<p>I've visited 2 so far, and they were pretty good except one was way too short...which campus tours did you enjoy the most? Also, this is a bit off topic, but which colleges give you free t-shirts on their tours? I've been on the UT Austin campus tour, and they didn't give us anything, but my friend who went to a tour at OU (Oklahoma University) apparently got a bunch of shirts and stuff for free, and I just thought that was pretty cool.</p>
<p>52 views and no replies?!?!</p>
<p>ive done 7 and i would have to say that wake forest gave the best tour even though it is not my top choice. Maybe because it’s on the smaller side you’re able to see more? But i was satisfied and enjoyed it.</p>
<p>I went on sooooo many tours when last spring/summer/fall (probably like 25). The only school that gave me a free t-shirt was the University of Rochester. They also gave me free bottles of cold water to take on the tour, which was really nice because it was the middle of August. Wash U in St. Louis did that, too, which was nice in the St. Louis summer!</p>
<p>As for best tours… I took a lot of good ones, but the ones that really stand out are Yale, Wash U, Duke, and UPenn. For me, good tour guides make a good tour. Those were the schools were the guides were the most enthusiastic and knowledgeable.</p>
<p>^ Yes, I was thinking of Rochester too! I still wear the shirt from my tour (just about a year go) sometimes even though I never even ended up applying… haha</p>
<p>I went on 7 tours over the course of my college-app season (from winter of last year to just recently for admitted students days) and my favorites were probably SUNY Buffalo and Syracuse University. The Syracuse tour itself was just standard-length and didn’t show anything but building exteriors, but the tour guide was very outgoing and friendly (and funny, not in the forced-jokes kind of way) and actually genuinely enthusiastic about the school, which ALWAYS makes tours seem better.</p>
<p>I was really impressed with the Buffalo tour because they made a real effort to show everything despite it being a huge campus. Insides, outsides, library, dorms, classrooms, even their undeground tunnels =] They really made a genuine effort to show you what students see on a regular basis and what life for a student would be like (even if the facilities weren’t super stellar top notch) rather than showing shiny, pretty exteriors and lots of grass, which is easily forgotten and just doesn’t matter as much. None of my other schools really made that effort.</p>
<p>I had a huge East Coast college trip planned out last spring (I live in the Midwest). The plan was to go to Harvard, Princeton, Brown, UPenn, Williams, and Amherst. On one day I was supposed to go to Williams, and the following day to Amherst, and after visiting Williams, I hated it. I do understand why people like it, but being from a rural town of 8,000 myself, it seemed a little too close to home.</p>
<p>So I said forget Amherst, where else could we go? So we saw Yale was reasonably nearby, and went there instead. The campus tour honestly put Yale from off my radar to the top of my list. After researching it when I got home, I applied SCEA, got in, and am now enrolled there.</p>
<p>Good thing Williams’ tour sucked so bad, eh?</p>
<p>The best college tour I had is the college I will be going to, California State University Long Beach.
I didn’t get any free stuff, but every single person I met was extremely nice which made me really want to go there. All the tourguides were really caring (I had trouble walking) and then answered all my questions. A lot of the staff knew the student’s names and all the students were more than happy to talk to me about the school.
It was a wonderful experience.</p>
<p>It is my understanding that the Lehigh tours are very powerful, with many students coming back home “in love” with the campus and the students and the University in general.</p>
<p>Althouh in my opinion, the single most convincing visit is that to Princeton.</p>
<p>^ Unfortunately, the day I went to Princeton it was pouring, so I couldn’t take a campus tour. The information session was average.</p>
<p>I have to say that the best information session + tour package I’ve been on so far was at Columbia. Georgetown’s tour was really good as well.</p>
<p>Best: Kenyon in Ohio. The info session had a panel of a couple students, a professor, and an admission rep. By the time they were finished, we had such a good feel for the school’s personality. It wasn’t the typical presentation, which all seem alike after you’ve seen a few of them.</p>
<p>Worst: Duke. We went at a very busy time on spring break, but they didn’t handle the crowd well. The info session was an hour and the most boring of all we’ve seen. People were yawning and checking their watches. Then when we broke into small groups for the tour, our group had 80 people. I never could hear or see the guide. We only saw the exteriors of buildings. I thought they chould have anticipated the crowd and had more student tour guides.</p>
<p>Best: University of Florida. Great tour guides (yes, they had 4 for one tour!), extremely passionate about their school, took us into The Swamp, etc…</p>
<p>The best ones that I went on with my daughter were at Haverford and Johns Hopkins. Awesome tour guides at both!</p>
<p>My best tours were at Penn State, William & Mary, and Delaware. They had really good, dynamic tour guides that made it fun but still informative.</p>
<p>On the Delaware tour, they gave people a free soda at the cafeteria and let us all request a song on their radio station. At Lehigh, there was a group of people supporting some cause (can’t remember) and giving away free t-shirts.</p>
<p>buckeye – your description of the spring break tour of Duke sounds like it could have been written by me! We had the exact same experience 2 years ago. I think if they had students register in advance for the tours they would be able to plan accordingly. Since they don’t, they made it a miserable experience. We couldn’t hear a word the tour guide was saying because the group was huge!</p>
<p>Earlham College gave a really nice tour</p>
<p>I will second the tour of Kenyon, the student guides were great and the admissions people could not have been more helpful. I think a small part of the positive impression they made was that we had been on the worst tour we have ever experienced at Denison a few hours earlier.</p>
<p>I think that the best tours that I’ve had were at:</p>
<p>Brown
Wake Forest
Duke
Davidson</p>
<p>Had the best tour guides, loved the campuses (although surrouding areas were not always awesome). I also toured UNC-G, and we had an awesome tour guide, made it worth seeing the school. But as a whole, I didn’t like it there.</p>
<p>Best tours, in no particular order:
Bryn Mawr, Brandeis, Kenyon - very personable, outgoing and friendly tour guides
Georgetown and Mount Holyoke - incredibly professional and mature tour guides</p>
<p>Unimpressive:
Haverford - we got a dud of a tour guide which is really unfortunate since we so wanted to like the school
GWU - particularly the tour guides on the Mt Vernon campus - ditzy</p>
<p>Best Tours:
U Richmond, Bryn Mawr, Vasser, Franklin and Marshall</p>
<p>Unimpressive:
Bard, Haverford, Dickinson</p>
<p>I had a great tour at Stanford. The tour guide was very friendly, funny, and open - he wasn’t afraid to tell us stories he may not have been supposed to tell us, although as with any review of Stanford, there wasn’t anything bad for him to say (this is kind of an issue in the Stanford community).</p>
<p>I had a really horrible tour at American. Not only did I hate the campus, my tour guide was an anti-intellectual who made sure we knew she hated all things fair trade, honors college, and study-related.</p>