I can’t imagine going on a Texas tour wearing a Texas A&M shirt (or vice versa) or to my son’s school wearing a KU shirt! At his campus I never saw so much purple in my life. The faculty wear almost more than the students and that’s saying a lot!
On all our tours I don’t remember anyone wearing shirts from other universities except maybe at the vet school tours where they were wearing their undergrad shirts.
UC Berkeley–crossed it off immediately. Not that our kid could or could not have gotten admitted, but it was an interesting tour. Nobody was smiling, the tour guide was awkward and one of the parents shushed us when we were talking outside. The overall vibe was intense and depressing.
We had a similar experience at UCB and it is my alma mater!
When we toured a few yrs back, S wore his regular close (golf shirt and shorts) and if he liked the school a lot, we bought a t - shirt. Was like a barometer. If he didn’t buy the shirt, he didn’t apply.
I never let my kids wear other college shirts at tours. I just figured they had so many other options in their closet I thought it’d be weird to represent one school while looking at another. Fast forward to orientation weekend at UF for my S19 and he is wearing a Georgetown tank top!! I actually made a comment like “What are you wearing?” and he said he got a lot of compliments on it!! Now if it was an FSU shirt I’m sure it’d be a different story!!! So maybe it depends on the rivalry.
University of Maryland College Park is coming off the list. Loved the town and the programs but felt it was just too big. One less school to apply to. Yay.
Nc state was in danger of being taking off S’s list because of the virtual tour. It seemed too big to him. However, visited during the summer and he described it as a big, small campus. He had no fear that whatever classes he needed, he wouldnt have to walk too far. The engineering recruitment from businesses impressed him. He liked the school atmosphere, so it remains on his list.
Duke- wasnt even on his list and after tour, is his number one. He loved everything about it, from the gothic architecture, to the study abroad programs, to the seemingly easy access to professors. I didn’t attend the tour with him, but his dad said he had the “wow” in eyes the whole time.
UNC Charlotte went up after the tour. A well laid out modern campus, affordable, and a likely school my DD20 could see herself attending. It is listed as an urban school but it felt more suburban to us and is very lush and green. Attended a VB match that had a decent size crowd. Rode the train to downtown and enjoyed a museum and dinner there. More neighborhoods between campus and downtown sounded worthy of exploring another time. Lots of places around campus to study, eat, or just hang out outside we’re very attractive to my DD.
I think the new train to ‘uptown’ Charlotte is a game changer for the university in terms of student experience / quality of life. Charlotte is a happening city and to have easy access to the city center is very cool. The NoDa part of town is another hip area not far from campus, and I think it also has a light rail station. It’s full of brew pubs, art galleries, places to live.
UNC Charlotte has transformed in the last 20 years, that’s for sure. It seems like 50% of the campus buildings are new and they’re very nice. It’s a university on the move!
This is really silly to me. My daughter, a junior, ardently loves her school, but has and will wear shirts from her friends’ schools. not the rival, but others.
Yeah, I think if they’re not rival schools nobody will care. Wearing a small LAC shirt at a big 10? Whatever. Wearing a Wisconsin shirt to Minnesota? Maybe not. Although on our tour a dad was wearing a Badger hat and they pointed him out and said nothing made them happier than converting a Madison kid to UMN.
T-Shirt & Sweatshirt original comment focused on just the college tour guide wearing the sweatshirt of another school.
Crossed off list: UNC Chapel Hill (felt too big and impersonal - and D felt more aware of her OOS status than at other state schools)
Moved up on list: Tulane (lots of energy, great tour, really good connection with tour guide).
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Please move on from discussion of T-shirts.
Boston College came off the list of potential schools after the tour. The info session, though long, was excellent. Our student guide was actually quite likable as well. Why they confine the walking tour to such a small section of campus I’ll never know, though. They took us quickly through a beautiful old library…but they barely even mentioned their brand new fitness/rec center, and we never walked anywhere near it. The admissions representative kept mentioning the football team and school spirit during the info session, but the tour didn’t even point out any of the athletic facilities, or even tell us where the bookstore was so we could buy a t-shirt. They didn’t show us a dorm room. We never saw a dining hall. We both left a bit confused. Oh well, at $75k+ COA it’s probably for the best.
My opinion is that tours should be more “show” and less “tell”. Our tour guide at Lafayette was a wonderful person with plenty of energy and love for her school. But she insisted on stopping every 50 or 60 feet to explain what we were looking at in vivid detail. Each stop was 10 minutes long. We barely saw anything. We actually dropped out after about 50 minutes of the 90 minute tour. Again, she was great, but it was not a tour. Unfortunately Lafayette left no impression on S17.
I would line right up if schools offered tours with an option for a brisk-paced walk through every (relevant) building on campus…with limited discussion.
Some schools have so many people on tours, so many tour groups, that it would be disruptive to be constantly showing a dorm room or the rec center or classrooms. Would you want a constant open house at your home, people walking through your living room or backyard? I’ve also read on CC that people couldn’t believe they showed the athletic facilities and they weren’t interested at all in them, or they spent all the tour on science buildings and all the family was interested in were the music and art departments.
If you want a brisk walk with limited discussion, couldn’t you just do that yourself with a map?
I’m lost why people expect to seen a dorm room. People live there. It’s a security issue to have non-residents traipsing through the dorms. People should be able to use their imagination as to what a 10 by 12 box with 2 beds, 2 desks, etc. looks like. If not, Instagram and the like have plenty of pictures. The dining hall is a cafeteria. We’ve all been in one. The students complain about the food.
There I brought you up to speed. 
Not if you want to take a look inside of most buildings.
Not all dining halls are created equal. That’s a fact.