Living at Yale

English Language Institute students live with American and other international students in one of Yale’s twelve residential colleges. Carefully chosen summer counselors, who are Yale College undergraduates or recent graduates, live in the colleges to keep general order and to serve as advisors trained to offer support and guidance. They will help students adjust to life in the residential college and to Yale in the summer, suggest cultural and recreational activities, and assist students in finding their way around New Haven.

The rooms in Yale’s residential colleges are simply furnished. Each room is equipped with a twin bed, mattress, pillow, blanket, dresser, desk, desk lamp, and chair. Students should bring their own sheets (twin, extra-long) and towels, as well as an extra lamp and a fan, if desired (air conditioners are not permitted). Household items are available for purchase at the Yale Bookstore.

Each suite is equipped with jacks for telephone and Ethernet service. Students must provide their own telephones and will need a calling card to make long distance calls. Meals, featuring a wide variety of foods, are served during three meal periods per day in the college dining halls. Meal service begins with dinner on the evening of housing check-in and concludes with lunch on the afternoon of the last day of classes for each session.

Yale's Programs Feature The Following:

Students who live on the Yale campus during the summer will have an opportunity to experience many aspects of Yale undergraduate life. Yale dormitories, called residential colleges, are the foundation of Yale’s social and intellectual structure. The residential colleges foster a sense of community for their members and serve as a focal point for both informal and planned activities. Only students in residence have access to these summer facilities and activities.

Through the residential college staff and an activities director, students are offered a wide variety of activities and trips. They may participate in a series of Friday afternoon trips around Connecticut: recent trips have been to Mystic Seaport, the Norwalk Maritime Center, the Connecticut shoreline for short cruises or picnics, and shopping excursions to nearby malls and outlet centers. A key feature has been a trip to the United Nations during which students meet with the UN ambassador or a mission representative from their home mission to participate in a dialogue on current issues and the role of the United Nations.

On campus our staff of summer counselors organizes barbecues, weekly film trips, evening coffee breaks, talent shows, dances and intramural sports. Counselors also introduce students to local off-campus recreational spots and plan weekend trips to nearby New York and Boston that include museum tours, a Broadway show, and a baseball game. Opportunities are offered on campus to participate in the Yale Summer Chorus (rehearsals and performance), chamber music groups, and intramural sports. Well-known writers visit the campus for the Yale Summer Writing Programs lecture series. Adding to the varied offerings are summer concerts, theater performances on campus or nearby, and guest lecturers who visit the Yale campus,the city of New Haven and beyond.

Yale is located in New Haven, a lively urban center that recently celebrated its 350th anniversary. Situated in the metropolitan corridor between Boston and New York, New Haven enjoys the attractions of a cosmopolitan center coupled with the benefits of a livable city size. As Yale President Richard Levin has observed: “New Haven is a great city: rich in architecture, music, theater, museums, restaurants, and parks; varied in its people and neighborhoods; large enough to be interesting, small enough to be friendly.” Among its buildings are examples of modern architectural masters from Frank Gehry and Kevin Roche to Cesar Pelli, Marcel Breuer, and Louis Kahn.

Each summer New Haven celebrates a long tradition of jazz by hosting a jazz festival with weekly performances on the New Haven Green. The School of Music provides many free and low-cost concerts; barely a day passes when a music lover cannot find a concert to attend. For theater lovers there is an active Yale Summer Cabaret, a Yale Drama School-affiliated stage.