Introduction
Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 in Saybrook Colony as the Collegiate School, the University is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. In 1718, the school was renamed Yale College in recognition of a gift from Elihu Yale, a governor of the British East India Company and in 1731 received a further gift of land and slaves from Bishop Berkeley. Established to train Congregationalist ministers in theology and sacred languages, by 1777 the school's curriculum began to incorporate humanities and sciences and in the 19th century gradually incorporated graduate and professional instruction, awarding the first Ph.D. in the United States in 1861 and organizing as a university in 1887.
Yale is organized into twelve constituent schools: the original undergraduate college, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and ten professional schools. While the university is governed by the Yale Corporation, each school's faculty oversees its curriculum and degree programs. In addition to a central campus in downtown New Haven, the University owns athletic facilities in western New Haven, including the Yale Bowl, a campus in West Haven, Connecticut, and forest and nature preserves throughout New England. The university's assets include an endowment valued at $23.9 billion as of September 27, 2014, the second largest of any educational institution in the world.
Yale College undergraduates follow a liberal arts curriculum with departmental majors and are organized into a system of residential colleges. Almost all faculty teach undergraduate courses, more than 2,000 of which are offered annually. The Yale University Library, serving all twelve schools, holds more than 15 million volumes and is the third-largest academic library in the United States. Outside of academic studies, students compete intercollegiately as the Yale Bulldogs in the NCAA Division I Ivy League.
Applying
When applying to Yale University, it's important to note the application deadline is January 1, and the early action deadline is November 1. Scores for either the ACT or SAT test are due March 1. The application fee at Yale University is $80. It is most selective, with an acceptance rate of 6.3 percent and an early acceptance rate of 15.5 percent.
Academic Life
The student-faculty ratio at Yale University is 6:1, and the school has 74.6 percent of its classes with fewer than 20 students. The most popular majors at Yale University include: Economics, General; Political Science and Government, General; Biology/Biological Sciences, General; History, General; and Psychology, General. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student satisfaction, is 98.8 percent
Student Life
Yale University has a total undergraduate enrollment of 5,477, with a gender distribution of 51 percent male students and 49 percent female students. At this school, 86 percent of the students live in college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing and 14 percent of students live off campus. Yale University is part of the NCAA I athletic conference.
Campus Services
Yale University offers a number of student services including nonremedial tutoring, women's center, placement service, health service, and health insurance. Yale University also offers campus safety and security services like 24-hour foot and vehicle patrols, late night transport/escort service, 24-hour emergency telephones, lighted pathways/sidewalks, and controlled dormitory access (key, security card, etc). Alcohol is permitted for students of legal age at Yale University
New international Yale initiatives launched included (among many others):
- Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, promoting international education University-wide;
- Global Health Initiative, uniting and expanding global health efforts across campus;
- Yale India Initiative, expanding the study of and engagement with India;
- Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, bridging the gap between academia and the world of public policy; and
- Yale China Law Center, promoting the rule of law in China.
- Yale - Management Guild
- New global research and educational partnerships included (among many others):
- Yale-Universidad de Chile International Program in Astronomy Education and Research;
- Peking-Yale Joint Center for Plant Molecular Genetics and Agrobiology;
- Todai–Yale Initiative for the Study of Japan;
- Fudan-Yale Biomedical Research Center in Shanghai;
- Yale-University College London Collaboration; and
- UNSAAC-Yale Center for the Study of Machu Picchu and Inca Culture in Peru.
The most ambitious international partnership to date is Yale-NUS College in Singapore, a joint effort with the National University of Singapore to create a new liberal arts college in Asia featuring an innovative curriculum that weaves Western and Asian traditions, set to open in August 2013
Faculty, research, and intellectual traditions
The college is, after normalization for institution size, the tenth-largest baccalaureate source of doctoral degree recipients in the United States, and the largest such source within the Ivy League.
Yale's English and Comparative Literature departments were part of the New Criticism movement. Of the New Critics, Robert Penn Warren, W.K. Wimsatt, and Cleanth Brooks were all Yale faculty. Later, the Yale Comparative literature department became a center of American deconstruction. Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, taught at the Department of Comparative Literature from the late seventies to mid-1980s. Several other Yale faculty members were also associated with deconstruction, forming the so-called "Yale School". These included Paul de Man who taught in the Departments of Comparative Literature and French, J. Hillis Miller, Geoffrey Hartman (both taught in the Departments of English and Comparative Literature), and Harold Bloom (English), whose theoretical position was always somewhat specific, and who ultimately took a very different path from the rest of this group. Yale's history department has also originated important intellectual trends. Historians C. Vann Woodward and David Brion Davis are credited with beginning in the 1960s and 1970s an important stream of southern historians; likewise, David Montgomery, a labor historian, advised many of the current generation of labor historians in the country. Yale's Music School and Department fostered the growth of Music Theory in the latter half of the 20th century. The Journal of Music Theory was founded there in 1957; Allen Forte and David Lewin were influential teachers and scholars.
This is a list of residential colleges at Yale.
- Berkeley College, named for the Rt. Rev. George Berkeley (1685–1753), early benefactor of Yale.
- Branford College, named for Branford, Connecticut, where Yale was briefly located.
- Calhoun College, named for John C. Calhoun, vice-president and influential member of Congress of the United States.
- Davenport College, named for Rev. John Davenport, the founder of New Haven. Often called "D'port".
- Ezra Stiles College, named for the Rev. Ezra Stiles, a president of Yale. Generally called "Stiles," despite an early-1990s crusade by then-master Traugott Lawler to preserve the use of the full name in everyday speech. Its buildings were designed by Eero Saarinen.
- Jonathan Edwards College, named for theologian, Yale alumnus, and Princeton co-founder Jonathan Edwards. Generally called "J.E." The oldest of the residential colleges, J.E. is the only college with an independent endowment, the Jonathan Edwards Trust.
- Morse College, named for Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of Morse code and the telegraph. Also designed by Eero Saarinen.
- Pierson College, named for Yale's first rector, Abraham Pierson.[139] A statue of Abraham Pierson stands on Yale's Old Campus.
- Saybrook College, named for Old Saybrook, Connecticut, the town in which Yale was founded
- Silliman College, named for noted scientist and Yale professor Benjamin Silliman. About half of its structures were originally part of the Sheffield Scientific School.
- Timothy Dwight College, named for the two Yale presidents of that name, Timothy Dwight IV and Timothy Dwight V. Often abbreviated "T.D."
- Trumbull College, named for Jonathan Trumbull, first Governor of Connecticut.
Traditions
Yale seniors at graduation smash clay pipes underfoot to symbolize passage from their "bright college years," though in recent history the pipes have been replaced with "bubble pipes". ("Bright College Years," the University's alma mater, was penned in 1881 by Henry Durand, Class of 1881, to the tune of Die Wacht am Rhein.) Yale's student tour guides tell visitors that students consider it good luck to rub the toe of the statue of Theodore Dwight Woolsey on Old Campus. Actual students rarely do so. In the second half of the 20th century Bladderball, a campus-wide game played with a large inflatable ball, became a popular tradition but was banned by administration due to safety concerns. In spite of administration opposition, students revived the game in 2009, 2011, and 2014, but its future remains uncertain
Athletics
Yale supports 35 varsity athletic teams that compete in the Ivy League Conference, the Eastern College Athletic Conference, the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association. Yale athletic teams compete intercollegiately at the NCAA Division I level. Like other members of the Ivy League, Yale does not offer athletic scholarships.
Yale has numerous athletic facilities, including the Yale Bowl (the nation's first natural "bowl" stadium, and prototype for such stadiums as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the Rose Bowl), located at The Walter Camp Field athletic complex, and the Payne Whitney Gymnasium, the second-largest indoor athletic complex in the world. October 21, 2000, marked the dedication of Yale's fourth new boathouse in 157 years of collegiate rowing. The Richard Gilder Boathouse is named to honor former Olympic rower Virginia Gilder '79 and her father Richard Gilder '54, who gave $4 million towards the $7.5 million project. Yale also maintains the Gales Ferry site where the heavyweight men's team trains for the Yale-Harvard Boat Race.
Yale crew is the oldest collegiate athletic team in America, and won Olympic Games Gold Medal for men's eights in 1924 and 1956. The Yale Corinthian Yacht Club, founded in 1881, is the oldest collegiate sailing club in the world.
In 1896, Yale and Johns Hopkins played the first known ice hockey game in the United States. Since 2006, the school's ice hockey clubs have played a commemorative game.
For kicks, between 1954 and 1982, residential college teams and student organizations played bladderball.
Yale students claim to have invented Frisbee, by tossing empty Frisbie Pie Company tins.
Yale athletics are supported by the Yale Precision Marching Band. "Precision" is used here ironically; the band is a scatter-style band that runs wildly between formations rather than actually marching. The band attends every home football game and many away, as well as most hockey and basketball games throughout the winter.
Yale intramural sports are also a significant aspect of student life. Students compete for their respective residential colleges, fostering a friendly rivalry. The year is divided into fall, winter, and spring seasons, each of which includes about ten different sports. About half the sports are coeducational. At the end of the year, the residential college with the most points (not all sports count equally) wins the Tyng Cup.
Summary
Yale University is a private institution that was founded in 1701. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 5,477, its setting is urban, and the campus size is 343 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Yale University's ranking in the 2016 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, 3. Its tuition and fees are $47,600 (2015-16).
Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut, is known for its excellent drama and music programs, which reach outside the classroom with student organizations such as the Yale Whiffenpoofs, a famous a cappella group, and the Yale Dramatic Association. The Yale Bulldogs compete in the Ivy League and are well known for their rivalry with Harvard. Students are assigned to live in one of 12 residential colleges during their time at Yale. Each college has a master and dean who live in the college and eat with students in the dining halls. Cultural houses provide a space for students to build a sense of cultural identity on campus.
Yale is made up of the College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and 13 professional schools. Included in the professional schools are the top ranked Law School and highly ranked School of Management, School of Medicine , School of Art and School of Nursing. The School of Drama, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Divinity School are also well-regarded graduate programs. The Yale Record is the oldest college humor magazine in the nation. Dwight Hall is an independent umbrella organization that fosters student service and activism in the local New Haven community. Yale is well known for its secret societies, the most famous of which are the Skull and Bone Society, which boasts members such as George W. Bush and John Kerry, and the Scroll and Key Society. Distinguished Yale alumni include actress Meryl Streep, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward and actor Edward Norton.
School mission and unique qualities (as provided by the school):
Yale is both a small college and a large research university. The College is surrounded by thirteen distinguished graduate and professional schools, and its students partake in the intellectual stimulation and excitement of a major international center of learning. The faculty is known for its special devotion to undergraduate teaching. Many of Yale's most distinguished senior professors teach introductory courses as well as advanced seminars to undergraduates. Faculty members are accessible to students and take a great deal of interest in working closely with undergraduates. Yale's curriculum allows students to achieve both breadth and specialization across several disciplines. In addition to probing a major field in depth, students are expected to explore three important areas of knowledge - the humanities and arts, social sciences, and natural sciences. While exploring several subject areas, students are also expected to sharpen their writing, quantitative, and foreign language skills. Yale's unique residential college system organizes the student body into twelve small communities where students live, eat, socialize, and pursue academic and extracurricular activities. Before arriving as a freshman each student is randomly assigned to one of the colleges, giving students a built-in community from the moment they arrive. Most Yale students become convinced that their residential college is the best residential college. Each college is home to a microcosm of our undergraduate student body as a whole, and allows students to have the cohesiveness and intimacy of a small school while still enjoying the vibrancy and resources of a world-class university. Yale students are actively involved in the New Haven community, benefiting from and enhancing the city's many cultural, recreational, and political opportunities. New Haven boasts diverse and abundant resources in the arts. There is a vibrant cultural and artistic life in the city, a myriad of opportunities both academic and social, and a remarkable choice of places to eat. New Haven is part of a Yale education: the experience of contemporary urban life broadens students' perspectives and helps prepare them for life after college. Yale students have a long tradition of intense involvement with extracurricular activity. There are more than 500 active organizations on campus, ranging from the Undergraduate Math Society to the Yale Hunger and Homelessness Action Project, and including 50 performance groups and 60 cultural associations. This enormous range of opportunities endows Yale College with a palpable energy and spirit of commitment. But perhaps the first thing that students notice about their college is the caliber of their fellow students. There are extraordinary artists, student government leaders, star athletes, passionate activists, award-winning poets, prize-winning scientists, and people who are just simply "well-rounded." Because Yale students come from such a wide range of ethnic, religious, cultural, geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds, there is a remarkable exchange of ideas. Yale is a major research university that focuses primarily on undergraduate education and encourages students to become leaders of their generation in whatever they wish to pursue.