<p>After the first 2 or 3 info sessions, we stopped attending them. All of the information was on the website and there was just nothing very informational about them. Also, we stopped doing the tours on the college’s big programmed visit days. Just too generic and too crowded. Son really enjoyed meeting with a faculty member in his major’s dept. and sitting in on a class – those were the things that got him excited about different schools. Case Western tour – students were broken into groups by name, dependent upon chosen majors led by students in that major – definitely a plus. Carnegie Mellon tour-- multiple tour guides with different majors, one techie, one artsy – another plus. UAB tour – tour guide talked about blue emergency lights, said only to use them for emergencies, just use your cell to call Security’s non-emergency number to get rid of the panhandlers when they accost you – not so good an impression. I appreciated the candor, but the guides need to remember they are selling the school.</p>
<p>northeastmom- my rant was about the students who volunteer to be tour guides, and the unkind evaluations of them. </p>
<p>Unfortunately they are not polished professional salespeople, just unpaid students.</p>
<p>Gardna–yes the tours are informational, my argument is that they should not be held to a level of perfection sought by some of the parents. All this talk of how the colleges should sell themselves with perfect, slick guides is unrealistic, at least at the top schools, which would still have plenty of buyers without any effort whatsoever.</p>
<p>What I hope to never hear again is long, detailed explanations of pranks that the this school has pulled on rival school and the ensuing battle that follows.</p>
<p>I never made a comment about about any tour guides, fauve. I don’t understand your comments toward me. I don’t care if you want to defend tour guides that I have never met. My only comment about a student was that my son was interviewed by senior when he was scheduled to have an interview with an admission counselor and the appointment was made well in advance of our visit. This is NOT the student’s fault, but I did not appreciate the fact that my son did not meet with an admission’s counselor.</p>
<p>Every now and then, please stop by a building that includes bathrooms and be kind enough to point them out. During an hour long tour, some of us would appreciate it.</p>
<p>I would hope that admissions offices focus the visits/information sessions on what prospective students want to know or need. While I sympathize with the concerns about water, parking, etc. I think universities should focus first and foremost on the students. For those who can afford it, part of parenting is suffering through these visits.</p>
<p>On a side note, if universities do not show dorm rooms you might assume there is nothing much to see. At the University of San Francisco recently, one of the best parts of the tour was the eighth-floor room in the first-year dorm. I jokingly said to the guide, “Can’t you show us a better view?” And she responded seriously, “Down the hall the rooms get a view of the bay.”</p>
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Those stories are the best part of the Caltech tour. (Its cannon was in the process of being rescued from MIT while we were there.)</p>
<p>I for one don’t expect the tour guides to be professionals, but I do expect them to be reasonable well trained. (I used to give tours of the National Cathedral, so I actually have a pretty good idea of what it’s like.)</p>
<p>Agree with MAthmom. Actually, didn’t hear too much about the pranks while at Caltech. They did assign a CS major to give us the tour, and she offered a lot of info about that department without waiting to be asked. Also, the Acting head of admissions invited me to join the meeting after half hour, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear they had been discussing books and writing. Another half hour, and I was convinced this would be a good fit. Son invited to come back next day to attend more lectures. It felt so much more personal than the big group discussions, with people asking questions easily answered by reviewing the websites.</p>
<p>Heard the pranks story from the MIT perspective, and it was smile-provoking. Just thought more helpful info could be shared. The other one we’ve listened to was the UCLA telling of the USC rivalry. I’m all for humor, just feel like the guides could reveal more important info in helping my child make a decision.</p>
<p>If you want your own portable shade on tour, take an umbrella.</p>
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You may be right about a tiny segment of schools – the ivies. But my child and many, many others on CC are top students – NMSFs with stellar stats and ECs to match, applying to next-tier-down schools who are strongly wooing them because they are at the tippy top of those schools’ applicant pools.</p>
<p>We are (to use your phrase) in the driver’s seat, not only in terms of admission/acceptance,
but also in terms of being offered large amounts of merit dollars. </p>
<p>I don’t expect “slick, professional” student tour guides. I do expect well trained guides who can easily be heard and understood. If that means they need to work on their public speaking skills or English language/accent improvement, then that will be a growth opportunity for them.</p>
<p>Sorry to hijack a parents’ forum, but this reminds me of the stunts I see pulled at my school everyday.
RadDad1, I don’t think Ivies are the only ones to go all out like that for admitted students. I go to Emory and I know that it goes absolutely crazy (we have about 2-3 weeks of it in the Spring, and then orientation before classes start is like some giant festival), which is good for us current students, because it means we can crash the events for free food lol ;). As for water and stuff like that during the hot Spring tours, it seems Emory has started to put a tub with water on ice in front of the presentation room (I don’t quite understand what use this has, but it’s nice and faces the forest adjacent to the building, making for a nice view) in the new admissions building (which is amazing). I guess they understand that some may not be able to handle “Hotlanta” when it’s actually hot. Point is, I think all top schools do it. We may even be doing more of it because we have struggled to increase applications or even flatten them over the past two admissions’ seasons. I wonder what’s wrong w/ Emory in this respect. I like it a lot. Guess it gets a bad name amongst those considering our peers, though I don’t know why. Perhaps the stereotypes associated with us (often expressed through CC) resonate too much. But hey, the harder Emory tries, the more food and cool new buildings for me lol. And as for construction and parking, I’d imagine we would normally have this issue in the past(construction never stops, and parking is terrible, but intentionally so), but they were clever and put a parking deck (2-3 stories) under the new admissions building( which is also attached to a bookstore and large Starbucks).
As for another post on the students here having top notch everything. That only means but so much to Ivies and the top schools. Ivies could still very well reject, and many non-Ivies that may have an interest may waitlist or reject b/c they fear admitting them may lower yield if they do indeed get into the Ivy. WashU and many others (probably including us) do this all the time. Admissions is strange now. It’s a game to the universities (even to us, which lost applications for 2 years now. However, this past one was actually more more selective than 2013 despite the drop in applications. Just goes to show you how tricky it is). It seems like it’s easier for very top-notch students to get screwed over by all of the top 20s than it is for students that fit somewhere into say the middle 50 percentile of most schools.</p>
<p>phbmom–</p>
<p>Well, speaking from my own experience, it seems kids couldn’t care less how many volumes are in the school’s library, but they like hearing that MIT pwned Caltech (or vice versa) in the latest prank. ;)</p>
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<p>Of the thousands of colleges and universities in the country, what percentage do you think reject 94% of applicants? I bet that the percentage of schools that reject even half of the applicants is tiny. Many folks are visiting state non-flagships that have to take almost everyone or private schools that need the tuition money of almost anyone who is a full pay. Lots of small LACs look almost identical on their websites or on paper…a good tour can really sell a potential student.</p>
<p>No need to show me or mine a dorm room unless all the dorm rooms on the campus were built at the same time and with the same room configuration. Otherwise, what’s the point? The room you see on the tour may not in any way resemble the dorm your kid moves into freshman year. </p>
<p>And, I’ve got to wonder how some parents would feel if it was their kid’s dorm room that was open for tours. Anyone here not have privacy concerns if their son or daughter’s room was opened several times a day for tours? Anyone not have security concerns? If I am not willing to let my kid’s room be on the tour (not my decision, but you know what I mean), how can I expect to be shown the private space of some other kid? So, I’m OK with skipping the dorm room part of the tour.</p>
<p>I enjoyed hearing a Bryn Mawr / Haverford prank story; it gave some color to the relationship between the two schools, which would be important since they are part of a consortium.</p>
<p>What Emory does is set up a “model” (fully furnished, very neat. Nothing how an actual student would keep it) dorm room in one of the Reshalls to just give prospectives an idea of the size and some of the amenities available. However, my problem is that this is an older dorm that is not even for freshmen. Incoming freshmen at Emory have about a 50-60% chance of landing in one of the new freshmen Reshalls, which are only rivaled by perhaps one Sophomore dorm (maybe another that is being converted from freshmen to sophomore. This conversion involves a full-scale renovation), and the campus Apartments across campus. In fact the newest one that opens in fall, has a giant fireplace in the lobby, something unique to this one. Thus, the model dorm is a poor representation. This exemplifies your point on the non-uniformity in the housing, but refutes the idea of the tour having to violate privacy.</p>
<p>Greta, at the LACs we’ve visited, students allowing their rooms to be shown to prospectives receive a small perk in exchange, or they are informally asked while entering/exiting their room as a small tour group walks down the hall. They are perfectly free to say, “Sorry, this isn’t a good time,” and some do. Others say, “Sure, come on in.” No privacy concerns are breached, as far as we’ve seen in the 10-ish schools we’ve visited.</p>
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<p>Oh, I agree with your last comment, I was just surprised by your remark that the students who are taking the tour are or should be trying to sell themselves to the tour guides. Even at a top school, I can’t imagine that’s the intent of an informational tour!</p>
<p>Momof, if all roommates are present and jointly give permission at that time, then sure, their privacy was exchanged for the limited benefit of tour group participants. Only one of multiple roommates is present and gives permission to a tour guide? Then, no, I think the other roommate’s privacy was violated. A tour guide opens a dorm room and the tour sees someone sleeping? That situation, or similar, has been described on CC multiple times. I would be appalled and embarrassed to be part of the tour peeking in. I value the privacy of my home highly and in turn, I want to grant the same privacy to the students of the schools we visit.</p>
<p>I just had a funny vision of a local realtor opening my bedroom door some morning, saying, ‘Don’t mind us, these people are thinking of moving into the area and just wanted to see what a typical bedroom in this neighborhood might look like…’ and then twenty people file in and out for a look see. Just about as useful to them as looking at a random dorm room on a campus.</p>