Embedded in the heart of downtown New Haven, Yale University‘s campus features elegant Gothic architecture, plenty of well-kept green spaces, and amenities like several performance venues and the university art gallery, which includes more than 200,000 works.
Founded more than 300 years ago, the country’s third oldest college — after Harvard University and the College of William and Mary — is ranked No. 3 among N ational Universities by U.S. News.
It’s also one of the most selective: Only about 6.7 percent of those who applied for the Class of 2019 were admitted.
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While students are high-achieving and driven, “no one is rooting for anyone at Yale to fail,” says senior Tobias Holden, a molecular, cellular and developmental biology major from Greenville, South Carolina. “People actually are encouraged to work together.”
That sense of community is fostered by Yale’s residential college system. All first-year students are randomly assigned to one of 12 colleges, each with its own residence hall, dining facility, gym and library plus some distinct touches: Morse and Ezra Stiles colleges, for example, share a music recording studio. Faculty members serve as so-called college heads and deans, living in the residences and hosting events at their homes such as teas featuring artists, ambassadors and other high-profile guests.
Students often hang out at each facility’s “buttery,” a game room and common area that serves cheap late-night food. Two new residential colleges are under construction and expected to open in the fall of 2017, adding space for about 800 undergraduates that Yale is adding to the student body by 2020.
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About 84 percent of Yale’s 5,500 undergrads live on the 343-acre central campus. All enroll at Yale College, which offers more than 80 majors. The university has about 6,800 graduate students in 13 additional schools.
Undergrads must complete courses in the humanities and arts, sciences, social sciences, writing, quantitative reasoning and a foreign language. About three-quarters of classes have fewer than 20 students, and with a 6-to-1 student-faculty ratio, “professors really are looking out for you,” says senior Samantha Bensinger, a philosophy major from Chicago.
That said, “you have to make the first move” to get to know faculty members one-on-one or to pursue undergraduate research opportunities, says recent mechanical engineering grad Carlene Huard, from Danbury, New Hampshire. The school does offer plenty of resources to help students navigate, from a network of faculty and peer advisers to Dwight Hall, Yale’s center for public service and social justice, which helps students pursue community service opportunities.
Students say it’s a myth that all Yalies are wealthy Northeasterners. In the Class of 2019, for instance, about 11 percent of undergrads come from abroad, more than 40 percent identify as a minority, and about 1 in 7 are first-generation college students.
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Entertainment options are plentiful, with hundreds of student-led organizations and more than 50 performance groups that put on plays, concerts, dances and other events. The Division I Bulldogs compete in the Ivy League in about three dozen sports.
Yale is “large enough that you have those kinds of niche groups, but it’s small enough that you really do know a lot of people,” says senior Joe English, a global affairs and ethnicity, race and migration major from Galway, New York. And there are plenty of ways to escape the Yale “bubble.” Students can hike, bike or picnic in East Rock Park, catch a concert at College Street Music Hall, or head to New York City, 80 miles away by car or train.
The annual Yale-Harvard football game is a must-attend event. Yalies also enjoy midnight snowball fights and traditions like the Yale Symphony Orchestra Halloween Show; costumed undergrads listen to the music group perform a soundtrack to a student-made silent film at midnight on Oct. 31. “We take our work seriously, but not ourselves seriously,” Huard says.
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This story is excerpted from the U.S. News “Best Colleges 2017” guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings and data.
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Connecticut College Road Trip: Yale University originally appeared on usnews.com
