<p>What are the pros and cons of taking the campus tour or walking around campus on your own? Which one is better? Is skipping a tour at all a bad idea because how do you show interest?</p>
<p>My daughter and I found the official tours marginally better than walking around on our own … the main advantage were the tidbits about the school and campus life that the tour guide provides … we were just as able to walk by the chemistry building on our own. What we found very-very-very important was to see campuses when school is in session so you can get a feel for the vibe of the school and the campus … which is really tough when the campus is virtually empty.</p>
<p>I suggest both. When I took a quick unofficial tour through GW, one thing I noticed is that I was constantly asked what I was doing by security. I thought this was awesome - they weren’t threatened by me, but they knew I didn’t belong. A strange thing perhaps, but it built my confidence in the school’s security system. Depending on the campus, a self-lead tour may also help you see the weak spots of the campus that aren’t shown to anyone.</p>
<p>Thanks!
And if you only walk around and not take the tour at all, how do you prove you were there? how do you show interest?</p>
<p>Do both. S1 and I always did the official tour first. We got to see the dorms (which you probably won’t get access to on your own), some classes and heard the school’s official position on things. We then walked around on our own, asking students questions and getting feedback on things we were skeptical about from the tour.</p>
<p>It was always very interesting to compare the official position with the reality students told us about, especially on things like access to profs, safety and the party scene.</p>
<p>I think both as well, however, I think you should use the campus tour not as the opportunity to see what the school looks like, rather, an opportunity to hear directly from a student about the school and their lives there for an hour.</p>
<p>As a former tour guide with something like 150 tours under my belt, I can say that my best tours are the ones where I find myself thrown constantly off-script by really good, piercing questions. I know these were the tours I enjoyed most and I can tell from the reactions of people on my tour, during and after, that these were the ones people felt were most valuable and where my skills shined. Your best bet to get a great tour is to be the one to break the glass and ask a few very good questions early on that get at the heart of what it means to be a student at that school. From there, you’ll find the tour to be a wonderful resource.</p>
<p>If you just walk passively to understand what the buildings are, it’s only marginally better than walking around on your own.</p>
<p>Usually, your S or D signs in when they arrive at the admissions office-where tours usually leave from. No one checks to see that you really did do the entire tour. We found it helpful-we were able to get into buildings that we wouldn’t have known were worth visiting, saw dorm rooms, and picked up info from the tour guides that S was able to use. But if the guide wasn’t doing a good job, we had no qualms about splitting off on our own.</p>
<p>Def. take the official tour. If you feel like you didn’t see something that you are particularly interested in, you can always wander around on your own when the tour is over.</p>
<p>We’ve always done both the official tour and some self-guided walking around, time permitting. Agree with M’s Mom that the tour is helpful to get into buildings you otherwise couldn’t see, and with modestmelody on it being an opportunity to spend an hour with a current student. Some caveats, though: almost every tour guide will try to sell her school, and all come with a canned presentation that accentuates the positives; take it with a grain of salt. Second, there’s sometimes a danger of reading too much into the personality traits, quirks, preferences, etc. of the individual tour guide. There have been times my D came away with a somewhat negative impression of a school and, when we debriefed later, it became clear she just didn’t click with the tour guide. That can be unfair to the school. By the same token, she’s occasionally been enthusiastic about a school and in talking about it later it became clear it was really the tour guide more than the school that impressed her. So there’s a kind of overselling that can go on with a particularly effective or particularly compatible tour guide.</p>
<p>As for walking around on your own, it’s helpful to see the less attractive corners of campus that don’t make the official tour, or items of special interest to your student that may be missed on the tour. It’s also helpful to see the surrounding area—is there a nearby business strip, and what’s there? What are the surrounding neighborhoods like? Does it seem like the campus interacts with the surrounding community, or is it a gated fortress? And so on. Your student is looking at living there for 4 years. Dorms, dining halls, classrooms, libraries, and exercise facilities are certainly important pats of that experience, but it’s the total experience that counts, and surely at some level that includes the surrounding community.</p>
<p>Many large schools have 150 and more buildings so any tour only hits the highlights. I’d do the tour and then get a good school map and do my own version. If it’s the weekend you might be able to see more by driving around and stopping at buildings, etc you want to see.</p>