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NYC Update - Friday the 13th
Jul. 30th, 2007 09:39 am(Post delayed due to LJ weirdness)
On the second full day of our trip, the teenager and I spent almost no time in NYC at all.
Instead, we headed in to Grand Central and caught the Metro-North train for a two-hour trip to New Haven, Connecticut and Yale.
New Haven is a Hellish Hole. It was probably a full-blown Hell Hole in the 80s, but it seems to be pulling back from that a bit. Still not very pretty, although we were assured during the Yale info session that the local economy is recovering, and our children would be perfectly safe. They're also mad for Dunkin' Donuts in New Haven. It was almost as crazy as the Tim Horton's that are all over Canada. We saw at least ten DD shops, including 2 in the train station, and the station is not big.
Yale, on the other hand, looks like Hogwarts would if it had a full campus of buildings. Which I suppose isn't really all that surprising, since they're based on much the same idea. Info-session-guy even made sorting hat jokes when he told us about Yale's system of residential colleges.
The teenager had a very nice pre-admissions interview with one of their student admissions officers, who told her that she is exactly the kind of student that they are looking for at Yale. Then during the info session, when he was listing off the criteria they look for in applying students, she was such an exact match for all of them that I half-expected the speaker to hold up her photo and say "Here's exactly what we're looking for in a Yale student."
I think that I was more excited by the visit then the teenager was, and with NYU to compare it to on the surface, I can see why. Yale is old, and old money, and it has this sort of shabby - we don't have to try - vibe about it. NYU on the other hand, is shiny and 'new' and in the middle of Manhattan, which means there's energy up to your eyeballs. And the things that I find exciting about Yale; 1) That if she's accepted we don't have to pay for any of it, 2) In the field she's interested in, the teenager can pretty much walk out of Yale and into a career without breaking stride, and 3) They coddle the hell out of their students, aren't the most glamorous considerations when looking at colleges.
Application season should be fun. :)
After the tour, the required stop for the purchase of a YALE shirt (for luck), and a longish walk back to the train station, we finally headed back to New York for the night. It only took three hours on the way back, punctuated by periodic phone calls from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gmskarka:
"Where are you?"
"Connecticut."
"Still?"
"It's a local train."
On the second full day of our trip, the teenager and I spent almost no time in NYC at all.
Instead, we headed in to Grand Central and caught the Metro-North train for a two-hour trip to New Haven, Connecticut and Yale.
New Haven is a Hellish Hole. It was probably a full-blown Hell Hole in the 80s, but it seems to be pulling back from that a bit. Still not very pretty, although we were assured during the Yale info session that the local economy is recovering, and our children would be perfectly safe. They're also mad for Dunkin' Donuts in New Haven. It was almost as crazy as the Tim Horton's that are all over Canada. We saw at least ten DD shops, including 2 in the train station, and the station is not big.
Yale, on the other hand, looks like Hogwarts would if it had a full campus of buildings. Which I suppose isn't really all that surprising, since they're based on much the same idea. Info-session-guy even made sorting hat jokes when he told us about Yale's system of residential colleges.
The teenager had a very nice pre-admissions interview with one of their student admissions officers, who told her that she is exactly the kind of student that they are looking for at Yale. Then during the info session, when he was listing off the criteria they look for in applying students, she was such an exact match for all of them that I half-expected the speaker to hold up her photo and say "Here's exactly what we're looking for in a Yale student."
I think that I was more excited by the visit then the teenager was, and with NYU to compare it to on the surface, I can see why. Yale is old, and old money, and it has this sort of shabby - we don't have to try - vibe about it. NYU on the other hand, is shiny and 'new' and in the middle of Manhattan, which means there's energy up to your eyeballs. And the things that I find exciting about Yale; 1) That if she's accepted we don't have to pay for any of it, 2) In the field she's interested in, the teenager can pretty much walk out of Yale and into a career without breaking stride, and 3) They coddle the hell out of their students, aren't the most glamorous considerations when looking at colleges.
Application season should be fun. :)
After the tour, the required stop for the purchase of a YALE shirt (for luck), and a longish walk back to the train station, we finally headed back to New York for the night. It only took three hours on the way back, punctuated by periodic phone calls from
gmskarka: "Where are you?"
"Connecticut."
"Still?"
"It's a local train."
