<p>I visited Harvard recently, and my tour guide told me that he wished he attended Yale. Of course he didn't tell the whole group this, but when I came up to him after he finished giving the tour to ask about the social life/party scene, he said he was very disappointed. LOL I'm not really sure what to make of this?</p>
<p>Sorry for the bad tour. If you happen to be in Boston take “The unofficial tour of Harvard.” Google it.</p>
<p>Interesting.</p>
<p>I hope he transfers. We don’t need trolls like him. Harvardians have fun by studying and working hard, not by partying hard.</p>
<p>We don’t have a social life/party scene on a par with, say University of Texas. If you want that in a college, you should not go to Harvard. BUT. Yale and the other schools at the tippy-top are no different on this front…and it’s really weird that such a regretful student would choose/be chosen to give tours.</p>
<p>My D1 was also turned off by the tour- not the guide, but the hordes, that day. She had plenty of experience with the school and library, but something about the hunger among the other kids struck her. If she had been a stronger match, we probably would have taken her again, on a less popular day, to get another perspective.</p>
<p>We had other schools where one guide could alter your view. But some of it, you take with a grain of salt- from the marketing speak to the one kid who’s not savvy enough to filter to the kid whose perspective is just lopsided. We expect them to be on their game- but if it is a serious choice college, our responsibility can be not to go on just any one experience or one aspect. Not always easy, I know. Good luck.</p>
<p>The official Harvard campus tour has a weird vibe that didn’t seem at all indicative of real life at Harvard. For starters, Harvard is a tourist destination - you come across lots of other groups and commercial tours full of people snapping pics of John Harvard’s statue and rubbing his foot (yikes!) Due to the sheer volume of people that want to take the tour, a lot of stuff is off-limits. No dining hall, no residence halls, etc.
I suppose the guides can get kind of bored and will say things like ‘i wish I went to Yale’ just to keep it interesting</p>
<p>I don’t recommend that anyone take the official campus tour from the university, as the information provided on the tour is basically the same as in the info session. I’ve even written to President Faust complaining about the awful tours, but nothing has been done about it – probably because this private company employs the better student tour guides: [Harvard</a> Campus Tours - Trademark Tours presents Harvard University](<a href=“http://www.harvardtour.com/home/]Harvard”>http://www.harvardtour.com/home/)</p>
<p>From their FAQ’s:</p>
<p>“The Hahvahd Tour is the most popular walking tour of Harvard University. Guided by current Harvard undergrads, it is a 70-minute historic tour of Harvard Yard and the surrounding neighborhood of Harvard Square. Entertaining and educational, the Hahvahd Tour is in its 8th year of operation. It receives consistent praise from guests and major media outlets!”</p>
<p>“Founded in 2006 by Harvard Alumni, we are a private company that employs over 50 Harvard students per year. The Harvard Trademark Program officially licenses our company to use the Harvard brand. We are an official partner of Harvard Student Agencies, The Harvard COOP and The Harvard Museum of Natural History. We provide tours for nearly every Harvard graduate school. Our founder sits as a Board Member with the Harvard Square Business Association. We are proud to serve Harvard.”</p>
<p>It was the info session that really turned my son off. The gentleman who gave the session spoke as if people should be feeling lucky just to be sitting in one of the hallowed halls listening to him. There was a guy sitting behind us who had already been accepted by HYP, asking questions just to show everyone how great he was (it is completely unclear what an accepted student was doing there). The tour was a bit “meh”, and as danstearns said, we couldn’t go to any freshman dorms. In spite of all this, my son entered the class of 2011 and absolutely loved his 4 years at Harvard.</p>
<p>That said, the Hahvahd tour (which used to be called the Unofficial Tour, right?), drives students completely nuts. It is VERY entertaining, but the guides often make things up, and they talk at the top of their lungs. Still, I once took my BU foreign students there for a tour, and we had a blast.</p>
<p>You can’t judge much by tours. My older son had a very strange tour at Haverford, wound up going there and loved it. My younger son, who is a junior at Harvard never took an official tour. We took one of Princeton though and we were totally turned off by the guide. We then decided to skip tours and just look around on our own at schools. I am sorry you had a bad experience. Of course it is all about the match between a particular student and school, but our son has been so happy at Harvard. We live locally so we know many of his friends and they are just great kids, so sweet and down to earth. I feel so blessed that he is at Harvard.</p>
<p>I respectfully dissent from the other posters here and say that students who speak negatively about the school should be treated as a rare gem and should be asked as many questions as possible. The reality is that all schools have downsides and it’s important to know what current students think they are. Why would you bother asking a question if all you want is the whitewashed answer?</p>
<p>Granted, Harvard might want to fire this tour guide because he doesn’t seem to do his job very well…but from the student’s perspective it’s an advantage to have a student who talks about the negatives. Also keep in mind that you shouldn’t take any one student’s views about Harvard as fact (that includes mine and other posters’ here.) But if at least one Harvard student thinks the social life stinks, sure he could be wrong, but isn’t that worth further investigation?</p>
<p>Huh. This is interesting. I have seen Harvard before (a long time ago) but recently took kind of an unofficial tour with someone who was able to get me access to see dorms and other stuff. I did see the other tour groups out on the quad (?) and it did really look a little scary. All the parents and kids were dressed up and I thought a lot of the kids just looked legit intimidated. We passed one girl who I guess wore some new shoes or something because she was sitting on some steps and her foot was bleeding and her mom was all upset with her about them and the dad was trying to calm down the mom.</p>
<p>The tour groups are BIG and I’m glad I didn’t have to do one. Anyway I liked Harvard. I thought I really liked the idea of remote campuses as opposed to ones that are right in cities but for some reason I liked Harvard more than I thought I would. I liked Boston more than I thought I would and didn’t remember how close it really was to Cambridge. It’s like 2 seconds away.</p>
<p>The official tour is a waste. I went with a friend, we peeled off after 20 minutes and spent the rest of the afternoon exploring. </p>
<p>I don’t even get why people do these tours. Maybe 20 years ago it was the only way but now? Just dig up some info online and go poke around.</p>
<p>Harvard is very cool, btw. Anyone who trashes it either doesn’t know what s/he’s talking about or is basically jealous.</p>