Yale College, which accepts fewer than 10 percent of its applicants, is one of the most selective colleges in the United States. Yale is also noted for its law school, medical school, graduate school, and school of music. The Yale Divinity School was founded in the early 19th century by Congregationalists who felt that the Harvard Divinity School had become too liberal. The Yale Law School is the most selective in the United States, and has graduated U.S. presidents and Supreme Court justices.

Yale's library system is the second largest in North America with a total of almost 11 million volumes, after Harvard (15 million volumes). The main library, Sterling Memorial Library, contains about 4 million volumes. The Beinecke Rare Book Library is housed in a marble building designed by Gordon Bunshaft, of the firm of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. Its courtyard sculptures are by Isamu Noguchi. Other resources include the Peabody Museum of Natural History and the Yale Center for British Art.

Yale supports 35 varsity athletic teams that compete in the Ivy League Conference and the Eastern College Athletic Conference, and Yale is an NCAA Division I member. American football was largely created at Yale by player and coach Walter Camp, who evolved the rules of the game away from rugby and soccer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yale has numerous athletic facilities, including the Payne Whitney Gymnasium, which is one of the largest and most elaborate indoor athletic complexes in the world. The school mascot is "Handsome Dan", the famous Yale bulldog.

The Yale Daily News, the oldest daily college newspaper in the United States, has been a forum for opinion and controversy since 1878, and counts among its former chairmen Joseph Lieberman, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Strobe Talbott. The Yale Political Union is the oldest student political organization in the United States, and is advised by alumni political leaders such as John Kerry, Gerald Ford, and George Pataki. Dwight Hall, an independent, non-profit community service organization, oversees more than 2,000 Yale undergraduates working on more than 60 community service initiatives in New Haven. The Whiffenpoofs began the tradition of college a capella singing groups in 1909, and often perform on television and at the White House. The Yale Dramatic Association, or "Dramat," is the second oldest college theater company in the country and has been putting up theatrical productions since its founding in 1900; the Dramat has featured the work of such noted artists as Cole Porter, Thornton Wilder, and Sam Waterston.