Yale University Top Questions

The academics can't be beat! Professors are engaging, students are passionate, the readings are generally interesting. There are large lecture classes and smaller seminars, and both are a great way to learn.

It's an Ivy League university, so obviously the work is very demanding. We all spend plenty of time in the libraries. Getting to know professors is not a given, as it might be at a smaller college. However, if you make the effort to go to office hours or get in touch with your professors, they are more than willing to spend time with you. I've had a lot of really good and inspiring conversations with my professors. There are also a surprisingly large amount of small seminar classes. Our academic requirements are pretty easy to fill, as you have distribution requirements instead of specific class requirements. I think it's a good system. There are some amazing and famous professors here and TONS of cool classes to take. When we all first get our "Blue book" (course book) in the mail over the summer, we make huge long lists of classes we want to take. The first two weeks of class are "shopping period," which means you get to scope out classes and see if you'll like them. There are some pretty incredible classes- I took one in which I got to go to Ecuador over spring break to explore the rainforest and bring back plants to research all summer (and best of all, it was all paid for!)

hard and lots of it

Yale's music department is one of the best in the world. I love it. I've had some other awesome professors, too! In general, I enjoy the friendly, intellectual atmosphere.

Yale academics are awesome. Something that is notable is that at Yale, there are many students who sacrifice GPA for extracurricular activities that they love.

Yale academics are incredible. There is an incredibly wide range of topics covered here (though not quite as wide as Brown, for instance, something that annoyed me a little, though not something that made my decision to come to Yale at all regrettable). As a student, you definitely have the opportunities to meet professors and develop personal relationships with them. I was in Directed Studies, a special freshman humanities program which consisted of three seminars each semester, so I of course felt comfortable with my professors in those classes, but I also met a professor of ethnomusicology, my specific area of interest, at a random lecture, and since then she has gone out of her way to take me under her wing, write me recommendations, and will be my advisor next year - all without having even taken a class from her. Work at Yale is hard, but students here are far from consumed by it - hanging out with friends, or involvement in extracurricular activities is just as important for Yalies as are their grades. Yalies are driven - but not driven to compete with others. They are driven because of an inner passion for what they are studying or working on. I don't know the grades or SAT scores of any of my friends, and I wouldn't want to. It simply isn't what matters.

Outside of the classroom, the professors love spending time with their students. Also, there's a lot of reading involved per course. So be ready to be well disciplined!

Yale can be as hard or as easy as you make it - no doubt we have some of the most renowned professors in their respective fields and the resources to match. But at the same time, Yale's Credit/D/Fail systems, residential college seminars, and distributional requirements leave a lot of room for taking fun and/or ridiculously easy classes (of which there are many - you just need to look and ask around - they can also incidentally be the most interesting). Honestly, the hard part is getting in - the rest is up to you. One of the best things about Yale's academic atmosphere is how much students are NOT competitive - your biggest rival will be yourself, which is the by-product of very passionate, self-motivated students learning together. I'm actually surprised at how laid back Yalies tend to be - we leave papers and problem sets to the last minute and have cram sessions the night before an exam, but we get it done and done well. The intensity comes out in intellectual conversations outside of the classroom - laid back can also be coupled with VERY opinionated, which is great if you're into debating. Yale, as with any other ivy, may have a knack with churning out I-bankers like a trade school, but is ultimately still a liberal arts school with even more students after learning for learning's sake and a mind to go into academia.

The student/faculty ratio at Yale is something like 8:1, which is pretty incredible. Some of the most intense learning I've done has been in small seminars of 5-10 students. This generally results in an atmosphere of interest and discourse, but rarely competition. Especially for a Theater Studies major, students seem to want to help each other, never hinder. At Yale, learning is very much up to you. There are guidelines, but they are in no way restrictive. Professors vary, as humans do, but are in general very accessible and interesting. These are the people at the head of their fields, not just those who follow.

they're hard, but in the end (other than science/math courses), they grade pretty fairly and are not too harsh. good curves. a lot of the courses are really fascinating, once you find what topic you're interested in (you'll think you know this coming into school, but you really have no idea)