Yalies who want to spend time with other Ivy League students over the summer are in luck, thanks to a new online program.

“The Summer Playbook,” a website founded by Harvard student Luke Heine, displays the locations of Ivy League users on a world map, allowing them to identify others in nearby areas. Last year, 800 Harvard students signed up for the Playbook. This year, Heine hopes to bring the site to the rest of the Ivy League.

Griffin Smilow ’18 serves as the site’s main connection to New Haven in his role as Yale’s Summer Playbook student coordinator. Smilow said the Playbook, rather than promoting elitism, could help build a sense of community.

Still, Yale students have expressed mixed feelings about the idea behind the program: 11 out of 21 Yale students interviewed said they would not use the Playbook.

“I think that it’s counting on a sense of camaraderie between people in the Ivy League that I just don’t think exists,” Jacqueline Qiu ’18 said.

Nayeon Kim ’17 said she would rather use the site if it were open only to Yale students.

But some said they might find the site useful for finding summer housing overseas or in big cities.

Harvard student Jacques van Rhyn, for example, said he used the Playbook while enrolled at the Harvard-Beijing Academy — a program also available to Yale students during the summer — to connect with students involved in the Harvard-China Fund over the summer.

Ultimately, Heine said, the spirit of the tool is to offer flexibility.

“I’m here to give people a choice on how to spend their summers,” he said.

 

FINNEGAN SCHICK