Professional Services

Yale University

433 Temple St.
New Haven, CT
(203) 432-8311

"We had 26,000 applicants for the freshman class this year," says associate dean of Yale College and dean of student affairs W. Marichal Gentry. "That's a record number for us." And because Yale admits just 1,300 freshmen, that makes for lots of broken hearts.

The application numbers are proof enough of Yale as best local four-year college, but there's more: Associate vice president of the Office of New Haven and State Affairs Michael J. Morand, himself a Yale grad, tells us that more and more students are choosing to live on campus lately, because, as he says, "It's just big enough to be interesting and small enough to be friendly."

And there's been a spike in public service in the last few years among Yale students. For example, each year there's a day of service for students that many of them have voluntarily extended to weeks, some even to months. This year's senior class has "the highest percentage of students applying to be in Teach for America," says Morand.

He attributes that partly to "the Obama factor," but he and Gentry think it's something more.

As Gentry says, "I think we continue to improve the programs we have while working with well-rounded students."