There are, of course, a very wide variety of courses to choose from, which is a plus, especially if you want to take intermediate Akkadian.

New Haven: Is fine, if you don't go more than 1 block from campus. Within one b lock is the usual smattering of bookstores and pizza places and coffee places and ice cream etc, and a litttle bit farther is a movie theater. If you want to go clubbing, or go to world renoiwned theatres go to Columbia.