College visits -- academics or the "extras"?

Parents Forum
1

<p>We’ve been on five college tours thus far – two large state unis, one small LAC and two mid-sized privates. Two of the schools are known for their academics. The thing that sticks out to me at the other three schools is how little emphasis is put on the academic side of the school. S and I had a long discussion about it, and his thinking was they know they can’t compete academically so they try to sell the other aspects of the college where they think they can – sports, dorms, Greek life, cool student rec center, famous alumni.</p>

<p>I think he’s got a point and told him that if this were a student-only tour I think it would be great stuff, but parents want to feel like their hard-earned dollars are going toward an actual education. I noticed that three parents asked questions on the most recent tour, at one of the large state schools, about academics, the honors college, etc., so I know I wasn’t the only one thinking, “Where's the beef?” </p>

<p>What has been your experience? Am I expecting too much? I don't expect some student tour guide to be conversant on 100 majors, but as he walks by the academic buildings can he mention impressive academic stats or something?</p>

2

<p>My impressions from last year visits were that it is a known fact that visitors have already formed very positive opinion about academics of particular school before they visit, otherwise, why to waste time visiting. We apppreciated that other aspects of attending this college were covered much more extensively during visit. It is hard to form opinion about dorm/campus/athletic facility without actually visiting place, while academics could be researched on Internet, word of mouth, emails asking professors in various departments, job / graduate school placement statistics and so forth. We visited only schools that D was interested from academic standpoint.</p>

3

<p>What a weird, complex bit of marketing the college tour is! For many prospective applicants, depending on the college, the student tour guide may be their most extensive contact with an actual current student. The college sort of controls what the tour guide says through selection, training and protocols, but the control is far from total, and a big portion of the school's image with each tour group is in the hands of some 19 year-old who may have all sorts of other things in his head at any moment. Plus, it's only one student, albeit one whom the college has chosen to represent it.</p>

<p>So what the tour guide says and how he says it is very vivid, interesting information, but not necessarily all that closely tied to (a) reality, or (b) what the president and dean of the college would tell you.</p>

<p>That said, I think how a college markets itself and whom it chooses to do this bit of marketing do say something about the culture of the college. If the tour guide doesn't mention academics, that doesn't mean that great academics aren't available, or that there isn't a sizable population of academically oriented students. It may mean, however, that the mainstream of students the college attracts -- and wants to attract -- aren't focusing on academics at the time of application.</p>

4

<p>On the tours we took, of schools that were all academically strong, not one tour guide mentioned academic stats or anything similar as we passed various buildings. Sometimes they pointed out new labs or new academic programs, but not always.</p>

<p>I think MiamiDAP is right: We wouldn't have bothered with visiting the school if we didn't believe that it was an academic "fit" - the visit was to determine the rest of the "fit", those things that we couldn't determine without visiting.</p>

5

<p>Years ago now, my kid and I toured a college which offers both the standard tour for prospective students and one for tourists. My kid had a friend a couple of years ahead of her in high school who was a student guide there and recommended that my kid take the tourist tour rather than the student tour. Nervous about the wisdom of the advice--which my kid insisted on following--I took both tours. </p>

<p>The advice to take the tourist tour turned out to be on the money, BTW. We had researched the school and so I knew everything I heard on the student tour. There was no new information. The tourist tour included many foreigners who asked some genuinely astute questions about what it was like to be an American college student and what made this college different. I learned a lot. </p>

<p>The two young men who gave them were very, very different. On paper, I should have liked the first, but I found him arrogant and condescending. The second was on paper someone I should have disliked intensely. In real life, my reaction was exactly the opposite. He was humble and personally engaging.He gave candid answers and when he didn't know something, he said so. I couldn't help but reflect on how very differently people would view the college after their tours.</p>

6

<p>*My impressions from last year visits were that it is a known fact that visitors have already formed very positive opinion about academics of particular school before they visit, otherwise, why to waste time visiting. *</p>

<p>Agreed- so where the differences lie are in the combination of student body, campus, town and what that offers.
Some combos click, like apples and peanut butter & some don't.</p>

7

<p>Agree with the other posters. We only visited colleges that were an academic fit. We visited to find out of my son could LIVE there for 4 years. We'll take the same approach this year with son #2. Find schools that on paper and via information meet the academic needs, then go find out where he snaps to.</p>

8

<p>Like jonri, we have taken the Yale tour as tourists with out-of-town guests a couple of times and have found it to be interesting and full of background info on both the University and New Haven. If different tours were offered at any schools we might visit with S2, I would definitely take the tourist approach.</p>

9

<p>Unless there is something in particular that the student wants in terms of academics or something unusual in the way a school offers academics, it is not a usual venue. If there are further questions about the academics, it is often best to sit in on some courses, shadow a student. Son did that when it came to the final choice.</p>

10

<p>Well, my kids and/or close family friends took the Yale student-oriented tour in four consecutive years, and six out of the seven kids involved thought it was the best tour they had at any college. I went on one of them, and it was without a doubt the best tour I attended at any college.</p>

<p>I hear people complain about the Harvard tour all the time. A friend just took it with her daughter two weeks ago, and she was just fuming at the arrogance and disrespect she perceived. My son, however, absolutely loved his Harvard tour, it was his second-favorite to Yale's. The guide was really knowledgeable and engaging. And my son made friends with a bunch of Indian students on the tour, some of whom he still corresponds with two-plus years later.</p>

11

<p>Hmm, my D hated her Yale tour, but thought the Harvard one was okay. She especially like Harvard's including students in the information session. </p>

<p>Overall, she visited a lot of schools and stayed overnight at a lot more of them than most applicants get a chance to. These visits profoundly affected her opinions of the schools. Whether or not she was right in those opinions, I'm not so sure.</p>

12

<p>But what about touring safeties and learning to love the safeties? Maybe I've misunderstood the safety concept. The two public unis are the safeties, but I wouldn't call them academic fits -- I mean the reason they're safeties is that a child in the top quarter of his/her class is guaranteed admission with an SAT CR+M of 950. His SAT scores should be well above that, but the point of going was to see if he could see himself at this safety.</p>

<p>Am I doing this wrong? I guess the concern is that does a safety mean there's just not a lot going on academics-wise?</p>

13

<p>Well, ideally you want to figure out if that's true. My son visited a couple of safeties, and had pretty honest conversations about academic life with the tour guides there. (With one of the potential safety tour guides, he made a real connection. Similar academic and intellectual interests, and a fairly unusual EC in common.) He thought he had a decent handle on what things would be like from that. Certainly NOT that "there's just not a lot going on academics-wise". More like, "There's a lot of academic opportunity, but it's something of a subculture within the institution as a whole. There will be lots of students who share your interests and focus, and even more who don't." I'm talking about fairly large universities, though, not LACs, where the sense might have been different. Also, he had very high stats, so his "safety" level was reasonably high.</p>

<p>One of the things I've learned on CC that I did wrong with my first child was not to focus a whole lot more on potential safeties. If I were advising someone now, I would say make certain you visit several potential safeties if you can. Trust me, if you get in to Harvard it will be easy to love, and a crappy tour will just create noise. Figuring out where you will be most comfortable and stimulated that's not HYPS etc. -- that takes work and attention, and visits can make a difference either way.</p>

<p>On the other hand, too much safety-obsession is a mistake, too. Most kids don't in fact go to their safeties, unless their safeties are the only realistic applications they make. You don't need three or four safeties. One real safety is fine. Thanks to EA and rolling admissions, my kids never even applied to the safeties they had chosen.</p>

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<p>"Thanks to EA and rolling admissions, my kids never even applied to the safeties they had chosen."</p>

<p>-- That was the exact situation we found ourselves in... D applied to her #1 school EA and was admitted long before the application deadline for her safety. It made for an exceptionally stress-free application process, something most of my friends can't say (and envied.)</p>

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<p>Do remember that every school has its own policy re: tour guides. Not every tour is a carefully engineered product, and in some/many cases, content may reflect the individual guide's preferences as much as anything else.</p>

<p>At my school, guides were volunteers and training was limited. We all loved the school and seemed to do alright, but I'm sure there was a lot of variance in our content (beyond the basics) and our approaches. Before making such a strong assumption as "They know they can't compete academically," I'd try to take another tour, and if the info you're hoping for still isn't included and can't be found in a viewbook, ask directly for it (on the tour and of non-guiding students). If that's not possible, try seeking some students out on CC or something of that nature. Perhaps your son has a point, but he needs to dig deeper to be sure. The non-academic content might reflect a very non-academically interested student body, but, as others have suggested, it might also reflect the fact that prospective students are assumed to be (or be able to become, on their own time) familiar with the academic side of things, which is generally more quantifiable and better published than the softer stuff.</p>

16

<p>We only took one tour of a safety, and I felt the same way you did, youdon'tsay. Not just the tour guide, but the admissions officer really focused on how much fun the kids were having there. It definitely did not impress me, and frankly not my S either. Thankfully, he didn't need the safety.</p>

17

<p>Hopefully, we won't need these safeties either. Thankfully, he had good things to say about each of them -- vibe, good facilities, etc.</p>

<p>Thanks for the info about tour volunteers, student615. I assumed all of these kids are on work-study and basically had been given a script to memorize. Truthfully, I have found the tour guides at the state unis absolutely engaging. They both did a great job encouraging enthusiasm and were very approachable and fun and knowledgeable about things my S wanted to know about (important things like intramural sports and LAN networks for gaming! :) ) They just didn't initiate much discussion about the academics.</p>

18

<p>It's a shame but a bad tour can sour a college to a kid. We had a bad tour of Fordham. The school was a good match for son and I really think he would have liked it, but we got separated during the tour and he got distracted trying to find me since we needed to leave quickly for some place afterwards. Always thought we should have retoured the school because . It's funny how the littlest thing can throw a kid off about a school.</p>

19

<p>It's interesting reading the different perspectives on tours. DD2 and DW went to Smith and Mt Holyoke for tours. DD2 came away impressed by Smith and totally disinterested in MH. When I asked DW for the underlying reason she said they discussed over dinner and found DD2 didn't like the fact MH never mentioned academics. The tour guide was focused on all the students being supportive and family-like. That just happens to be the wrong tack for DD2. I think what may resonate for some on a tour may not for others. It just depends.</p>

20

<p>We have visited many colleges at this point (our location in Maryland makes it easy to drive to many schools). If we can make the tour, we do, but sometimes we are behind schedule so we wind up doing our own tour. We do not like attending information sessions, as little can be learned that is not on the web site. Yes, sometimes the guides focus on things that strike me as trivial, but then again, my D often focuses on things that strike me as trivial, so it's a match. :)</p>

<p>Anyway, I have learned one thing on these visits that I wish more of my fellow parents would learn:</p>

<p>Shut</p>

<p>Up.</p>

<p>You are not the student. You do not need to ask a million questions. The kids sometimes cannot get in a word edgewise. You should not push to the front so someone's kid cannot hear. You needn't inquire about the nutritional quality of the food or the ergonomic features of the library chairs when we don't yet know whether your child will be admitted. You are not going to get a better grade by asking the most long, detailed, you-centered question of the group.</p>

<p>Please, blend into the background and let your child do the talking and thinking.</p>

<p>If you need me, you can find me in the back of the group, sweating. :)</p>

<p>Cindy -- who has now visited U of MD, Georgetown, Davidson, Elon, Emory, UNC, Duke, Bucknell, Lehigh, Villanova, Dickinson, U of Penn, Wesleyan, Tufts, BC, BU, Amherst and William and Mary and is exhausted but not through yet</p>