We toured many small LACs with my older d, mostly in the midwest, and most of them showed us a dorm room. I can only remember a couple of east coast schools that didn’t. For her I think seeing the dorm room was part of visualizing herself there. With my d18, we’ve toured about a dozen schools (but no SLACs), and most of them haven’t shown us a dorm room. Their excuse is always privacy of students–but when you tour in the summer, it’s hard for me to see that as an issue.
If we’d seen a Spanish restaurant we’d have eaten there - I didn’t like it because everything seemed to be closed or even boarded up. It didn’t feel unsafe, it just felt neglected.
It’s funny how some colleges don’t show dorms, some have the tour guide show their own, and some have “model dorm rooms” (Miami-OH, Emory and Wooster all had those).
February 2017-
American University- MOVED UP, THEN DOWN, THEN OFF THE LIST-
What we loved about American was all the advantages of its location. It is in a beautiful, safe-feeling part of Washington, D.C. The campus has green grassy quads and is nicely maintained. It was amazing to take just a quick Uber ride to the heart of the city; it was an unseasonably warm day for February, so we walked around the FDR and Jefferson memorials at night, and it was such a magical experience. Students at American seem to have amazing government internships, all year long. So much is available to the students!
Also an unrelated highlight: our tour guide told us there’s a dog who will “listen” as students practice presentations. Anything with dogs would catch my son’s attention!
When we left, our son was all for applying… until the next day after the Hopkins tour, when the contrasts hit him. The kids at American had talked about internships, clubs, school traditions, famous speakers, events in the city… but, he noted (and I recognize it may just have been a limited sampling size), no one had talked about their passion for a subject, or about an idea they had learned, or a favorite professor they had had. He said he wanted to go to a college where students are into learning for learning’s sake.
Also, the tour guide had said she wasn’t good at math… and that “there are many levels of math classes, and really advanced math students can start with pre-calculus right away.” It was not sounding like his other colleges, where most kids who had not taken calculus yet most likely were kids who just did not have it available to them at their high schools, or who had other strengths as students that were really impressive. Wesleyan, for example, says 85% have taken calculus in high school.
American stayed on the list until the summer. After he had seen Connecticut College and Skidmore, he decided to drop American. It was a nice school but just not right for him. He did recommend it to two of his closest friends, both of whom are applying to it, and for one of whom it is a top choice.
"Also, the tour guide had said she wasn’t good at math… and that “there are many levels of math classes, and really advanced math students can start with pre-calculus right away.” "
Might not want to take comments about the math classes made by the non-math person as fact/gospel. Not her bailiwick. 
February 2017:
Johns Hopkins: UP:
In general, my son preferred small colleges. Of the larger (over 4500 undergrads) universities he considered, Johns Hopkins was possibly his favorite. From a parent perspective at least, I chalk this up to one very enthusiastic student speaker, who was overflowing with excitement about her somewhat obscure area of interest in history, and one of her professors who supported her in this interest. Passion for learning, quirky intellectual interest— there it was: the type of student with whom he wants to go to college. The tour guide also loved courses he had taken.
Amazing research was going on all around campus, with incredible science facilities, too, that were highlighted during our tour. While science at JHU is amazing, and that is what one often hears people praising, we were pleased that the the humanities and social sciences seem good, too— and it helped that we heard from a history major with an extracurricular interest in theatre.
The campus was very pretty- handsome buildings of red brick with white trim, arranged around nice grassy quads where we saw students playing impromptu games.
While the campus itself was beautiful, the setting around the university was less ideal. We drove in from the south and out to the north, and in both directions, a few blocks away from campus, it turned into a low-income neighborhood with boarded-up windows. This was the only college he visited where I had any lack of comfort with the surroundings— exacerbated by the fact that housing is not guaranteed for four years. But he would have been fine there.
It was an unseasonably warm day for February, and the students were enjoying “the beach”— a small green field where, the tour guide explained, you can close your eyes and pretend that the hum of the urban traffic is waves crashing on a beach! Funny, but also a reminder of just how nice a rural college can be.
I would say that, at the time he accepted an ED acceptance somewhere else, Johns Hopkins was on the list but not anywhere near the top. If he had applied to and gotten into JHU, I suspect he would have chosen any of the top small liberal arts colleges above it… but he would have been torn between JHU’s prestige/ super-smart students and the appeal of the less selective small liberal arts colleges on his list, and might have chosen JHU, in the extremely unlikely event that he got into JHU but not any of the top LACs.
We only toured 6-7 colleges (as I noted in the “How many college visits did you do” thread, I apparently just don’t love my kids as much as the other parents), so it’s an admittedly small sample size. Of the tours, about half showed a dorm room and half didn’t. But the funniest one was University of Michigan Ann Arbor, where they show you a “model” room they’ve built in one of the dorm basements. It’s decorated to the hilt with designer touches, smells fantastic, is spotlessly clean and according to the guide, has a bathroom that’s twice the size of any real dorm room on campus. 
Since this is a thread about which colleges moved up on the list, I’ll note that UMich did move up on the list after our tour. The entire town and campus was very appealing. My son had reached out to the head of the math department to ask a question and the head invited him to visit the department; he was incredibly gracious and generous with his time. Son was impressed with not just the professors but the students he met there. Seemed like a wonderful place. Although there are some huge classes for certain general subjects, the math department appeared to be a hidden gem within the school - small classes and top notch quality.
Odd about WashU not showing dorms. Son visited twice (August before he applied and February after he was accepted ED) and both times dorms were part of the campus tour. The dorm room he saw in August was empty-it was a week before move-in.
Funny thing is that on the February tour the dorm room was piled with stuff and all cluttered. Believe it or not it was a girls dorm room!
We went in the lobby of a dorm at Washington U, but could not see an actual (or fake) room. And since we knew the dorms were supposed to be nice there, it was extra disappointing maybe
^Well, I would hope they would not let you in with a weapon. :))
Note: post 3029 no longer makes sense because post 3028 edited the original typo that was the joke of 3029.
I still say the craziest dorm tour we did was at Pomona. They walk a large group of about 30 people into the common room at the entrance of the dorm then tell everyone to randomly walk up and down the halls and see if they can find an open door of a actual dorm to peak into. This is around 9:30am on a Tuesday. Everyone spend about 10 minutes trying 3 floors of dorms in two wings and reporting back to each other and not a single person found an open door.
What kind of system is that? Massive waste of time. Either have a room available to show or don’t. But what did they expect? All we probably accomplished was the wake a bunch of sleepy kids up as everyone loudly walked up and down the halls.
Yeah sorry! But I got the joke. @TheGreyKing
November, 2016
Vassar: STAYED THE SAME: This was my son’s third visit to my husband’s alma mater. His overall impression did not change, and Vassar remained one of his top choices.
We attended “Sons and Daughters”-- a special admissions preparation event for alumni’s children.
The tour guide joked about his “conversation” with Meryl Streep, which, at least 10 minutes after initially bragging he’d had it, he revealed to be an exchange of “thank you” and “you’re welcome.” Very funny! He also noted that the new science building’s window was designed to avoid having birds fly into it. He joked that Vassar made the top of Princeton Review’s list of colleges for “low bird mortality rate.” Current students in general seemed enthusiastic, bright, and quirky, with a higher than typical percentage of artsy types.
Vassar is gorgeous. It is an arboretum with lovely trees and beautiful old buildings. The library with its gothic tower and stained glass window, Main Dorm (my hubby’s old dorm), the psychology building, Cushing Dorm, the main dormitory quad… plus the Shakespeare Garden and Sunset Lake… Vassar is hard to beat for beauty! (Okay, Middlebury succeeds, but other than Middlebury…)
My son liked that the campus is self contained with no roads running through it.
Academics and extracurricular offerings there are excellent and exciting. Vassar’s theatre offerings are extensive and wonderful.
April 2017:
SUNY Binghamton: STAYED THE SAME:
The students were on spring break, so it was a mostly empty campus. Nonetheless, we got some sense of it and liked our enthusiastic tour guide.
The campus was attractive with modern buildings. It is pretty compact for a university with so many students. A brain shaped road pattern separates academic buildings in the middle from dormitories on the edges of campus.
It is an amazing option financially for an in-state student. If you earn under $125,000, you qualify for the newly free tuition, but even if you don’t qualify, it is still a great deal.
We know many students and alumni, and they are all smart. Binghamton attracts the best and brightest New Yorkers, especially those who either are middle class and their parents do not want to pay private college amounts or are from more disadvantaged backgrounds and their families don’t realize they could get a big need-based scholarship from a private college.
My son liked that it was not “elitist” feeling, especially in comparison to pretty much everywhere else we were looking! He felt he could be happy at this school that, according to Naviance, would almost surely admit him… and, as it turns out, it did admit him early action. It was his first acceptance, and he was relieved and thrilled.
April 2017:
Cornell: DOWN AND OFF: the first school to be fully eliminated from consideration!
Beautiful surroundings. We enjoyed visiting Taughannock Falls (an easy hike) and Buttermilk Falls (right off a road), as well as the suspension bridge over the gorge right on the campus. Lake Cayuga is gorgeous too. The natural beauty of the area is incredible.
The town was also really attractive and bustling, with lots of restaurants and amenities and charming houses. All three of us in our family said we would love to live there.
The campus was pretty with nice old buildings, gorges and a view of Lake Cayuga. But! It was gigantic. Like a small city. Tons of streets, long distances between parts of campus, lots of hills.
Our tour guide had interned at the Supreme Court, was into fashion and law, and was in a sorority. She described an oceanography class with 850 students. She said courses with more than 90 students break up into discussion sessions. (So, at 89, they don’t??!!)
Most disturbing: after freshman year, there is a lottery for housing and not everyone lives on campus. Most upperclassmen live in apartments in Collegetown, part of the village of Ithaca. This was when we decided that four-year guaranteed housing is a plus. Why deal with a landlord as an undergraduate?
Our son kept commenting on how almost everyone we passed and everyone we saw in the cafeteria was hanging out alone, with ear phones in their ears and often looking at a device or book. It did not seem a very social or friendly place. (Yes, there may have been bad luck in the students we saw, but school was in session and so we saw a lot of students.)
The info session put us to sleep until we walked out.
We all felt overwhelmed and turned off by the vast size. On the walk back to our car, our son said he did not want to go there.
Frankly, I felt relieved.
However, we really loved the town of Ithaca. Maybe he’ll go there for graduate school!
@TheGreyKing Totally with you on four-year housing on campus. So many kids we know had to find housing for sophomore year off campus at many different schools. And that meant they had to find roommates and a place mid-freshman year! No way. Not doing that.
April 2017:
Colgate: UP
What a friendly place! The location of the info session had changed, and a very nice student saw us looking lost and walked us to the right place, chatting with my son en route.
Our tour guide was a senior science major who was not in a fraternity and was a fire fighter. It was good to hear he had had a great college experience since we were wondering about fraternity dominance of the social life when we entered.
The campus was lovely, with beautiful brown stone buildings and a cohesive look. It had a lake, hills, and a well groomed campus. The students were-- really good-looking. Like catalog models. Seriously.
The dorms seemed very nice.
The area was very rural and remote, which our son liked.
They had a well-organized info session with student speakers. Ice cream sandwiches were distributed at the end of the tour, a nice touch on a warm April day! Students circulated afterwards to answer prospective students’ questions.
At this point, vastly preferring our Colgate visit to yesterday’s visit to Cornell, our son stated a preference for small liberal arts colleges.
Interesting—Cornell also fell off our list after the visit. In the tour we didn’t go into a single building. The guide spent an inordinate amount of time talking about school history. We attended a student panel and my S was turned off. All the students’ clubs were related to their majors For example the Spanish major talked about the Spanish club, the pre med students only did activities related to med school admissions, etc. it seemed like nobody was having fun. We met someone my S knew from HS who was a sophomore there— she said if you go to Cornell you are basically committing to no time for fun activities/interests. There was no balance. My son loves sports. One girl on the panel talking about being on the varsity rowing team as a freshman. She had a good time but didn’t return for sophomore year. He couldn’t fathom that. Not for him.
@citivas that’s awful. i would hate for my kid to be living in a situation like that where they can’t keep their door open or worry that when they come out of the shower there will be prospective families loitering
Indiana U… By far the biggest let down as far as tours. Lots of rah rah rah in the large presentation hall proceeded by a walking group of about 40 people with two guides… We could not hear anything on our walk. Guides were pointing to buildings and that was it… We visited a very large high rise dorm which had an empty mock dorm on the main floor. That was pretty much it. We did not see the inside of the library. We did not see the actual student union. We did not see the large rec center (just walked into the building, but did not see the facilities)…Just a lot of pointing! Everything about the tour “sucked”… Very disappointing and a real shame. Having said that, the the campus is stunning gorgeous. featuring one the top business schools in the country. We left knowing that she would not be applying to Indiana U.
We did the same tour at Ohio State University the day before, and it was the complete opposite. Here we are at one of the largest Universities in the country and the tour was the complete opposite… We only had one guide for about 15 of us. Everything was very personal. The female guide was persona and an accomplished. Marketing senior who had already secured a job with Pedialyte. We got to see the beautiful Library. the incredible, the incredible rec room, the Student Union, the dorms, and all the highlights that you would see at a tour. Lots of insightful information. She will be deciding between Leaning towards OSU and UGA . But waiting on UF