Yale University announced that it would make pre-orientation programs mandatory and free for all incoming first-year students, beginning with the class of 2026.
Dean of Student Affairs Melanie Boyd wrote in an email to Yale students that the change would allow all incoming students to move in on the same day, replacing the staggered time system used in previous years.
All first years will arrive on Aug. 21 and participate in a campus-wide orientation before splitting into smaller groups and heading off to individualized pre-orientation programs, which will conclude prior to the start of classes, the Yale Daily News reported.
Pre-orientation programs offer incoming students a chance to meet others with similar interests through a variety of activities.
Like Yale, Penn has several pre-orientation programs available for incoming students, five of which are offered through Penn University Life: Pennacle, PennArts, PennCorp, PennGreen, and PennQuest.
Additional programs sponsored by other departments include Advancing Women in Engineering (AWE), Wharton’s Successful Transition & Empowerment Program (STEP), and PennGenEq.
College first year Isabella Marcellino participated in the PennArts pre-orientation at the beginning of the school year. She said that while she would support Penn making the programs free, she is not sure that making them mandatory would lead to the best experience for everyone since students may prefer to spend more time at home.
“Is it a pre-orientation program if everyone does it?” Marcellino said. “I just don’t know if everyone would be into it.”
Marcellino said that she enjoyed the small, tight-knit nature of PennArts, and found moving in and exploring campus before everyone else arrived during NSO to be beneficial. She added that she thinks any step to make the programs more inclusive would provide a better experience for all new students.
“I am personally thankful I did a pre-orientation program,” Marcellino said. “I just felt like having an organized thing was probably really good for me socially.”
Yale’s pre-orientation programs include Cultural Connections, First-Year Orientation Trips, and Orientation for International Students.
Dean of Yale College Marvin Chun said that making pre-orientation programs more inclusive has been a goal of the university for decades. After last year saw more students electing to participate in a pre-orientation program than not, the need for change became clear, Chun told the Yale Daily News.
“Last year crossed the threshold where it just made everyone realize that this is not a sustainable model, where you have two large move-ins, and, most importantly, have two large cohorts of students arriving at different times, leading to a kind of uneven experience for their start at Yale,” Chun said.
Chun estimated that the university would be spending “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to make these programs free for all incoming students.
Program leaders told the Yale Daily News that other universities have adopted this policy without issues. Leaders are also exploring ways to expand and revamp programming to accommodate for a larger attendance.
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