• baseball
• basketball
• heavywieght
• lightweight
• cross country
• fencing
• football
• golf
• ice hockey
• lacrosse
• sailing
• soccer
• squash
• swimming and diving
• tennis
• track and field

Yale supports 35 varsity athletic teams that compete in the Ivy League Conference, the Eastern College Athletic Conference, the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association. Yale athletic teams compete intercollegiately at the NCAA Division I level. Like other members of the Ivy League, Yale does not offer athletic scholarships.

Yale has numerous athletic facilities, including the Yale Bowl (the nation's first natural "bowl" stadium, and prototype for such stadiums as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the Rose Bowl), located at The Walter Camp Field athletic complex, and the Payne Whitney Gymnasium, the second-largest indoor athletic complex in the world.October 21, 2000, marked the dedication of Yale's fourth new boathouse in 157 years of collegiate rowing. The Richard Gilder Boathouse is named to honor former Olympic rower Virginia Gilder '79 and her father Richard Gilder '54, who gave $4 million towards the $7.5 million project. Yale also maintains the Gales Ferry site where the heavyweight men's team trains for the Yale-Harvard Boat Race.

Yale crew is the oldest collegiate athletic team in America, and won Olympic Games Gold Medal for men's eights in 1924 and 1956. The Yale Corinthian Yacht Club, founded in 1881, is the oldest collegiate sailing club in the world.

In 1896, Yale and Johns Hopkins played the first known ice hockey game in the United States. Since 2006, the school's ice hockey clubs have played a commemorative game.

For kicks, between 1954 and 1982, residential college teams and student organizations played bladderball.

Yale students claim to have invented Frisbee, by tossing empty Frisbie Pie Company tins.

Yale athletics are supported by the Yale Precision Marching Band. "Precision" is used here ironically; the band is a scatter-style band that runs wildly between formations rather than actually marching. The band attends every home football game and many away, as well as most hockey and basketball games throughout the winter.

Yale intramural sports are also a significant aspect of student life. Students compete for their respective residential colleges, fostering a friendly rivalry. The year is divided into fall, winter, and spring seasons, each of which includes about ten different sports. About half the sports are coeducational. At the end of the year, the residential college with the most points (not all sports count equally) wins the Tyng Cup.

Yale is home to a world-class medical center comprising more than a dozen institutions, including the School of Medicine (chartered in 1810), which has been educating leaders, caring for patients, and investigating the scientific basis of health and disease for nearly 200 years. Among its 27 departments are one of the nation’s oldest schools of public health and the internationally recognized Child Study Center, founded in 1911. The School of Nursing trains outstanding leaders in nursing practice, research, and education. Affiliated institutions include the 944-bed Yale-New Haven Hospital—flagship of the Yale New Haven Health System—and the Yale Cancer Center, Connecticut Mental Health Center, Pierce Laboratory, and VA Connecticut Healthcare System in nearby West Haven. Yale HEALTH provides campus medical services to students, faculty, and employees of Yale.

The university hosts a variety of student journals, magazines, and newspapers. Established in 1872, The Yale Record is the world's oldest humor magazine. Newspapers include the Yale Daily News, which was first published in 1878, and the weekly Yale Herald, published since 1986. Dwight Hall, an independent, non-profit community service organization, oversees more than 2,000 Yale undergraduates working on more than 70 community service initiatives in New Haven. The Yale College Council runs several agencies that oversee campus wide activities and student services. The Yale Dramatic Association and Bulldog Productions cater to the theater and film communities, respectively. In addition, the Yale Drama Coalition serves to coordinate between and provide resources for the various Sudler Fund sponsored theater productions which run each weekend. WYBC Yale Radio is the campus's radio station, owned and operated by students. While students used to broadcast on AM & FM frequencies, they now have an Internet-only stream.

The Yale College Council (YCC) serves as the campus's undergraduate student government. All registered student organizations are regulated and funded by a subsidiary organization of the YCC, known as the Undergraduate Organizations Committee (UOC). The Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) serves as Yale's graduate and professional student government.

The Yale Political Union is advised by alumni political leaders such as John Kerry and George Pataki. The Yale International Relations Association functions as the umbrella organization for the top-ranked Model UN team.

The campus also includes several fraternities and sororities. The campus features at least 18 a cappella groups, the most famous of which is The Whiffenpoofs, who are unusual among college singing groups in being made up solely of senior men.

Yale's secret societies include Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, Wolf's Head, Book and Snake, Elihu, Berzelius, St. Elmo, Manuscript, and Mace and Chain. The two oldest existing honor societies are the Aurelian (1910) and the Torch Honor Society (1916).

The Elizabethan Club, a social club, has a membership of undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff with literary or artistic interests. Membership is by invitation. Members and their guests may enter the "Lizzie's" premises for conversation and tea. The club owns first editions of a Shakespeare Folio, several Shakespeare Quartos, a first edition of Milton's Paradise Lost, among other important literary texts.

Traditions

Yale seniors at graduation smash clay pipes underfoot to symbolize passage from their "bright college years".("Bright College Years," the University's alma mater, was penned in 1881 by Henry Durand, Class of 1881, to the tune of Die Wacht am Rhein.) Yale's student tour guides tell visitors that students consider it good luck to rub the toe of the statue of Theodore Dwight Woolsey on Old Campus. Actual students rarely do so. In the second half of the twentieth century Bladderball, a campus-wide game played with a large inflatable ball, became a popular tradition but was banned by administration due to safety concerns. In spite of administration opposition, students revived the game in 2009 and 2011, but its future remains uncertain

Yale blends its Ivy tradition of excellence with a modern work culture that values different points of view and thrives on respect and innovation. The University offers challenging, exciting, and rewarding careers to those who seek opportunities to grow and excel. Regardless of role, Yale values each person’s contribution and nurtures his or her professional development through tuition reimbursement programs and numerous opportunities for on-campus learning. The diversity of Yale is reflected in a vibrant and stimulating work environment.

Along with exceptional benefits such as health care, pension plans, competitive pay, generous paid time off, tuition assistance, life insurance, and long-term disability insurance, faculty and staff enjoy Yale’s world-class museums, performing arts, libraries, and sporting events.