CT College Visits - Day 1

I'm taking advantage of two Regents days by getting out of NYC and touring some schools in Connecticut with some other college counselors from New York. Today was our first day and we visited Yale University and Quinnipiac University.

I'd been to Yale once before as a volunteer for College Summit, but it was great to be able to be here with a true admissions focus. First, let's be honest about the fact that Yale is one of those universal 'far reach' colleges - regardless of the applicant. Have perfect SATs? Still a reach. Created a patent for a new bio-chemical compound? Still a reach. Lowest grade on your transcript is a 99? Still a reach. But there is nothing wrong with having reach schools on the list, so long as you also have viable target and likely schools that you would like to go to if you were admitted. With that said, there are people who are better 'fits' for Yale than others. Yale describes themselves as competitively collaborative. This means that because it is highly selective, admitted students are highly talented. But they look forward to sharing those talents and interacting together. This is not the case at every highly selective school, so take note. One of Yale's distinguishing features is its residential college system. All students are randomly sorted into one of twelve houses and houses are the heartbeat of the social and community experience on campus. If you wouldn't be a positively contributing member to a residential college community, Yale might not be a good fit for you. Two new residential colleges are on the docket to open three years from now, so expect to see a small increase in the undergraduate population. I don't think I need to spend much time here describing the merits of Yale, but I will say it was a wonderful morning and the Admissions office was very gracious to give us their attention. We haven't had a student from ElRo admitted to Yale so far, but that is no reason to feel discouraged because with an admission rate of 6.3%, we just have to keep trying. :)

For the afternoon we headed over to Quinnipiac University, which I found to be located surprisingly close to New Haven. In fact, even though the campus is located in a valley surrounded by tree covered hills, it is really more of a suburb with very close proximity to more developed areas. For someone looking for a nice balance between natural serenity and connections to Boston, New York, and New Haven, Quinnipiac might just fit the bill. Quinnipiac is a medium sized university with a little over 6,000 students. We got to see all three campuses -- the main campus (where the bulk of the undergraduate life is focused), the York Hill campus (where juniors and seniors live and the main sports facilities are -- the views were really gorgeous), and the North Haven campus (primarily for graduate students and is the location of health sciences programs like nursing, Radiology, and the medical school). Quinnipiac is perhaps best known to the outside world as the home to those infamous political polls, but they offer a variety of popular majors including communications and business. With a Division I athletic program and a location that is a big change from the five boroughs but not hard to get to, I think there are many appealing things about this school. It should also be noted that they do offer merit based financial aid. Maybe the most noticeable thing about the visit though was the fact that the campus and facilities were immaculate. Every blade of grass was manicured, there was no litter strewn about or building in dire need of renovation. There is something to be said for a school that takes pride in its appearance, and we all took note. Some of the most popular overlap schools for students applying to Quinnipiac are Marist, Boston University, Providence College, Fairfield, and Elon. I will also mention that there are a number of 'plus' programs where students can combine undergraduate and graduate study to leave with two degrees -- maybe most notably a 3+1 MBA.