Yale University Top Questions

Yale is definitely a party school. There are countless organizations around campus, each with a ton of money at its disposal. Imagine a Yalie's creativity mixed with a large budget. This results in a very fun Saturday night. From Safety Night to Freshman Screw, every event is all out.

So much goddamn a cappella, which I did and loved, and which introduced me to all of my current best friends as well as the guy I dated for four years in college and afterwards. I definitely loved all of the silly events and rituals that surrounded a cappella. In addition to that, I definitely went out almost every weekend night for at least the first two years of college. The people I hung out with tended to like their liquor but know how to manage it, for the most part. There was always more stuff going on in terms of theatre, dance, music, lectures, etc than I actually went to, but that was sort of comforting to me, knowing that I had so many choices. Master's teas were the freaking bomb dot com because they fed you and it was a room full of smartass kids asking some famous guy irreverent questions.

New Haven can sometimes be dangerous (no worse than other cities), so people try to be careful about security. But most of the crimes are just armed robberies. Athletics are pretty popular among the athletes, but that is a very separate world form the rest of Yale. I never hear about sports events. I tend to hear about naked parties and performances, etc. Or philosophy lectures. There is really a mind-blowing amount of activities going on every night, for any type of person. There are a lot of fraternities and a few sororities, but they tend to have their own social scene. Sometimes they throw parties. As a girl, at least, there is no pressure to join a sorority.

There are so many drama shows going on each weekend (and it's always fun knowing, for example, 10 people in the spring mainstage show or something like that.) A capella is really big here too, and the members of a capella groups are really close (it's like having an entirely separate group of friends to hang out with). Also, a capella jams go on several times a month, and some of them are free, so you don't have to worry about spending too much on going to all of your friends' shows. Also, the organizations on campus and even Yale itself host many dances and shows - in fact, Saybrook college got Gunther to have a concert here, and BEN FOLD AND LUDACRIS IS COMING TO OUR SPRING FLING, which is an annual spring concert Yale hosts. Drinking/drugs/debauchery is actually not that big of a deal at Yale as is rumored. You can have a perfectly normal and fun life not drinking/doing drugs/debauching - you could go to shows, eat out at really great restaurants, see movies, etc. You could probably even go through your entire college experience having not seen any sort of drugs. However, if do want drinking/drugs/debauchery to be part of your social life at an academically-excellent university, then Yale is definitely a fun place to go. We have our fair share of partiers, even though our partying scene isn't “in-your-face.” Tailgaiting (especially for The Game) is really fun and everyone should go to that. Mostly, students go out and party on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, so, during the week, campus is fairly quiet with most everyone studying or just hanging out in rooms. There are a couple of clubs around campus, like Toad's or Gotham, that a lot of students go to, but I usually try to not go to that. A lot of upperclassmen (mostly juniors) live off campus, so there are several off campus parties during the weekends.

I cannot imagine anyone having an interest they cannot continue to explore. We even have a juggling club.

Volunteer service organizations, intra-murals, a cappella and other musical groups, and political groups are probably the most popular groups. Football, soccer, basketball, hockey and volleyball are (I think) the most popular sports. I'm a member of both the Varsity Track and Field team and the Cross Country team. I love being on the team!! They're my family at school, my closest friends. People at Yale are very social, they go out, they have fun, they are involved, at the same time as they are serious about their studies.

I hang out with my friends pretty much every night of the week. Drinking (and getting drunk) on weeknights probably won't raise eyebrows. There are lots of ways to party- the boring, typical Toads style, where you dress slutty, dance drunkenly, and hook up randomly; the more personal suite party, where much of the same happens, but it's less dirty; the intellectual gatherings where you sit with friends and a bottle of vodka and wax philosophical until the sun comes up; and then all sorts of parties thrown by this group or that... it's not hard to find your scene. 2am on a Tuesday I'm probably reading or doing homework after getting back from Yorksides after a Yale Political Union debate. (After each YPU debate it's traditional to go to Yorksides afterwards for pizza- often the guest speaker will come along.)

Yale's social life takes place entirely on campus or in a few select bars right off campus. New Haven (though vastly improved since I lived there) is not a great city, or even a mediocre city. Most of what you do while at Yale actually happens AT Yale. Since everyone is so involved in so many things, there's always four plays going up at any given time, plus dance recitals, music performances, film screenings and so much goddamn acapella that you can't NOT see it at some point while you're a student. So, what I'm saying is a typical weekend night is going to see your friend in something they're doing, and then going and getting drunk at dorm parties. That's fine ... it's cheaper and more reliable than trying to drink with a fake ID at Rudy's. There's no Greek system to speak of. I mean, there are a couple frats and sororities, but they aren't recognized by Yale, so there's none of that Greek system running the social scene thing that you see in all the college movies.

Dorm life is interesting but certainly not the foundation for social life. Most people meet people through activities. I was involved in a newspaper and political debate but there is a large array of activities.

Uuuuuuuu im getting sick of writing this there are somewhat popular athletic events, namely when we play Harvard (sidenote: fuck harvard). The biggest recreational activities are drinking and that’s it. well that’s not true theres always activities and shows and stuff, and you can always just get high and play video games, but drinking’s the name of the game, which is probably normal for a college. If I am a wake at 2am on a Tuesday I am definitely studying or trying to fall asleep after getting wired on coffee because I was studying.