LEAD: Perhaps it is because its sand-colored stone buildings so tidily fit the popular notion of the ideal campus that Yale University in New Haven seems so familiar, even to the first-time visitor.

The flush-fitting Apex can fit tidily into a space between your units, without the need for an air gap.

The threat that a stalemate with its players union will shutter the Women's National Basketball Association if a deal is not reached by Friday fits tidily into the mosaic of sports labor-relations scrums.

She didn't have to think judgmentally about the content of the stories and photos, just juggle them and trim them until they fit tidily and, if possible, artistically into the prescribed space.

The case, Dr. Randolph M. Nesse said, does not fit tidily with the view that depression is only a matter of disordered brain chemicals: A woman sought help from a psychiatric clinic because she was desperately depressed.

Not many ski areas can dig into their past and pull up anecdotes that fit tidily into their modern marketing scheme.

The music is original-ish; the score, by Stephen Weiner, doesn't borrow, exactly, but the songs do fit tidily into conventional genres.

And the ensemble and its program do fit tidily into the Pillow's program of encouraging things new.

He is a painter's painter and a maverick who does not fit tidily into categories; consequently, his public reputation has never quite caught up with the art world's esteem.

The unwelcome thought occurred to me that the diminutive thief-taker would probably fit tidily in one of the empty food hampers.