There is more info easily available online than when we started touring colleges in 2005. But even if we had a hs student looking now I’d still do the info sessions. A side benefit is seeing the other applicants … definitely MIT info session crowd was different than say Tufts which we saw on the same day. (Not necessarily better or worse… just different - it’s all about “fit”).
" if you have a choice of tour guides, do not pick the guide who shares your child’s academic interests." I have the opposite advice. Pick the tour guide who shares your child’s academic interests. Then spend at least part of the tour walking near them so you can chat about their experiences at the school.
And even if you don’t have a choice of tour guides…pick the one you like anyway. Nobody cares.
@sseamom Self-touring is very much hit or miss, so a student could come away with a negative impression of the school.
I think that knowledge is power. Going on the tours, sitting through the info sessions, all give you at least a basic understanding of what that school is like.
Sure, all those other ways of learning mentioned in the OP contribute as well. But I think that the tours give you the foundation you’ll want.
Going on an organized tour is also hit or miss, and in my opinion, overnight visits where you stay with a student are even more so (since your experience is entirely dependent on the characteristics of your host, who may not be representative of the students at that college).
The visit is an important part of the information-gathering process, but it shouldn’t be the only thing that students take into consideration when making decisions about colleges.
D. visited schools under consideration multiple times and under very different settings. Tours were her initial visits to get a feel if she would even pursue applying there or not. She crossed off some places after these tours, she simply said that they were not for her.
The tours are good, especially if you have a good tour guide that will answer questions and not afraid to take you off the beaten path. I also liked being in a group to talk to other parents about where else have they been.
I think that visits are a lot more valuable if the person visiting has done their homework in advance, and has specific questions they want to ask or issues they want to investigate.
Thanks everyone…most of what I had read seemed more negative on the experience so I appreciate hearing the other side.
If you’re visiting anyway, I don’t see any downside to taking the tour if it’s available. I always do.
We found tours to be pretty helpful, both the standard campus tour and a dorm/housing tour if available. But we coupled the official tour with anywhere from several hours to a couple days running around the campus and surrounding area. For whatever reason, D is very much into running around off-campus to restaurants and such so the surrounding area is very important to her.
If you can’t get a tour that fits your visit schedule, it is still useful to tour the campus yourself, we did that with UCLA, UMich, Case Western. I can’t say any of those were really as useful as tours, due to lack of access and finding people to talk to, but we did get an idea of the feel of the campus.
If I could get a tour that works with my schedule, I would find time to attend. How else can you see a typical dorm and some other restricted areas and who wants to spend the time coming up with a good honest self-tour.
The info sessions are sort of hit and miss, I guess if this is a highly selective dream school you could search for admission nuggets and you will get some idea of the program at the school, maybe in less time than a thorough reading of boring stuff on the web (you should still look at specific major related and interest related info in detail).
I definitely recommend the organized tours. Unless you are there on a really busy day (spring break, junior visit day) tours give you a chance to ask questions of the guide - you can learn so much from the student guides. With the exception of UMass, where our guide said “Um” every third word, I found them all informative. (Come to think of it, their info session was a bust also - we went there to find out IF he wanted to apply and they only talked about HOW to apply.) Anyway, the one school where we didn’t have a formal tour (went on a weekend in the summer) we had to go back later so he could tour.
Do the tour. Stop in later into the student center- taste the food, pick up a school paper and talk to a current student. Sit in on a class if you can.
There is also a useful piece of building a sense of what’s typical on a college campus and what is particular to a given college. The first time they hear/ see the library with x books, the student center with a Starbucks, how anybody can start a club they may be impressed; after seeing a few they can get past that and think more about how the place fits them. It’s like inoculating them for college marketing the way you did with toy marketing when they were little!
With DD16 we’re planning on doing the tours, checking out the department for her major, eating the food, wandering around freestyle, and I’m printing out the bingo thread so I can keep myself entertained during the tours.