Yale University | Student Reviews | Best College

Student Profile

Betsy

Class: Junior
Major: Engineering
Gender: F

High School: Craig High School
Transfer Student: N

Big Picture

One of my favorite things about Yale is the residential college system. When you are accepted , you are sent your residential college assignment along with your acceptance letter. Each freshman is randomly placed into one of 12 residential colleges: Silliman, Timothy Dwight, Trumbull, Saybrook, Ezra Stiles, Morse, Berkeley, Branford, Jonathan Edwards, Davenport, Calhoun, and Pierson. This becomes your community for the next four years. You get to know the approximately 120 students in your class in your college (for example, Silliman class of 2010) extremely well, and they are your support group through the good and the bad. For a girl from an incredibly small town, like myself, it made going to college a lot less scary than it could have been. In fact, the frat scene here is much smaller than in other colleges, in part because we get that brother-sister feel in our residential colleges. Plus, there is layer upon layer of administrative support in the colleges for all you academic and social problems. The system makes it easy to make friends, and everyone is so wonderful-- how could you not??

Academic Life

I've heard some Yalies tell people not to lose their head, because even though the work is hard, you will probably get a decent grade in the end if you show up and do the work. All of the people who say this are liberal arts majors. In the liberal arts, in my experience, it is easy to get a B, but hard to get a solid A. However, the sciences are a different story. You might work your a** off, and get a C. It's okay! Not the end of the world. Many Yalies do not realize this and end up switching out to easier majors after a couple of poor midterms. Stick with it, and Yale will reward you with some amazing classes and professors.

Student Body

I love the students at Yale. They are the reason I am here. Dartmouth was my dream school throughout the application process. But then, upon my acceptance to Yale, I was introduced to BulldogChat, where accepted prefrosh can chat online with other prefrosh and a couple of Yalies that have the same interests. I got in that chatroom, and it was all over for me. The conversation was so witty and quick! They lol-ed my dry humor that had, more often than not, been met with blank stares in high school. They were amazing, wanted to help people all over the world-- and had done it! They were so inspiring that I made my decision then and there-- Yale was the school for me.