“other super specific careers that few 5 year olds probably even know about”
I wonder if they were parents’ professions. My mom is a psychiatrist; I might have said that was my goal when I was five.
This wasn’t a crazy question, just a memorable moment: a group of visitors was sitting on the porch of an LAC admissions office waiting for our tour guide. A mother said to her senior daughter, “Come sit on my lap.” The daughter was a strapping grown woman and bigger than her mom, but she did as she was told and perched on her mom’s knees. I wonder what college drop-off day was like for that family.
I love this question! This summer D19 and I did our first college tours while on vacation. There was a family on our tour that cracked us up through the whole thing but I was afraid to put it on here in case they are on CC! Two of the family members were wearing clothing the had the name of a summer program at an ivy league school so we figured they knew the ropes.
The first question that threw everyone for a loop was when the mom asked, “What do you guys do about trigger warnings?” The tour guide was from England and you could tell he had no idea what she meant. He asked her to repeat it then said, “Oh, do you mean like how we warn students in case of emergency?” She just kept saying no, trigger warnings. After a few tries he finally just said I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is. D19 and I know what trigger warnings are, but have only come across them in print and online. Is it a thing the when people are talking they say, “trigger warning” before they say something? Maybe it is and we were wrong but at the time we thought that was the strangest question.
Later in the tour we were in the dorm room. The child from the same family said, “Does the furniture come with it?” This was not a decorated room, just an empty room with a bed, desk, etc. #-o
In a students only question and answer session, DS was not surprised that kids asked if they could use weed (legal in the area) or drink underage. His big surprise was a girl asked if the school was more of a hook up place or more of a relationship place. Did they look down on the hook-up culture? Student Ambassador’s response “I’m not sure how to answer that - how about you be the best you, you can be.” Also “are there “liberal bullies” here?”. DS nearly lost it and laughed - others were not able to control it. This was a follow up to a question regarding differences in political opinions and how the culture was about it (the school is quite liberal). The Student Ambassador had just finished saying that students would listen to other sides if the person used facts and logic to present their position.
@ninakatarina That’s not a weird question at all. The tour guides at the university where I work know how to answer that, or at least show you where the office is where you can find more specific information.
Despite what a lot of people think, the LGBT scene is not the same at every university and it’s an important question to ask!
A good friend heard a father ask, “purely hypothetically, of course”, if a student with perfect test scores should take the tests again to prove that it was not a fluke. The dumbfounded admissions representative said that if such a student did, she would try and reject him.
At a Cal Poly SLO info session, a dad asked if they’d drop a grade on the transcript if it was the lowest grade his daughter had received so it wouldn’t count in their MCA calculations (as a teacher might give students the option of dropping their worst grade on a test or quiz.) The admissions officer looked incredulous, and just said no, all grades were counted in the calculation.
Best question from a parent–during the busy spring break period, Johns Hopkins moved its info session to an auditorium and had a student panel. When they finally opened it to questions, the first one was, “Why weren’t you prepared with microphones? We can’t hear anything.” (Talk about leaving a bad impression, JHU!)
"I always try to ask if they have a guide who can talk about what the LGBTQ scene on campus is like, to save my kid the embarrassment of asking. Sometimes they have me meet another guide when we get back to the office, sometimes we luck out and our guide is LGBT or an ally. But last time I asked and the guide absolutely froze up. “There are a lot of them on campus. They have a club room and parties. I don’t go to them, but you can find them.” Poor kid, I think she was embarrassed.
It’s not really a crazy question, is it? I mentioned to the admissions office that they should probably do a 15 minute diversity talk to their tour guides so they don’t run into this again."
Not a crazy question at all!
My daughter a ( straight, cis ) tour guide at Big 10 university has no problem answering that question. It made her so happy when she was able to tell a trans girl that she could of course live with other females on campus and the girl was so excited because other schools had said no.
Mom of boy on Tour: What time is the curfew.
Guide: Huh?
Mom: I mean what time do the boys have to leave a girls room at night ?
Guide:When the girl wants them to?
Mom: you mean there’s no specific time that a student has to be in his or her dorm room or out of the room of a member of the opposite sex?
Guide: No. the students are adults
Mom: Oh My God.
Parent: What percentage of the (upper class) students in the (on-campus) apartments cook for themselves rather than go to the dining halls?
Tour Guide: I don’t know, maybe half?
Parent: Where is the nearest Farmer’s Market?
As for the water pressure, one of my daughter’s biggest complaints is that the water pressure is horrible, and it’s hard water to boot. I don’t know that this would inspire me to ask a question about it when I’m touring schools with my son, but it’s definitely an issue.
I was at a meeting of only the Jazz Studies students and parents around audition time, not where S is currently attending, FWIW. I am sure this was a well-meant question, but I chuckled inside because I thought it was cute, and the staff answering it did a great job.
The question, regarding jazz studies, was, “What is your job placement rate?”
The professor did a great job explaining that there really aren’t jazz bands out there looking to fill spots. But then he went on to say what is job placement - one of the graduates just got hired as a brand manager for a cleaning product line.
^Actually, I think that was a decent and legitimate question, regardless of the major. It doesn’t have to be directly related to major but what are the grads of that major doing after graduation? Perhaps “post-grad outcomes” might have been better phrasing? :-??
:" a group of visitors was sitting on the porch of an LAC admissions office waiting for our tour guide. A mother said to her senior daughter, “Come sit on my lap.” The daughter was a strapping grown woman and bigger than her mom, but she did as she was told and perched on her mom’s knees. I wonder what college drop-off day was like for that family."
A few years ago I saw a publicity event with Donald Sutherland and Kiefer Sutherland. Keifer was obviously a grown man but was perched on an edge of his dads knee for part of it It was super cute
On our tour of an ivy during Spring Break college trip 2 years ago, we had this happen. Tour guide, who was giving an enthusiastic and informative tour of the campus, made a stop halfway through the tour to give us some info about a statue/sculpture(don’t remember exactly), specifically a date. A parent spoke up saying she was an alumna of the college and embarrassed the guide by loudly reprimanding her for misinforming everyone about the date.
That was pretty much the end of the tour for us. Our tour guide seemed to lose her enthusiasm entirely with that and the mom cornered her afterwards so that the rest of the tour was completed by her flanked by the mom on one side and the daughter on the other. The rest of us hardly got a chance to ask any questions after that.
Yeah, not the best tour we had on that trip.
^I went on a tour on alumni/parent weekend at my alma mater. The guide (not a student; an employee of the arboretum (that may give it away for those in the know)) made a mis-statement about a dorm being brand new (I lived in it in 1982!). I took her aside as the tour ended and explained the truth-- that it had recently been “spruced up” and modified. I hope most people could do it such! (And I think my correction was more germane, given that the “brand new” dorm looked like it was designed in the 60s!)
And at my daughter’s school, bringing guns to school and where to store them is part of the info session (I heard it at least 4 times). There is a procedure to store them at the campus police department and you can have them at any time, 24/7, as long as you aren’t impaired. Many hunters at the school, and their homes might be 6-8 hours away. The guns are not allowed in dorms, cars parked on campus, or on the campus.
“On a tour. A dad asks, “Can my son bring his guns to campus?”
GUNS. Plural.
Answer: A big, fat “NO”.
Wide space around that dad for the rest of tour.”
Fall of 2015 in Virginia? Were we on the same tour? The man did not seem to have a student with him and was wearing an old army jacket. He was unkempt and creepy. I dropped back a little and took pictures of him with my phone. I was not about to have him behind me. I later determined he had a teenager with him who was disassociating himself from his father. My son did not end up going to the school. Not the school’s or tour guide’s fault.
It really bores me when people ask questions that are answered in FAQ’s on the school’s web site.
My oldest son is a tour guide in training and has his first solo tour next week.
My kid’s tour guide was transitioning to gender reassignment. She explained this at the start of the tour, matter of factly explained why her breast augmentation hadn’t been done yet, apologized that her electrolysis and hormones hadn’t completely eliminated her beard, and wore some amazingly high heels. Was a little bit startling…but she was a very sweet person with lots of energy, very entertaining and very informative. Was one of the most fun tours we took. Was sort of a bonus that she volunteered to also answer questions about the process of gender reassignment, LGBT life on campus, etc.
Touring a small LAC, as we passed the music building, my DD happened to be the closest teen to the tour guide. The guide turned to my DD and asked, “Do you play any instruments?” My DD barely got her reply out before a mom rushed from the back of the group, saying, “My daughter plays piano. She’s played for X years, and has won blah blah award.”
I’m thinking, the guide was just asking so she could segue into talking about the music hall, and the poor gal has 0% influence on your kid getting accepted here. Save your breath.
I am a tour guide at BU and just last week a family asked me if BU was an ivy. I would understand if this family was from across the country or international, but they were from 20 minutes outside of Boston…