For God, For Country, For Yale

Introduction
Yale's a great place for a well-rounded person who's passionate about a lot of different things, and who's looking for a great environment to pursue them. I feel like Yale is a place that's more about passion than competition- it's far less competitive than my high school.

If you're considering Yale, ask yourself these questions: How do I feel about cold weather? Can I really take several months of snow? Am I the type of person who wants a well-rounded college experience, or would I really rather just concentrate on an academic interest? How important is being close to home? How excited do I get when I look at pictures of Yale? How intimidated am I at the idea of going?

If you're okay with cold weather, you like to be involved in more than one thing at once, you'd rather go out (or stay in and have just as good a time with your friends) than study on most Friday nights, and if you don't have a problem being as far from home as you may be if you go to school in Connecticut, Yale may be a good match for you.

Campus Life and Social Life
The party scene at Yale is pretty decent. Because most residential colleges are set up with suites (multiple bedrooms off of a common room), most people have enough room to throw a good-sized party in their common rooms. Additionally, many of the residential colleges have designated "Party Suites"- very large suites that have incredibly big common rooms. In many colleges, students vote to determine who lives in the party suite, with the agreement that they will throw a certain number of parties open to the whole college that year.

There are several clubs nearby, including Toad's, which often lands bands like Hootie and the Blowfish, Phantom Planet, and Matchbox 20 to play. If you like dancing and good food in a club, the newly opened Hula Hanks is a great Hawaii-themed club that doubles as a restaurant. There are also a variety of martini and karaoke bars, as well as some really fun places to go out to dinner or dessert.

Weekends differ depending on who you are. I'm not a huge partier, so I typically go out once or twice during a week. I usually go out to one half-price martini or karaoke night during the week, and then on weekends, usually end up hanging out with friends, either at a small on-campus party, or just playing board games and watching Sex and the City DVD's in someone's room. There's also a lot of opportunities to watch theater or musical performances if that's your thing, and New York is an hour and a half train ride away. Academics
I've really haven't heard a bad thing about any of the departments. The professors are amazing. To get a teaching job at Yale, they're usually among the leaders in their fields, but despite their research prowess, most of them are also really passionate about teaching and really open to talking to students. There's something really incredible about having dinner with a world famous professor, or getting to throw ideas around with one of the up-and-comers in the field.

At Yale, there are also tons of research opportunities. I work in a cognition lab, and I got the position simply by emailing the professor and telling her I was interested. Out of my six roommates, five of us work with professors on research (one in a biophysics lab, three in psychology labs, and one doing research on Civil War history). Professors love to talk to students, and I've gotten the opportunity to go over to the houses of three of my professors, eat a meal with a half dozen of them, and travel with at least one.

Student Body
The typical student at Yale is shockingly normal. When I came to school here, I secretly thought it would be full of freakishly smart people, and that somehow, I would be one of the only ones who also doubled as a pretty normal person, who you might not peg for the academic type if you met me in a non-academic setting. In other words, I expected people here to be a little weird, and yet, when I got here, everyone was really normal. Most girls that I know here played a sport in high school, though the same doesn't hold true for the guys. The average Yale person is pretty much like a double agent- you can be friends with someone for a long time and never realize that they have this other life as a musical prodigy, or that they write books on the side, or that they're an actress, until you see them on TV, or read their book, or hear them play the violin. You just never realize any of this because people here are normal, friendly, chilled out types first, and incredibly smart second.

Yale students are also typically very well-rounded, and there aren't as many "well-lopsided" (really, really great at just one thing) kids here as at other comparable schools. Yale Admissions seems to look for kids who are going to be involved in a variety of activities- they may take on a research job or write a book, but they'll also be playing IM's and volunteering at a local elementary school at the same time.

I do have to say, however, that the average Yale male is not all that attractive (and also tends to be kind of short). Personally, I think it has a gorgeous female population, but I may be a bit biased.

In Closing...
I'm getting ready to graduate, and this has been the best four years of my life. I've met incredible people, I've become close with great professors, and I've loved it from day one. I think this will probably always be my favorite place in the world.