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From guided tours led by Yale undergraduates to our online offerings, find out all the ways you can learn about Yale’s history, architecture, and traditions. 

Take a Tour

Tours for general visitors.

Yale College students provide a glimpse into the history and architecture of the university. The tours start at the Yale Visitor Center at 149 Elm Street . Hear about Yale’s rich 300-year history and aspects of student life at several of Yale’s fourteen residential colleges. The tour also includes the Gothic Sterling Memorial Library, Yale’s largest, and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Constructed with more than one hundred panels of translucent marble, the Beinecke is home to one of the world’s preeminent collections of rare materials, including the Gutenberg Bible.

Tours last approximately one hour. Note that there are many Elm Streets in the region. The exact address is 149 Elm Street New Haven, CT 06511. Please check you are using the correct zip code 06511 .

Register for a Visitor Center Tour (registration is required)

Please note that the Visitor Center provides campus tours that are geared toward a broad audience of visitors. Undergraduate Admissions provides separate tours. If you are a prospective undergraduate student, you should consider attending an Undergraduate Admissions tour.

Kids’ Architectural Treasure Hunt

Parents taking the campus tour with children ages 6-11 can request a brochure that encourages the children to hunt for architectural details and designs.

Tours for High School Students

Please visit the undergraduate admissions website to reserve your campus tour .

Private/Special Group Tours by Appointment

Groups of 10 or more visiting the campus can arrange to have a private tour specifically suited to their time schedule. All private tour company groups, regardless of size, are required to schedule a private tour. For each group of up to 25 people, one student tour guide will be scheduled. There is a fee of $50 per guide. 

When requesting a tour, please provide the following information: time and date requested, organizer name, group name, phone number, email and number of guests. Although we will make every attempt to accommodate your request, a tour is not guaranteed until you receive official confirmation from our office.

Due to a high volume of group tour requests, please email  [email protected] or call 203-432-2300 to schedule your group tour.

Virtual Tours

Can’t make it to campus for an in-person tour? Check out a virtual tour of Yale’s main campus in New Haven, including specialized experiences you can choose from: campus, science, engineering, athletics, and residential colleges. 

Yale’s West Campus is located in Orange, Connecticut, and also offers several virtual tours. Take a virtual tour of West Campus .

The Yale Visitor Center wants to ensure individuals with special needs will be able to access all of the programs and tours scheduled through the center. Learn more about accessibility on our Plan Your Visit page.

Tours for Prospective Undergraduates

The Office of Undergraduate Admissions offers tours geared for prospective students.

• Tours & Registration Arrow Up Right (link is external)
• Admissions Virtual Tour Arrow Up Right (link is external)
• Office of Undergraduate Admissions Arrow Up Right (link is external)

Find answers to some of our most commonly asked questions.

Plan Your Visit

Get directions to campus, find a hotel, and more.

Yale Special-topic Tour: History of Slavery

Take a walking tour highlighting people, places, and moments in Yale’s history tied to slavery and its aftermath. This app was created in response to the findings of the Yale and Slavery Research Project confronting Yale’s historical ties to slavery.

More ways to explore campus

Check out our special photo gallery tours and virtual offerings.

• Architecture of Yale
• Public Art of Yale
• Sustainability at Yale Arrow Up Right (link is external)
• Virtual Yale Arrow Up Right (link is external)

Speak with an Admissions Representative

Schedule a one-on-one appointment with the Admissions Office to have your questions answered. Due to the high volume of requests that we receive and our interest in speaking with as many of you as possible, we kindly ask that you only schedule one appointment unless you have extenuating circumstances. 

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Yale Daily News

‘A remarkable place’: inside the life of a YLS 1L

As Yale’s newest J.D. candidates begin law school, the News provides a glimpse into the social, academic and extracurricular lives of incoming 1L students.

Staff Reporter

Tim Tai, Senior Photographer

The first year of law school — known informally as 1L — is a chance for students to enter the legal world, find community and collaborate with their peers and professors.

During the final days of August, Ako Ndefo-Haven ’23 LAW ’26 and his 200 classmates arrived on campus to begin their 1L years and kick off their journeys at Yale Law School.

“I’m very excited to explore all that YLS has to offer,” Ndefo-Haven wrote to the News.

Orientation

Before classes start each fall, YLS organizes orientation events to ease incoming 1L students into law school. The class of 2026, which represents the most diverse cohort of J.D candidates in the University’s history , began its weeklong orientation program on Aug. 22.

Classes began on Aug. 30.

Ndefo-Haven told the News that the law school’s orientation included social gatherings like one arranged by the Office of Student Affairs at Stony Creek Brewery in Branford, Connecticut. He also mentioned “really valuable” orientation events hosted by campus affinity groups, like the Black Law Students’ Association.

Some of the other activities held during orientation were panels on student life, tours of the Lillian Goldman Law Library, tips from professors and alumni on how to succeed in law school and even an optional movie night.

Mariah K. Smith LAW ’26 told the News that orientation helped her create connections on campus. She highlighted a casual interaction she had with law and economics professor Natasha Sarin ’11, whose enthusiasm made Smith “even more thrilled to join the community.”

Incoming students are also encouraged to connect with older peers. Ndefo-Haven told the News that all students were assigned to Dean’s Advisor groups during orientation, which paired groups of 1L students with second-year advisors who served as helpful points of contact during orientation.

For many students, fall orientation is not a first introduction to the YLS community. Many incoming 1L students also attended admitted students programs last spring.

“The admissions team hosted a phenomenal admitted students program where I met classmates, professors and staff,” Smith told the News. “The program helped me learn more about the culture at YLS.”

YLS keeps class selection simple for students in their first terms. Instead of choosing classes, 1L students take a predetermined set of four courses: constitutional law, civil procedure, criminal law and contracts. 

1L students can register for clinics and other elective courses beginning in their spring semesters.

“At the moment, I’m most excited for my constitutional law class just because that’s something that motivated my initial interest in the law,” Carter Squires LAW ’26 told the News.

​​ Squires shared that although he is particularly excited about constitutional law — driven by his interest in learning how a single document can serve as the basis for American law and government — he is going to try to enjoy all his classes. Squires told the News that his professors have done “an excellent job” of explaining why their classes are important parts of a well-rounded legal education.

One of each student’s four fall-term classes, chosen at random by the registrar, is conducted in a “small group” seminar format. Ndefo-Haven shared his experience, mentioning his small group contracts class with professor Yair Listokin LAW ’05. The other three courses students take are divided into larger sections composed of several small groups.

Each small group class has two Coker Fellows, who are third-year teaching assistants. They provide feedback on 1L students’ writing assignments, give study tips and eventually help them with second-semester course selection. 

Ndefo-Haven additionally praised the “Credit/Fail” grading system automatically applied to first-term classes, calling it a “huge stress reliever.” Students who pass courses in the fall term receive grades of “Credit.” This grading system is intended to help relieve stress as students adapt to the law-school workload. 

In subsequent terms, students transition to an “Honors/Pass/Low Pass/Fail” grading system.

Squires also told the News about YLS’s “Zero-L” online program, which is set prior to orientation and provides a general introduction to law school. It teaches students fundamental ideas like what a case is, how courts work, how to read cases and how to manage time in law school. 

“[I believe that] it is explicitly intended to level the playing field,” Squires told the News. “Some people here are coming straight from undergrad where maybe they studied Biology, Physics or something not related to law and then there are some people that come in having worked at law firms.”  

Housing at the Law School

At YLS, students may decide whether to reside on or off campus. 

For those who decide to live on campus, the law school provides housing accommodations at Baker Hall. The dormitory, which has a capacity of 111 people, is managed by the Yale Housing Office. Applications for dormitory units typically open in late spring.

Styna Tao LAW ’19 previously told the News that she appreciated living in Baker Hall due to its convenience. The dormitory, located at 100 Tower Parkway, is an approximately four-minute walk from the Sterling Law Building.

Despite the availability of on-campus housing, many students opt to live off campus. 

“I’m living off campus this year and am very happy with my choice,” Ndefo-Haven wrote in an email to the News. “It’s significantly cheaper, and I also like having some distance from the Law School for my personal work/life balance.” 

Smith, whose decision to live off campus during 1L was also motivated by a desire for personal space, noted that while well-located, on-campus singles are often sparse and difficult to acquire. 

Squires told the News that the Law School helped facilitate connections among individuals seeking alternative housing by maintaining a spreadsheet for students to search for potential roommates. 

Extracurricular involvement 

Yale Law School has over 70 official student organizations and nine different journals that allow students to engage with the law outside the classroom. Students can find all of YLS’s offerings on the Office of Student Affairs portal on Yale Connect.

Ndefo-Haven wrote to the News that, as an aspiring public defender, he was “especially interested in the Green Haven Prison Project, the Law and Political Economy Group, the National Lawyers Guild, the YLS Defenders, the Capital Assistance Project, and the Journal for Law and Liberation.”  

Smith likewise expressed her enthusiasm for embracing YLS’s extracurricular offerings and affinity groups. She told the News that she intends to become a part of the Yale Law Christian Fellowship and an economics club. 

Despite its breadth of student extracurriculars, the law school establishes boundaries for students’ out-of-class activities. Specifically, first-term J.D. candidates are prohibited from working for pay at YLS. 

Ndefo-Haven said that this policy seems to align with YLS’s focus on active classroom engagement. He also told the News that the emphasis on coursework empowers students, especially those in their first-term, to balance academic commitments and extracurricular involvements. 

Nonetheless, many 1L students are eager to begin hands-on legal work. 

“I cannot wait until next semester when we can participate in a clinic, which is how law students can get hands-on legal experience,” Smith wrote in an email to the News. “I will slowly integrate new organizations into my schedule to keep a good academic-extracurricular balance.” 

Yale Law School is located at 127 Wall St. 

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Alumni in Energy

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Following in the footsteps of other greats is always a good idea. The statement applies to your prospective careers in energy as well. What better way to figure out what you want to do with your career than to see what other Yalies have done in the past? The following is a list of actual jobs landed by Yale University graduates, along with their major, year of graduation, and employer name. The list is non-exhaustive, but should give a rough idea of the employment opportunities post-graduation:

Office of Career Strategy

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Yale president peter salovey’s legacy of leadership.

Peter Salovey (Photo by Dan Renzetti)

As President Peter Salovey prepares to return to the faculty this summer, a Yale News series explores the university’s evolution since his tenure began in 2013, its momentum and continued progress, and Salovey’s enduring commitment to the university and to New Haven.

Creating global impact through Yale’s data-driven social sciences

Under President Salovey’s leadership, Yale has launched bold initiatives and built key infrastructure to create a collaborative campus environment for data-driven social science that is being used to guide domestic policy, address climate change and other pressing global challenges, and which seeks to understand human cognition, values, and behavior.

The university also has strengthened the social science faculty by hiring top-flight scholars, many of whom have taken on leadership roles at the university. It has enhanced social-science education by transforming the Department of Statistics into the Department of Statistics and Data Science and establishing a major in economics and computer science to teach undergraduates the skills needed to harness data for a better understanding of the world.

“ Social science research has the potential to shape policy and effect change on a global scale,” said Salovey, a distinguished psychologist who will return to social science research and teaching when he steps down at the end of the academic year. “That requires bringing together deep expertise on data, on theory, and on policy, facilitating collaboration, convening leaders and guiding important conversations, and pursuing insights into human relationships and society.

“ At Yale, we are committed to leading the way in this field, to understand urgent global challenges and increase knowledge, without partisanship or ideology.”

Read the full story.

Building on Yale’s strength: adding new depth and breadth to the humanities

During Peter Salovey’s presidency, the university’s commitment to the humanities has brought faculty expansion and new spaces and resources. 

As part of that commitment, the university has dramatically expanded ladder faculty across the arts and humanities, building on existing strengths and stretching into new areas of contemporary relevance. A major renovation and expansion of the Humanities Quadrangle, formerly the Hall of Graduate Studies, brought together 15 previously scattered departments, inviting new connections and scholarship across disciplines. Other major projects, including some now in the planning stages and some already underway, reflect a commitment to the humanities through teaching and public outreach, practice, and production.

“ Yale has long been recognized for its strength in the humanities,” said Salovey. “By continuing to build on that strength, we affirm the importance of these studies in facing global challenges — to understand the world and human experience in all its complexity, to bring together perspectives from across disciplines, and to explore ways to improve the future by comprehending the past.”

Opening doors and making room: ‘Yale was a possibility for me’

Over the past decade, Yale has invested widely to ensure that cost does not stand in the way of enrollment for any student.

Achieving a more accessible and more excellent university was a central piece of the vision articulated by President Salovey when he took office in 2013, and Yale has invested widely to ensure that cost does not stand in the way of enrollment for any student, regardless of socioeconomic status.

In turn, many people across and beyond campus — in undergraduate admissions, the graduate and professional schools, applicant outreach, and enrolled-student resources, as well as among generous alumni and friends — have also helped turn that vision into reality.

“ Yale is committed to educating the most promising students, of all socioeconomic backgrounds, who will become leaders in their fields and contribute greatly to the nation and world,” said Salovey. “More than ever before, we welcome excellent students from every walk of life and ensure that they have opportunities to thrive once they are on campus.”

Yale President Peter Salovey to return to faculty full time in 2024

At the end of August Peter Salovey announced that this academic year will be his last as Yale’s 23rd president, and that he will return to the faculty full time after 11 transformative years as head of the university. Since he took office in 2013, Yale has made significant strides toward the vision he articulated upon his appointment as president — a vision he has continually reinforced of “a more unified Yale, a more accessible Yale, a more innovative Yale, and an even more excellent Yale.”

In his 2013 inaugural address, Salovey ’86 Ph.D. set the context and tone for the work that was to come. “We are living in a world that will test our university, and we must remain rooted in our principles and focused on our founding mission,” he said. “We must be clear-eyed about our strengths and weaknesses, and ambitious in fulfilling our promise.”

The years since have been marked by sustained progress in service of these aspirations.

Campus & Community

ROTC cadets, midshipmen parade — and honor Salovey — at President’s Review

Flags, stamps, and coins: Yale scholar traces markers of U.S. sovereignty

At renovated Peabody Museum, Yale reopens its ‘front door’ to the world

Brock reappointed dean of Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science

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