<p>If the information session that day is rather large and you will be breaking the group into smaller groups for the student lead tours, have the student lead tours take different routes so all groups are not on each others heels. All groups ended back at the same place however we were better able to concentrate and hear our individual guide and were not merging into one large group. This also means that the student guides are trained VERY well! We visited two schools that did a great job at this.</p>
<p>When dividing up the large information session into smaller tour groups, don’t do it by where we are sitting (ie. everyone on the right go with Thomas…) do it by major interest. We got stuck in traffic on the way to the info session and since we were 6 minutes late, had to sit in the back of the session. We then got stuck doing our tour with all the slacker kids who did not care much about this IVY school and many of them told us as we walked that they probably wouldn’t get in anyhow. My DS, who is a top student and very academic AND a legacy to the school was not impressed at all with the school based on our tour alone. The tour guide knew very little about the science majors (since he was into philosophy and some humanities type minor) and the peer company tainted the entire tour. He much prefered the other IVY that we had visited two days prior, where the tourguide spoke about the vast research opportunities available his double major in microbiology and spanish and his minor in nanotechnology!!! ARGHHH!</p>
<p>seiclan - that’s an excellent point. We have attended 2 tours recently where they simply let the audience choose which tour guide they wanted to follow - and this is awkward too as one more charismatic student might get a large group and a more nerdy student has only one family. I also wish they had more diversity among the majors of the tour guides. My son is interested in business - so certainly not an unusual major - and at both visits - no business majors among the tour guides and the ones we selected had very little info about the business major other than pointing out the building to us.</p>
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<p>It’s like picking your team in elementary school gym class…at one school, most guides had 4-5 families and the overweight, unattractive guide only had one family. Let’s think of a better way, okay?</p>
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<p>I guess the schools don’t have any control over who applies for the tour guide jobs. But yeah, touring with a potential business major at schools with great business departments, we’d face a choice between two English majors and a flute major.</p>
<p>I must be the bull in a china shop at tours.
I’ll ask the tour guide, “Can we talk in the shade?” or if it’s a small tour “Can we go in that building?” And if they divide us up, I have no problem with ignoring them and going with the tour guide I want for whatever reason (major of the guide, for instance). And I happily jump to the little group with the wallflower guide – you get more personal attention that way.</p>
<p>Actually, I like it when they let you pick your tour guide. At one recent visit, we were assigned by rows to go with particular tour guides, and we were with an education major (which son has no interest in) and he would have loved to be with a science major. It did not help that our guide did not know a lot about the science area when we got to that part of the tour.</p>
<p>I have never looked at the attractiveness of the guide (I don’t think) - we try to go with a guide who has a major son is interested in or if that is not available, a guide who speaks LOUDLY and clearly. I hate when I cannot hear half the tour!</p>
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<p>And did your son die of embarrassment? My son would have been fine with that, but my D would have disjointed her eyes with so many eye rolls!</p>
<p>Actually, my bull in a china shop husband is better at doing tours than I am…if a faculty interview is not scheduled, he’ll poke around the building that houses the department until he finds someone who looks like a faculty member and start quizzing them.</p>
<p>He’s used to it! 
But you’re right; ds2 wouldn’t take to that as much.</p>
<p>I only did the “Can we go in that building?” during a particularly horrendous tour where the guide was so unfocused that he was easily manipulated into giving the group the tour IT wanted. Another parent asked him to take us into a second dorm, which he did. I guess this was a mutiny. It was the longest, most awful tour of the many we went on.</p>
<p>Our worst tour was with a girl who spoke very softly and faster than anyone but the guy on the old Fed Ex commercial. And she’d start talking as soon as she stopped walking, and would be done by the time most of us had caught up. BUT, it was so darned hot that no one said a word…we just wanted it to be over!</p>
<p>LOVED the school that gave a brief welcome to all, and then offered your choice of 4 (out of 6 offered) rotating small-groups, such as:</p>
<p>-Tour (everyone did this, at one of 6 time-slots)
-Admissions
-Clubs, Service, and ECs
-Greek life
-Financial Aid
-Academic life</p>
<p>Parents and kids could stay together or divide and conquer. It really let you tailor the time to your own needs and interests.</p>
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<p>I SO hate when they do this. I would almost rather prefer that they just give rows 1 and 2 to tour guide A, rows 3 and 4 to tour guide B, etc. Unlike some of you, I don’t particularly care about whether the tour guide has the same major – because I think they should be able to articulate the opportunities, facilities, etc. for all the major areas and provide a good tour to any student.</p>
<p>I guess schools need to think about what the “campus tour” entails. If they have too many visitors to do any individual or small group meetings, the guides really need to say something about academics. We had a couple of tours where we came away knowing about the buildings and that is all…just from the campus visit, we gathered nothing about the rigor of academics, potential majors, departments they’re known for. </p>
<p>Of course, I guess it’s telling when they go on for quite some time about how to get tickets for athletic events but never mention academics.</p>
<p>No Freshmen or 1st semester Sophomore tour guides. Went to BU in the spring and 75% of guides were Freshmen and they knew very little about majors or extracurriculars. Also minimize the number tour guides with ‘undecided’ majors. </p>
<p>Also let tour guides be honest in telling where else they applied. We found the Tufts tour guides to be a bit ‘sanitized’. Nothing bad could be said & she wouldn’t talk about why she chose Tufts over other schools. </p>
<p>My D picks the tour guide based on their major/extracurriculars and ignores any instructions based on where we are sitting in the info session.</p>
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<p>The funny thing about our experience is that the four guides seemed to have no clue about how to divide us all up. This happened last week…I sincerely doubt that this was their first tour of the season…why didn’t they have some method?</p>
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<p>We had a graudate student taking one of the tours with us to see what it was like…she hadn’t gone to undergrad there but had been hired to be a tour guide. So basically she didn’t know anything about the undergraduate experience.</p>
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<p>The problem is, in our experience, they all can’t articulate the opportunitues for all the major areas- that’s why we like to go with a guide that has a major in the area our son is interested in. </p>
<p>The education major we were assigned to this spring break on a tour at CC “top 25” university did not know much at all of the opportunities outside of her area. And she was a senior to boot. She was one of the worst tour guides we have had - but luckily the info session was one of the best we had. They had an evaluatuion form for the tour, and I should have filled it out, but I decided not to fill it out becuase she was a nice girl and I did not want to say anything bad about her. I know. . . bad reason. . . how are they supposed to know if we do not tell them?</p>
<p>So I like to pick my tour guides, and I am too much of a rule follower to not go with the one I have been assigned! If I go on any more tours, I will try to be more proactive like some of the rest of you.</p>
<p>At least give the student a coupon to eat in an on-campus venue, if not the parent and the student. It gives the student a chance to test out the food and to really feel like he is getting an experience of what it is like to be on the campus in an ordinary, day to day situation. How do the students act while getting food? What do they say? You can eavesdrop on real conversations to see what students talk about. And if the student is not too shy, you get a chance to talk with students who are not following a required script.</p>
<p>DD and I made an agreement that I’d go to info sessions but not (most) tours, but from what she said, the worst tour was at my alma mater, where the tour guide stood in the middle of campus and pointed at buildings. DD had been several years earlier for my reunion, and spent several hours complaining “I remember seeing all sorts of cool buildings when I came with you. I didn’t see ANYTHING on this tour.”</p>
<p>I like it when you can choose your tourguide. We toured twice at Tufts and both times there were multiple guides. They each introduced themselves by major and some of their ECs. The second time we chose the ugly duckling. She was fine, all the international families had chosen her as she was an international. I think everyone else was scared away by her accent. Which I didn’t think was too bad, and I think the internationals really appreciated her perspective. Although I like the idea of dividing up by majors neither kid has ever actually gone a tour who majored in what my kids have thought they would major in. (Georgetown was closest - a poly sci guy who had at least taken some International Relations type courses.) We’ve had a lot of drama major tour guides - and enjoyed them though we have no budding theatrical types in our house.</p>
<p>I agree no freshmen leading tours, though at Carnegie Mellon we had a 2nd semester soph and a freshman in training who did a tandem tour which worked very well.</p>
<p>I agree that allowing at least the student to eat lunch is a huge plus and paying for it is nice, though I certainly don’t expect it.</p>
<p>Show us your REAL dorm room. We visited our state flag three weeks ago, they took us to a huge dorm with chilling A/C. One parent asked: “all your rooms have A/C?” but the tour guide turned her head and pretend did not hear the question…</p>