was Yale worth it are ivy league universities really worth the cost spoiler depends my experience honest Reflections and hot takes from graduating from Yale University let's get into it hey welcome everyone my name is Max Mao and if you're new to the channel I like to make content on Career productivity and just life experiences so let's address the elephant in the room is Yale really worth it I'm gonna spill the tea in order to answer that question I'm going to break down my experiences in the following categories including cost academics social activities student body best moments regrets and final reflections this is intended to be a brutally honest review so I'll try to keep it really real with you guys let's first go to cost so I have some of the numbers pulled up here and the cost for one year of tuition as of the 2023 to 2024 year is 83 880 that is extremely expensive um hashtag inflation never rests for majority of folks who come from a similar background as myself growing up I would not have been able to afford it luckily I will say that while tuition is very expensive a huge portion of that is subsidized based off of Yale's endowment Fund in addition to their financial aid policy and scholarships even though the cost of tuition and the total for room and board is super high a majority of students actually do not pay anywhere near to that full price on Yale admissions website they posted that the average cost that a student will have to pay during their time at Yale is around fifteen thousand dollars per year and while this this number is still pretty high it's nowhere near the eighty four thousand dollars that is the total amount without any types of scholarships and financial aid I myself receive scholarships and financial aid and because of those two was able to graduate from Yale University debt free wanted to also just make that a little more transparent as when I first applied to Yale got accepted obviously the cost of tuition was extremely high the one really good thing about Yale and also just ivy league universities and large private universities in general is they tend to have a larger endowment budget which means they're able to provide a lot more financial support to their students Yale actually provided me with more money in terms of scholarships than a lot of other universities I got accepted to and because of that it made sense that that was the right decision as well let's go to academics now wanted to throw some of the statistics out there about Yale's graduation rate so Yale's graduation rate is 97 that is very very high for University and their acceptance rate is five percent so super hard to get in but once again get in knock on wood you'll most likely pass give you a little more context as to my academic experience I was pre-med at Yale I studied molecular cellular and developmental biology that's short for mcdb I do not want to save the entire title again that's too much of a mouthful in addition to the actual Academic School year I did a lot of research in a structural biology lab did two years of part-time research and then one year of full-time research as a full-time student as well one of the more popular questions I've been asked is how hard are the classes to be quite transparent some of them are pretty freaking hard no surprise um I can definitely confirm that during my time at Yale I was challenged um but the classes really range depending on how familiar I was with the subject prior to Yale in addition to the depth and how high the course level was for the class for intro chemistry courses and biology courses I didn't think they were too bad um I myself loved chemistry and did a lot of it in high school and I thought the content was pretty straightforward on the other hand when it came to physics I myself was not a physics Guru and a lot of physics classes absolutely wrecked me um definitely a very humbling moment again it really depends on your familiarity with the subject in addition to the course level and how advanced of a class you're taking at the time in terms of whether the academics are worth it I will 100 say that yes they are but not in the traditional sense in terms of college coursework I feel like a lot of the general content you can probably get online so where I think Yale and other Ivy Leagues flourish having very famous professors and having professors who were the Pioneers in their field what I mean by this is for example in one of my classes called biotechnology my professor was Dr Craig Cruz it was the John C Malone professor of mcdb and he was a founder of multiple biotech and Drug development companies and being able to learn outside of the context of what the classes itself I found those moments to be very valuable the same goes for The Prestige of the professors which not necessarily always correlates to Quality but for example there were two very well-known scientists at Yale one was Dr Thomas Seitz he actually won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2009 and his wife Dr Joanne Stites won the national medal of science so definitely a power couple if I may so to summarize the course material I think can be pretty standardly learned on any platform or even online for free free but the professors and the people that you meet tend to have a lot more Prestige and they tend to be very interesting people that otherwise you wouldn't be able to meet so let's go to activities now at Yale there are over 500 undergraduate clubs that have already been formed and to be quite honest I found it very easy to be overwhelmed there are countless student groups that are always looking for new members that are always pitching their ideas if you're not very strategic about what you want to do and when you want to do it you could completely fill up your time doing clubs that you may not have the most interested in I was a part of a number of different clubs while University and my friends oftentimes even created their own clubs there are very easy ways in which you're able to start your own club and get funding from the University to pursue projects and to just build out your ideas and dreams students oftentimes develop their own startups and pitched ideas to VC firms I thought that was an interesting opportunity that I personally did not explore but it was really cool to see a bunch of my friends friends doing those type of things and being able to see their ideas grow in addition to academic clubs and startups there are also a lot of social groups Greek life at Yale is not as large as let's say ASU or some of your other state schools I think the one cool thing about Yale acapella like dance there are a lot of different groups there as well I think there's a nice balance between different types of social activities and I've personally never found myself bored or never found myself alienated to a particular group and have always had the opportunity to join any of those alright so let's move to the student body how are Yale students are they obnoxious are they pretentious this is a very interesting question firstly for myself I found Yale students to be extremely chill despite how everyone was incredibly intelligent I felt like majority of the students were very humble they never really bragged and I mean it just felt like a normal place to be to be honest no one really shuts you down for being who you are I think the one thing that I really loved about Yale is no matter how you dress or no matter what you do no one will ever have a negative really view of you everyone that I personally Met has been super supportive and yeld does a really great job with getting a good mix of students from different backgrounds a lot of the students were first generation a lot of the students came from underrepresented communities a lot of students were International students so getting that good cultural mixing plot was actually really really cool as I was able to meet so many different really cool people who all had different interests I was able to learn from so that really goes hand in hand to my next question which is what is my best moment at Yale honestly for me this is a pretty General one but just the people I think coming from a public high school in Alabama and then going to Yale University I was intimidated at first about whether I would be able to fit in intellectually or socially as well I got my college acceptance letters back Harvard Princeton and Yale from looking at the movies Yale's always been depicted as one of those staubish or pretentious universities where only the richest kids and kids who have connections can get into I can proudly say that that was not the case whatsoever I met some of the most genuine people and had the most awesome conversations just learning about their backgrounds and their Heritage as well alright so we're gonna go pretty deep here what is my biggest regret at Yale I'm gonna need a sip some tea for that my biggest regret at Yale honestly is I really wish that I made more content while being a student at Yale and what I mean by this is sharing insights into day in the life of a Yale student showing off the dining Halls all the clubs the social life I feel like just providing more education to others on my experience who may be contemplating whether it's the right choice for them luckily I can still provide some of that value and knowledge today being a Yale graduate but it still doesn't hit the same as living in it in real time my final question is are Ivy League's worth the cost after assessing the cost the academics the activities my best moments and my biggest regrets I can honestly say that my experience at Yale has been a 9 out of 10. it's been fantastic I was able to meet really awesome people able to excel in my career and one of the most valuable pieces of attending any type of University that caliber is the number of connections you'll make a lot of my friends and classmates will go off to do some really cool things and being able to have that connection is very valuable that unfortunately not a lot of students get the opportunity to have I think that is one of the reasons why these universities are so highly sought after because it's not only the education you get at the University but the prestige and opportunities that you get outside of the University those are intangibles that are very important as well definitely very thankful being a first generation student being able to go to Yale and overall I have no major complaints aside from that Wonder grit I hope you all enjoyed this quick q a session um really wanted to share some more light candidly and have an honest review about my experience at Yale feel free to comment below if you have any additional questions and we'll catch you on the next one [Music]