I really feel for you...going through the college admissions process three years ago was one of the most daunting experiences of my life.
As a Yale student, let me give you some advice should you get the opportunity to come here. First off, it's truly an amazing place. Kids here are brilliant and Yale will give you money to do absolutely anything you're interested in. All you have to do is ask. There's also the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute, an incubator for student ventures. Think of it as a Y Combinator for Yale students; you get a 5K stipend to spend the summer in New Haven, work on your project and attend workshops.
With that said, there are a few things you should be aware of. Yale is obviously not known for its science or engineering focus but among many students there's actually a contempt for any subject involving numbers. Most of my friends fulfilled their math requirement with ridiculous classes like "The Pleasures of Counting" or "Geometry of Nature." I am not even joking.
As a science student I sometimes feel like a second class citizen. Science/Engineering classes tend to meet earlier than usual and on Fridays. The buildings are all on Science Hill which is a 10-15 minute walk from central campus. This isn't a huge deal until December when New Haven turns into an icy hellscape for three months.
Finally, as far as entrepreneurship goes, you'll find a lot of kids here who would be interested in co-founding a venture. The only problem is most of them don't have the technical background to put their money where their mouth is.
I'd be glad to talk to you more about this or answer specific questions. My e-mail address is HN User Name at gmail.
I'll second the points about yale culture. Honestly, if you're worried about being A downside would be continuing to be the “too-intense guy” I come off as at my high school, and potentially continuing to feel slowed down by my peers." then if you're as technically / mathematically oriented as you claim, outside of certain parts of mit, caltech and other places with a large engineering culture, you'll continue to be viewed as such.
A simple, but in retrospect insightful bit of advice that I ignored (but shouldn't have) when choosing a university is the following: go through the course catalogue and figure out what percentage of all the classes you would certainly find interesting, all other considerations being equal, choose the school with the best percentage!
I'm into less technical subjects almost as much as science as engineering; most of the "too-intense" stuff I think comes from me being overall achievement and knowledge focused. So, I'd hopefully be far less out of place at Yale than at my high school, or even Tufts.
Thanks for the advice on the course catalog - I'll definitely do that.
Not to be critical, but... A student population with contempt for numbers and extra money who want to go into business? I don't know what that's a recipe for, but it can't be good. :-p
Comments
I really feel for you...going through the college admissions process three years ago was one of the most daunting experiences of my life.
As a Yale student, let me give you some advice should you get the opportunity to come here. First off, it's truly an amazing place. Kids here are brilliant and Yale will give you money to do absolutely anything you're interested in. All you have to do is ask. There's also the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute, an incubator for student ventures. Think of it as a Y Combinator for Yale students; you get a 5K stipend to spend the summer in New Haven, work on your project and attend workshops.
With that said, there are a few things you should be aware of. Yale is obviously not known for its science or engineering focus but among many students there's actually a contempt for any subject involving numbers. Most of my friends fulfilled their math requirement with ridiculous classes like "The Pleasures of Counting" or "Geometry of Nature." I am not even joking.
As a science student I sometimes feel like a second class citizen. Science/Engineering classes tend to meet earlier than usual and on Fridays. The buildings are all on Science Hill which is a 10-15 minute walk from central campus. This isn't a huge deal until December when New Haven turns into an icy hellscape for three months.
Finally, as far as entrepreneurship goes, you'll find a lot of kids here who would be interested in co-founding a venture. The only problem is most of them don't have the technical background to put their money where their mouth is.
I'd be glad to talk to you more about this or answer specific questions. My e-mail address is HN User Name at gmail.
I'll second the points about yale culture. Honestly, if you're worried about being A downside would be continuing to be the “too-intense guy” I come off as at my high school, and potentially continuing to feel slowed down by my peers." then if you're as technically / mathematically oriented as you claim, outside of certain parts of mit, caltech and other places with a large engineering culture, you'll continue to be viewed as such.
A simple, but in retrospect insightful bit of advice that I ignored (but shouldn't have) when choosing a university is the following: go through the course catalogue and figure out what percentage of all the classes you would certainly find interesting, all other considerations being equal, choose the school with the best percentage!
I'm into less technical subjects almost as much as science as engineering; most of the "too-intense" stuff I think comes from me being overall achievement and knowledge focused. So, I'd hopefully be far less out of place at Yale than at my high school, or even Tufts.
Thanks for the advice on the course catalog - I'll definitely do that.
Not to be critical, but... A student population with contempt for numbers and extra money who want to go into business? I don't know what that's a recipe for, but it can't be good. :-p
It's a recipe for law students.