<p>I'm finding this thread very entertaining. In all, we toured almost 30 colleges between our two kids. The range of the tour guides, and information they conveyed was remarkable. Some were downright terrific, and others were awful. But these stories...oh my. Everywhere we went, we were told the screening process for the tour guides was very extensive....it sound like it was NOT extensive enough in some cases. Keep the stories coming...honestly, these are my "entertainment du jour" right now.</p>
<p>While visiting Northwestern University, I was being given a tour of the Journalism building by a professor and a student. The professor left me with the student while she took my parents elsewhere and said, "I'm sure you have questions for her about student life."
The girl looked at me expectantly, and, obliged to think of a question on the spot, I asked, "What do students do for fun when they're not studying?"
"Oh," the girl responded immediately, "You probably want to know about drinking. Don't worry: we have lots of parties and great bars!"
She proceeded to rave for several minutes about the partying. This immediately turned me off, as did other factors, and I didn't apply there.</p>
<p>I'm almost glad we didn't do the touring. S called kids he knew that were in various colleges. One set of twins had each gone to schools that S was considering, so they offered depth info.
I'm beginning to think that colleges should have tours 2x/day (in busiest season), introduce several tour guides--emphasize their majors--and let kids choose which guide to follow. A bad match could rule out a perfectly appropriate school for an applicant.
S only visited schools after accepted. It was crazy week, but each college gave him chance to sit in classes for 1-2 days, meet with profs, etc. The weakest part was the various tour guides</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm beginning to think that colleges should have tours 2x/day (in busiest season), introduce several tour guides--emphasize their majors--and let kids choose which guide to follow
[/quote]
This is exactly the way it worked at James Madison -- it was a huge group of kids, mainly because it was during the prime touring season, when a lot of HS' had spring break. The tour guides all gave a brief introduction of themselves (including major and class year). It was nice to get to pick the guide.</p>
<p>Well, this story is a little different:
My daughter had an appointment for an interview and planned to tour Johns Hopkins on a day following a big "Noreaster" snowstorm. We got to the admissions building after taking a train from NYC, and although it was open, all the offices inside were dark and doors locked. I couldn't believe it, started questioning whether we had mixed up the days. Then, a man comes down a winding stairway, and I ask in a completely upset, irritated tone of voice, what's going on...my d. had an appointment, etc. He then introduces himself as President of the University! (I immediately clean up my act, my daughter steps forward), and he tells us that the entire University and much of the city is shut down due to the storm (Baltimore was not accustomed to dealing with all that snow)...we should have gotten a phone call this morning (that, we later found out, we just missed--message left on machine). He was completely apologetic, made a couple of calls from his cell, arranging for my d. to interview with the Dean of Admissions the next day, and offered to give us a quick tour in his car! He drove us around (he was actually on his way to the airport)--and he couldn't have been nicer. (also shared that his son would be going to Amherst in the fall). After showing us around, he then dropped us off at our hotel. The whole thing was surreal! And the next day, my d. interviewed with the Dean himself...a great opportunity for sure.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm beginning to think that colleges should have tours 2x/day (in busiest season), introduce several tour guides--emphasize their majors--and let kids choose which guide to follow
[/quote]
They did that at Brown as well. Granted, I'm pretty sure both guides were science majors but their other interests were quite different. One was heavily involved in religious life on campus, one was premed, and so on. I thought that was really helpful because it made each tour more relevant to the people who participated.</p>
<p>Donemom, That was a good one! You reminded me of another story involving an "irritated" applicant. I heard this one from a GC. The GC had basically gotten an unofficial heads up regarding which kids were to get acceptances to a school that typically gets a load of apps from the HS involved. The only problem was that this college did not send out all the decisions in one batch. Well, this one kid starts callling admissions and harassing whoever would answer the phones, demanding to know when he would hear, what was going on, etc, but arrogant to the point that, yup, acceptance was rescinded, without him ever knowing he would have made it in!</p>
<p>ahaha i remember when i was in 7th grade i went with my dad and two older sisters who were touring Skidmore. apparently it was "fun day" or something they have yearly. so we're walking along, and all of a sudden these two students come streaking through the field. talk about awkward.</p>
<p>donemom---that is SO awesome</p>
<p>I admit that on the April 1st tour of campus recently at my tech school, I got planted into the tour and later, when the gender ratio was adressed, a few guys came up and carried me off crowing "we've got one, we've got one!"
To our credit, we went over right after and appologized, and the touring students were amused (though one parent was mad at us). We also then got out of there as fast as possible lest Admissions learn our names.</p>
<p>hahahaha did they really carry you off stargirl? that's absolutely hilarious. everyone must have cracked up</p>
<p>Well I'm lightweight and it wasn't far, so... yes. :p</p>
<p>it doesn't make sense to have tour guides be "selected" by kids with intended majors.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Switching majors?</p></li>
<li><p>Many kids have no idea what they want to major in</p></li>
<li><p>You need tour groups to be of near to equal size as possible</p></li>
</ol>
<p>True, but many students do have a general area of interest that they'd like to hear more about. For example, when I visited Amherst, as someone with an interest in science, I found our philosophy major tour guide's constant science-bashing to be really off-putting, and left with no real impression of what the sciences at Amherst are actually like (the admissions officer who did our info session had majored in philosophy as well, and made no mention of the sciences except to say that thanks to the amazing open curriculum, if you don't want to take science, you don't have to!).</p>
<p>A good tour guide can balance it. Maybe at a small LAC, but a large school which gets ~20K applicants, might get 100 students for one tour. Science bashing is dumb and bad touring!</p>
<p>I've got a good, weird story. My son applied ED to UVA engineering school. Online notifications were to be available on or after Dec 1. I went online on the 29th just to see, and it said, "congratulations, you were accepted." When I got home, went online to show my son, and it said, "application still under review." E-mailed the admissions office, and they replied,"you weren't supposed to see that, it was a preliminary decision, final ones will be out on 12/1". Replied, "that's ok, just was worried about the confusion." The next day, 11/30, got a call and email from the Director of Admissions, that my they had met and decided to honor the decisions that had been released early and accidentally viewed online before 12/1.</p>
<p>Heard through the grapevine that this happened at Duke, and they did the opposite. Anyone who saw their acceptance early was rejected because they shouldn't have looked until 12/1 anyway. I don't know if that's true, but if so, that really rots. </p>
<p>I know we shouldn't have looked early, but can they really blame us for doing so?</p>
<p>no way</p>
<p>duke would NEVER have penalized students for checking their acceptances early. why on earth would they do that? where did you hear this? (don't worry, my ire is not directed at you, it is directed at the issue)</p>
<p>If something like this is true.. what would they do about international applicants? Some could be like, oh.. it was Dec. 1 HERE.. so what if I was an hour off on my time zone calculations?</p>
<p>This is a weird story. There is nothing illegal in applicant checking as many times as they wish their application website. It's different when applicants hack into admissions websites or take advantage of someone else's hacking to check on their admission decisions, as happened last year at a number of business schools. This is clearly illegal whereas the first one is not. If UVA had decided to reverse its decision just because some applicants checked early, it could have opened itself to lawsuits. It was after all its own mistake that decisions were posted two days early.</p>
<p>A couple of weird/funny incidents I've seen watching MIT tours...</p>
<p>1) One time a parent on a tour saw me walking by and asked me what my SAT score had been.</p>
<p>2) One time a parent asked me to pose with him for a photo because he wanted a picture of himself with a "real live MIT student".</p>
<p>3) The summer after my freshman year, a group of us were sitting in Killian Court enjoying the sunshine - and also admiring the hack that was on the Great Dome that day. A tour guide came out with her group of parents and prospectives, cheerfully pointing out features ("And this is building [number] which was built in [year]," etc), when she suddenly noticed the Dome. She paused for a moment, obviously startled, and then, continuing in the same tone of voice, started up again with "And this is a hack!" and proceded to explain the concept of hacks to the tour. We laughed and laughed. :)</p>