Hi everybody~

I just had a few questions about Yale, coz I'm thinking about going to Yale (the BBS Ph.D. program) this fall. I was talking to my college adviser yesterday who completely made me afraid of New Haven. I've never been there (never even been on the east coast), but now I'm thinking of it as this filthy gang-ridden place where muggings and drive-bys are common, and you're screwed if you don't carry around a can of mace. Can someone assuage my fears here? (or justify them...). I read through this thread and saw something about there being racial tension in New Haven?
I will get a chance to visit the campus and city before making my decision but I'd mucho appreciate it if I could get your thoughts.
But I'm glad everyone pretty much only has good things to say about the university itself. Yale sounds pretty great "_"
Thanks!

New Haven gets a bad rap that it doesn't deserve. No, it's not Princeton, N.J. with endless green fields, but it's not so bad. Racial tension there is no worse than in most Northeastern cities, including Boston, and, while there are areas in which you wouldn't want to walk alone at night, there are those in most cities, even in, say, Iowa. It is kind of a gritty place, with a typical Northeastern look, but there are some beautiful residential areas (the city is quite beautiful in the fall), and many students who don't live on campus rent homes in several areas about a fifteen-minute commute away from downtown. There are many good restaurants, and, thanks in part to the University, lots of cultural opportunities.

Drive-by shootings and roving gangs? It isn't L.A. There is undoubtedly gang activity as there is in every major city, and I expect that there has been the occasional drive-by, but I wouldn't think at the University (we have drive-bys down here in the Sunny South). In short, my personal take is that New Haven as a general environment is not much better or worse than other urban environments. If you want to avoid most of the problems you mention, I'd try a school in a rural setting. Otherwise, let New Haven be pretty much a neutral factor.

I know next to nothing about Yale but The Washington Post ran an article about theater at Yale and in New Haven that Built to Spill and other Gilmore Girl-o-philes might enjoy. The article ran in the Style section on Jan 7, and after two weeks Post articles are harder to find/reach, so I don’t know how long this link will work.

Prior to reading the article, I’d heard the same things about crime in New Haven. I was surprised that the article didn’t even mention crime. Plus I love that there’s a restaurant called Louis’ Lunch, “reported birthplace of the hamburger.” Totally reminded me of Luke’s Diner. Although I’d always thought the birthplace of the hamburger was Hamburg, Germany. Silly me.

Here goes the major test of my linking skills. (My first attempt. Please be kind.)
A City With A Rep (Washington Post)

Thanks, tvmaniac. Great article. I'd thought about saying something regarding the Long Wharf, but knew that there was a lot more to the New Haven theater scene with which I'm not intimately familiar anymore, and didn't want to leave a distorted impression (hence the "cultural opportunities" cop-out). The article does it very nicely.

ETA that Louis' Lunch not only has a great burger but some of the best greasy-spoon type breakfasts in America (and I've been to most places in America). The Western Omelet is to die for.

Thanks Kpfm and tvmaniac. The person I'd talked to the most about New Haven was someone who lived there until 1992, so yeah that was a while ago "_" But seriously, he was saying really scary things about the place!
I go to college in Seattle, which isn't the safest city in the world or anything. Now that I've found more information about New Haven it doesn't sound any worse than downtown Seattle.

Another question for anyone who knows: how's the local music scene in New Haven/Connecticut? Is it any good, or do you have to go to New York to take in the good bands? Well, I guess everyone's definition of a "good band" is different, but I personally like Beulah, the Shins, ok go, built to spill (hence the name), jason mraz, etc.

A current student needs to respond to this question about the present music scene. All I can say is that New Haven has traditionally had a very active musical presence, with much interchange among it, NYC, Boston, Hartford, and even Philadelphia. BigBallofAnge?

can't help on the music question, I'm afraid, not being a current student anymore, but...

okay, what was the deal with the hats? I wasn't on the Daily, and most of my friends were on the Herald, so I must admit that my informational sources aren't all that broad, but...is that seriously something they do? anyone? Bueller?

oh, and re: "Louis' Lunch"-- they do indeed claim to be the inventor of the Hamburger, but so do several other restaurants/eateries (see here). Plus, they don't believe in hamburger buns (serve their burgers on 2 slices of wonder bread) or in ketchup (will not let you put it on your burger). I far preferred the Doodle when I was an undergrad. The Yankee Doodle was the greasiest of all greasy spoons: a storefront diner with all of 13 seats, they butter their burger before frying them and serving on a buttered-and-toasted bun. Sounds disgusting, tastes fabulous to the hungover college student. But, to each their own.

I don't know, algeiger, I'm more of a fan of the Educated Burger for my greasy food fix. But I must say, as a California native, what New Haven really needs is a Jamba Juice.

Two of my suities are on YDN staff, and induction was just the other day, so bravo GG for being right on time. I'm pretty sure they said that they do wear the hats, but it works a little differently, and apparently the actual induction ceremony is long and boring and involves answering embarrassing questions.

I'm upset that the show didn't incorporate the many many fall screws. If I had to pick one thing that has characterized my year(I'm a Trumfrosh), it would be the endless hours of facebook stalking and trying to pick out the perfect dates for the roomies. And another thing...whenever we watch the show we wonder why Rory is always at home! I know people who live in New Haven, and they don't go home as much as she does. I thought Stars Hollow was over an hour away!

Awww! I just saw my first episode (on tape) when she moves into Durfee and I'm totally hooked now. She's living in my room in my suite (the first floor on the far left when facing Durfee) from when I was a frosh counselor. I'm amazed at the details they got right - from the desk to the shelves on the wall to the natty blue curtains... it took me back immediately! I've got to say, except for the not-quite-right entryway configuration (ok, and the Freshman Counselor behaviour...and the silly mattress subplot), I'm impressed with the little things they got right.
Looking forward to getting caught up with the rest of the season so far!

Most people don't have Lorelai as a mother...

Why haven't we seen Rory eat more takeout at school? She did all that research for nothing? At least, pizza. She's in New Haven for god's sake!

In reverse order:

According to Jess and Yahoo maps, Stars Hollow is only about 22 miles from New Haven, so not more than half an hour away.

As awesome as it would have been for them to show Paris and Rory (and Tanna and Janet for that matter) setting each other up for a Screw, I knew it would never happen, because tptb have yet to tell us WHAT FREAKING COLLEGE THEY'RE IN!

As beautiful and accurate as the set designs are, the fact that they are completely ignoring the residential college system is really getting to me, and so I watched American Idol instead of GG this week, and I'll probably continue for the rest of the season.

New Haven is much nicer than Hartford, if that helps. My dad works in Hartford but lives in NH and he was commenting that New Haven actually has a downtown and people who go out at night and a decent selection of restaurants, whereas Hartford is competely dead after 7pm.

Of course I just moved from NH to Oakland, and I'd strongly recommend CA over CT seeing as how it was -30 degrees in New England last week, but if you're crazy enough to want to live in the Northeast (yes, I've only been here less than a month but I'm already a West Coast chauvanist!), New Haven isn't a bad choice.

Word. I'm from the Bay Area too and I'm having problems adjusting to the blizzardness. Definitely CA over CT, or, in any case, the entire East Coast.

I agree that the writers' refusal to acknowledge the residential college system is kind of dumb...it's SUCH an important part of Yale life. But I also agree that it would take a lot of exposition to add that in; I was ED, and it did take from December to September to explain how it works to my family and friends. So I'm not about to just give up on the show. It's just understood by the girls I watch with that Rory's in Morse.

I really hope they expand the Lane-stays-with-Rory plotline. It's definitely possible for someone not enrolled at Yale to live in the dorms. There's so much comic potential there: I'd love to see Lane snuck into Commons through one of the side exits.

Well, they explained it pretty well during Rory's visit with the grandparents, when they talked about Richard being in TD. I guess what would be difficult to explain is why they haven't brought it up already, if it's so important, so instead they have decided to ignore it completely. Like when you haven't called an old friend in a while, and then eventually you are so embarassed that it's been so long, that you decide not to call them at all because it would be awkward.

I think this thread deserved to be bumped! Despite all my nitpicking of the Yale details, I have to admit, the show's portrayal of Rory's suite dynamics has been priceless. It's like an extremely sharp parody of the interactions in my own freshman year suite.

Maybe TPTB haven't explained the whole college system thingy because it would take a lot of time and confuse a lot of people--I've read about it here and I'm confused. And "cramped quarters" my foot! If that's what they call small...

Oh, I'm so glad there are other Yalies here to "keep it real"! I just found this thread, and it's nice to see other people are trying to keep the facts straight. It's weird watching the show now--some bits are totally right, and some are totally wrong. One week it's like watching a documentary of your family where they've recast your parents, and other weeks it's like I'm there. I just left New Haven six months ago, after six years there, and Cornell is just not the same. It's nice to have Gilmore Girls give me a little fix--even thinking about the things they get wrong (Hewitt Quad?) or leave out (SY '01!) takes me back!

Eemt01 is right--I think they must plan very carefully so that every frosh girl lives in a suite with just that sort of not-getting-along-with-each-other-at-all. I know I did! Except we weren't as funny or nice to look at.

Oh my god, I posted this, and then I realized I even know one of the other Yalies on the board--small small world! One of my closest friends is TC 98, too, and unless I'm totally mistaken, algeiger and I have met at various YGC functions. Weird! Gilmore Girls, bringing people together!

Newsgirl, have you read the Harry Potter books? That's the best way to explain the college system to Americans, because it's basically the same as the Hogwart's house system.

Ouch. But, uh, yeah.



Right down to the color-coded scarves. ;-)

BigBallofAnge, thanks for the analogy. I have read the Harry Potter books, so that mostly clears things up for me.

Okay, I admit I'm a little unclear on the 9 courses a year thing. It's just a little different from what I'm used to, I guess. At my college and the others I've heard about, you had to take a certain number of credits each term, and obviously a certain number to graduate (and then there were distros and requirements for your major and what-not). How you spread out your requirements didn't matter, as long as you finished them all and, as I said, had enough credits each term. But what it sounds like to me from people who have talked about it is that at Yale, you can't do that. You must take at least 9 courses a year. Is it really not okay to take 8 courses one year and then 10 the next?

I took 8 classes my freshman year at Yale, and then 10 the next.

I have a question for the Yalies here:
Is it feasible that Rory as a freshman would be taking classes like Game Theory and Contemporary Political Fiction? They seem to be highly specified courses for an upperclassman who has already chosen a major and would need prerequisites to even register.
The reason I ask is that when I was a freshman in college, most of my classes were large introductory courses in giant lecture halls with two or three hundred students. Professors gave the lectures, but TAs ran the smaller discussion sections. It wasn't until later that we were able to take the smaller classes like the ones Rory is in.

The answer to Minneapple's question is 'sort of.' The introductory Game Theory course at Yale doesn't have any prerequisites; in fact, I almost took it my freshman year, and I am certainly in no way an economist. The English seminars for Rory are a little trickier--there are some that are even designated freshman courses, and they tend to be very introductory. Then there is the next level, which are for freshman and sophomores "in advanced standing," meaning they tested out to be in the more advanced classes. My English class freshman year was one of those--English 129: The European Literary Tradition, which is taught by TAs in small sections of about a dozen people or so, with no large lectures--about like what you see Rory in on the show. After that, most of the English seminars require some sort of prerequisite, most likely two semesters of the classes I mentioned above, or permission from the instructor. I would assume within the context of the show that Rory got permission to be in the more advanced English classes.

And in terms of the number of courses per year, most people plan it out to have a lighter schedule when they think they'll need one. I took 10 classes junior year so I would only have to take 8 my senior year when I would be working on my senior thesis. It just has to add up to 36 classes total, and the easiest way to explain that is by saying you need to take 9 classes each year.

Game Theory at Yale is hella hard...I took it over the summer and I was completely lost....and I'm pretty limber in econ. If Rory is taking that course, along with her other classes, my hat is off to her. wait, these people aren't real. I take back my hat.

Question: Does anyone know anything about the Esplanade (yale owned) graduate student apartments on 386 Prospect St.? I'm thinking about going to yale this fall but have no idea where to live (I'm on the west coast right now). Also, what about the El Dorado on Chapel St?
Are there any streets/areas I should NOT live in?
Thanks in advance "_"

I can't speak to the Esplanade or the El Dorado since they are after my time. But from my trips back to New Haven, unless you want to go to the inner-ring suburbs and skip downtown, stay away, still, as it was in my day, from most stuff north of Whalley St.

Lots of grad students share renting stand-alone houses in the near suburbs, or along the streets leading to West Rock and the housing areas in there. There are lots of apartments in private homes in there, too, a large number of them particularly hospitable to Yale students.

But current students will be able to tell you more.

Thanks for the advice, indke "_"

Anyone else want Rory to date a member of the Wiffenpoofs? Grandpa would be pleased, and Lorelai would never stop mocking.

A Whiffenpoof would qualify as Not-Jess, so I could live with it, though I like the idea of her dating one of Lane's bandmates better.

Yalies past and present and others in the know: according to the housing norms at Yale, where would Rory most likely end up rooming in her sophomore year? Would the freshman foursome we saw this year have the option to request rooming together for a second year? Should they have spent part of the past year interviewing or trying to get into upperclassmen houses? How does it work at the real Yale?

You can visit the spoiler section to learn about Rory's living arangments next year. If you are a spoiler prude, you're gonna have to wait till September 21.

Bumping up for MarissaAvid.

Thanks!

I guess they didn't follow along with Durfee residents being in Morse College, huh? Branford's right across from LC, which'll be easy for fictional Rory to complete her English major. ;)

Bumping this thread to get it back in the current list. Can any of you Yalies give us some info on Branford?

I'm not a Yalie but I know a bit about the school.
What they said about Branford is true (Frost poem, Harkness bell tower, etc). It also has the Commencement gates which are padlocked except on graduation days.
It shouldn't've been a surprise though that Marty and Rory are in the same "dorm" again this year. If they both lived together last year, they'd live in the same residential college this year. It's how the Yale residential college system works. (Everyone in Durfee moves into the same residential college the following year.) Rory will live in Branford for the next three years now. And as the granddaughter of a Branford alumnus, she was almost going to be in Branford, as opposed to any of the other eleven residential colleges. In fact, she technically was part of Branford College last year, even though she didn't live in it. (Branford frosh live on Old Campus with all the other frosh. In real life, in Vanderbilt Hall, not Durfee.)
Also, I think they used fairly good sets. The inside corridor of the real Branford College does look a lot alike that: Gothic.

As a New Haven-ite (well, one town over, anyway, I spend a lot of time in New Haven), I have to agree that the architecture of the sets is pretty good so far. My great-grandfather was a mason who did a lot of the stone work at Yale. If anyone is ever looking for something touristy to do around here, definitely take a Yale tour. There are all kinds of hidden pictures in the buildings that you would never notice.

I'm not sure that any college dorm ever has rooms that are that big, but I have seen very very few Yale dorm rooms. Also, it's TV.

On the subject of the dorm rooms, wouldn't it be pretty hard to film in a space the size of a typical, real life college dorm? Without having some piece of equipment being visible in almost every shot, that is? You can't do every shot with a hand held camera after all, especially not for a director as picky as AS-P is by all reports.

Punctuation. The world is better off with it than without it.

Although I agree that the over-size is to a considerable extent due to make shooting easier, I think usually sets on soundstages have at least one or several removable walls the crew can move around if necessary for the shot. And a lot of sets have one wall missing permanently.

I know a girl who graduated from Yale this year and claims that the "set" for Rory's room this year is an honest-to-God dorm room that she herself lived in. I know this sounds a little unlikely, but this girl is NOT a fan of the show and was mostly talking about it in a "Yale is being polluted by a silly TV show, blah blah snobcakes" manner, so I don't know why she'd make it up.

I would think the likelihood of two sophomores getting their own rooms and own suite would be unrealistic, but Branford College actually does have some very spacious rooms and suites. The size is probably only slightly exaggerated (more the bedroom sizes, than the common room size).

Branford students were emailed over the summer and told that Rory was going to be in their residential college.

Something that would bother me were I actually a student there though would be their portrayal of the student body; Must every student potential love interest of Rory's be an upperclass WASP? Graham and Logan. Less than half of the caucasian population of Yale is even Christian, let alone rich white protestant boys.

Here's what's bugging me right now about the Yale portrayal: this whole secret society thing. Doyle, as editor in chief of the YDN, would have a guaranteed spot in Skull and Bones. And Logan wouldn't care so much about the identities of the people being revealed as he would about the rituals. Pretty much everybody knows who is in which society, the secrecy part comes in with what they do during their meetings.

AND if they want to make a big deal about creepiness/mystifying society stuff, they should have really started with Tap Night (which, my senior year of high school, coincided with Bulldog Days, when admitted students visit Yale... imagine being confronted with a bunch of people in white masks and grim reaper costumes while you're trying to find your way back to TD!)

Regardless, I think it is FUN what Rory is doing, and it makes her about a million times more interesting.

Maybe that's part of Doyle's bitterness? Despite being a privileged white male, he wasn't allowed into the club? Or would he have been dragged into S&B kicking and screaming?

Skull and Bones has direct tap which means that each person picks their successor. It is pretty much assumed that certain people, like the capt of the football team and the editor of the YDN will tap the person in the same position from the class below them. Regardless, it's practically impossible to get to be the editor of the YDN and not end up in SOME society. Societies are most interested in tapping "notables" from the jr class and Doyle, by virtue of his position, would definitey be that even if NOBODY likes him.

I think the point is that the Life and Death Brigade is not the typical secret society. It's actually secret.

Why hasn't it been discussed that Richard was possibly a member of the LDB or (ew) Skull and Bones?

So I guess they're not going to have an episode about The Game this year? Sadness, it would've been so fun to see FakeHarvard again...

Assume naivete. What...exactly...do "fall screws" entail?

On the show, there’s a working fireplace (complete with crackling fire) in the dining hall. I don’t remember fireplaces from a trip I took to Harvard years ago, but that was a different school.

Would a Yalie or former Yalie confirm: Do the real Yale dining halls have fireplaces? Do they use them in the fall/winter?

Well, I think the Hall of Graduate Studies (HGS) dining hall at Yale has a fireplace, but I don't know about the undergrad dining halls. Also, the graduate dorms in HGS have working fireplaces in the rooms!

I'm a first year grad student here, by the way. Another thing I wanted to mention was that I see at least five Logans walking around every time I venture onto main campus. It's creepy! ...But not unexpected.

Reeealllly? I never thought of going back to school...until now.