Carnegie-Mellon: Fix your info sessions and tours

Between the visits for my two kids, I have probably made well over 30 college visits (many were duplicates). And there is one that clearly stands out far as being worse than the rest, which is Carnegie-Mellon.

Here is everything they did poorly during our visit last weekend.

  1. There were about 200 people waiting for the tour where we were told to gather via email. At the time the tour was to start, a tour guide comes in and says "Sorry, this isn't the right place. I will take you to the right place", which happened to about 5 minutes away. Apparently, they keep sending out the wrong location on weekends.
  2. The tour guides work in pairs, but one of them kept yawning through the tour when she wasn't speaking. We are talking about wide-open yawns in front of an entire group. Nothing else says "I am completely disinterested" quite like this does.
  3. They never showed us the main quad. How do you do a tour without showing the main quad?
  4. During the info session, which again had about 200 people in a large auditorium, the presenter's microphone didn't work. They spent at least 15 minutes struggling with that, and I don't think they ever got that to work. We were about a third of the way up, and we could barely hear her.

This was a visit with a child that would ideal for their CS program. But zero interest in CMU after that visit with the remark: “If this is how they do when they are trying to impress, I would hate to see what they are like when they don’t.”

And this was my second visit to CMU. The first, with my older daughter, was poor as well with tour guides that didn’t seem interested in the school. But at least they didn’t yawn, and we did get to go through the main quad.

Wow, this is so disappointing to hear! This is on our list to visit this summer, most likely. My DS20 is also interested in CS. He doesn’t have a very open mind as it is (UIUC is his top choice at this point which of course is awesome, although we haven’t done many visits yet, because we’re in-state and he is assuming some close friends will end up there, but in different majors). I truly do hope CMU gets their act together. How disappointing for you!

Perhaps it will be better by then. Hopefully someone at CMU sees this.

Huh. We had a perfectly fine tour experience at CMU. No tech problems and our tour guide was enthusiastic and informative. Other than not seeing the dorms (which wasn’t too unusual), DD felt like it was a comprehensive tour and she had enough information.

That said, we were within driving distance and went during the week when DD didn’t have school because of a teacher inservice day. The group that day was also very small, probably thanks to winter weather. I don’t think there were more than 15 people in our tour group and 50 in the auditorium.

To be clear, our tour group didn’t have 200 people. They had many tour guides, so I think our tour group size was closer to 40 people.

We happened to be in Pittsburgh at the end of January and were surprised to see that they don’t do info sessions - at all - in December and January. Two full months! We live 6 hours away, and my son attended a local road show, but it would have been nice for him to do the info session and tour on campus.

But in February, they do tours and info sessions every day, including Sunday unlike most places. But no tech support in case the microphone fails.

I too am a veteran of 30+ college tours with my four kids. I remember the cmu tour being about average — not too memorable but not awful. Despite tour, DS ended up at cmu and is having a very good experience there.

Tours are hugely variable. Largely due to the personality of the guides but also institutional rules (“no dorm visit. Labs are locked today!”).

I’ve even visited colleges twice and had one outstanding tour and one terrible one (RPI, Yale). So you can’t really judge an institution by a bad tour.

By far our best, most illuminating college visits were when we had a contact there (professor, student, or friend of a friend) who could give us a true feel for the place.

We just came from Pittsburgh. We absolutely loved CMU. It vaulted from unknown on my son’s list to #1 (pending or spring tour). The tour was divided into two groups of about 20. We had two very good guides. One a senior women the other a freshman young man. They were able to answer questions, and full in gaps between their knowledge. Obviously the senior knew more, but they both have different interests and experiences.

My son loved the campus, enjoyed the kids, though in his words they skewed towards weird, but not anti social. He liked the fact that it had ad dedicated campus as opposed to U Pitt or U Penn which campus was just part of the city.

He got an absolutely amazing tour of the physics department, we met 4 of the professors and the emphasis and enthusiasms for teaching was infectious.

If your planning on touring CMU, don’t let the original post or this review sway you. See it for yourself and see how you feel. Not to mention Pittsburgh was very nice, plenty of things to do, a lot of good food within walking distance, and on campus (we’re vegan, foods important)

Wasn’t even aware that CMU had a “main quad” LOL. Everything there is so spread out. I believe the new hub is actually Tepper Quad (just opened about six months ago) which is supposed to interconnect with all the other colleges and schools:
https://www.cmu.edu/tepper/tepper-quad/index.html

It’s actually refreshing to hear of a visit to a top school with mistakes and things going wrong. Most of these are so polished and where exactly is the useful information in that? If you see exactly what they want you to see, your visit might be as insightful as the “Haunted Mansion” ride at WDW. Far more interesting to witness how these smooth admissions people handle the unexpected events. Especially technology glitches at a school that specializes in tech. The asburdity of that situation sounds more hilarious than anything else.

My son happened to visit in January for the Turn Tarleton Overnight and really enjoyed his experience. He was one of only a few non-SCS/non-COE hopefuls and still had a great time. Perhaps they put more effort into those types of visits. He and my husband found the admissions people to be very informative and even witty. It’s kind of an offbeat place but academically intense. Lots of smart people, is what my son observed. There are many easons not to choose CMU - it’s not for everyone. But I wouldn’t judge on the admission visit, expect maybe to think it’s a good sign that they focus more on academics than on marketing.

We had a great tour at CMU with upbeat tour guides. We’ve gotten to the point where we don’t take student tour guides super seriously. If they’re great and connect, wonderful. If not,oh well. Worst tour guide for us - Macalester. Still liked the school though.

It does seem like CMU doesn’t focus on selling their school quite as much as other schools of that caliber. Does feel more like take it or leave it. That’s a good point. It might depend on your kid too. My kid appreciates when students kind of “keep it real” and show some personality/humor and talk about ups and downs of student life. If it sounds like a upbeat marketing pitch the entire time, he loses interest and just assumes it’s not sincere.

@hebegebe We had a very similar experience a few years ago. Tour guides showed up 15 minutes late with fresh cups of Starbucks - incredibly unprofessional. Only two tour guides for 200+ people, and they didn’t split up the group… The info session showed video after video, without a single faculty member or student discussing the university in person. A focus on their BXA program even though less than 1% of the CMU students are actually enrolled in it.

It really angered me since I’m an alum. I contacted them directly with my complaints. I was told that most people really like their tours. CMU clearly doesn’t see the need to fix anything.

Also an alum - I ended up conducting my own voluntary extended tour for our tour group after the “official” one ended, when my daughter visited a couple of years ago. I really couldn’t believe how much they didn’t cover - didn’t touch any of Baker/Porter/Scaife/'schlag/Wean/Doherty.

When my son and I took the tour at CMU, it actually vaulted them to number 1 in his mind. We had a similar experience as what you describe when we toured Brown…both times.

Yes, looking across all of our campus tours, the person doing the tour can make a huge difference.