Yale College Summer Update for Parents and Guardians (May 21, 2025)

Yale College Summer Update for Parents and Guardians (May 21, 2025)

Dear parents and guardians of incoming Yale College students,

We in the office of first-year affairs are looking forward to welcoming the Class of 2029 at the end of the summer. If you will be on campus then, we look forward to welcoming you, too.

Over the summer, we will be including you on the weekly messages that we will be sending to incoming students so you will know what guidance we are giving them. We will be sending information about academics, health, and extracurricular life, among other topics. We will also be sending you information that will help you prepare for the transition ahead. This week's message, below, provides a general overview of academic summer planning, moving in, and Camp Yale (our name for first-year orientation).

We want to make sure our messages reach you. If you need to add or change an email address, please ask your student to update their records by following the instructions in the headnote of this week's message. Students are the only ones who can update these records, and they can change them any time they need to in the months and years ahead.

With best wishes from campus,

The First-Year Affairs Team

 

May 21, 2025 

Dear Class of 2029, 

The Office of Undergraduate Education will be writing to you several times this summer to help you make the most of Yale’s academic offerings, and to prepare you for selecting courses in August. Soon, it will be writing to you with instructions for making an appointment with a peer adviser who can answer questions; peer advisers will be available starting June 17, and all first-years will be expected to meet with one over the summer. This week, it writes to introduce you to Yale's philosophy of education, an excellent starting point before you explore subjects of study and specific courses. 

With best wishes, 

Hannah Peck 


Associate Dean of Student Affairs 

Yale College Dean's Office 

 

May 21, 2025 

Dear Yale College Class of 2029, 

As your high school career comes to a close, I send warm congratulations to you and your families and wish you joyous graduation celebrations. 

Before long, your attention will turn to starting your Yale career and the academic opportunities that await you here. You will have over 1,000 courses to choose from every semester, taught in 80 subjects of instruction, so you might be wondering where to begin. 

To help with your choices, from June 17 to August 15, you can schedule an appointment with a peer adviser, who is a recently graduated first-year counselor (or “FroCo”) with plenty of experience navigating the Yale curriculum.  We expect all incoming first-years to meet with a peer adviser over the summer, and you will soon receive instructions about how to make that connection. If you have questions that your peer adviser cannot answer, academic deans in my office will be available to help you. 

In addition, in early June, you will have access to a series of short, interlinked videos — “Yale 101: Mapping Your Academic Journey” — which will kickstart your introduction to a Yale education. You will also have access to a series of videos on specialized topics, such as designing a good first-year course schedule and fulfilling Yale’s distributional requirements, plus subject-specific videos on the arts, math, writing, and many other topics. Please take advantage of these resources. 

In addition, we will offer live webinars about majoring in fields that have specific requirements in the first year, such as the sciences and engineering, or if you are thinking about applying to medical school. 

Finally, please complete the High School Math and Science Survey and a writing readiness survey, which opened May 19, and online placement exams when they open in July. These are great tools to help you enroll in courses at the right level. 

In the meantime, we invite you to learn more about Yale's approach to undergraduate education and to understand what it means to pursue a liberal arts education. Breadth of study is its hallmark, and so are its distributional requirements and its balance of general and focused study. Here are some suggestions to get you started

Your education will continue far beyond the classroom — in residential college suites, dining halls, athletics facilities, cultural centers, recital halls, and elsewhere. But that education will, of course, be shaped deeply by the courses you take. We look forward to working with you over the summer so that you are prepared by the time classes begin. 

With best wishes, 

Pam Schirmeister 


Deputy Dean of Yale College and the Graduate School 

Dean of Undergraduate Education