<p>Some of us are waiting for the final decision, others have kids who have already made it. We junior parents, however, are into the swing of college visits. So, I thought I'd start a thread about funny college visit stories.</p>
<p>Tell a story about one of the funniest things you've seen or heard on a college visit. </p>
<p>Here's mine: The admissions rep at the University of San Francisco started off his presentation for prospective students by talking about class size and faculty-student ratios. He used a nice power point slide to show the exact numbers and went into great detail explaining why this was important for prospective students to know. Then he asked if anyone had any questions about what he had covered so far.</p>
<p>A boy raised his hand in the back of the room.</p>
<p>"Yes?" said the admissions counselor.</p>
<p>"Dude," started the boy (not a good sign right there), "How many girls do you have compared to boys here?" </p>
<p>The admissions rep recovered his composure fairly quickly, told the boy the male-female ratio was 60-40 and tried to move on. Which was difficult because the boy and his friend were now slapping hands and saying loudly, "Cool!"</p>
<p>Daughter decided that USF might not be for her right then and there.</p>
<p>Mine, which is totally personal to us, was when we went on the tour of Smith, and the tour guide, trying to make small talk, asked my d. "What are your ECs?" And my daughter stared at her totally blankly - it's not a term (or abbreviation) she had ever encountered before.</p>
<p>I have some really funny Reed stories, which I've already shared, and don't want to go there again.</p>
<p>DD after visiting an excellent but isolated LAC: "No Borders, no Starbucks, no me."</p>
<p>Presentation at same LAC: "We're centrally located, equidistant from (city 1), (city 2) and (city 3)." Yeah, three hours by car from each.</p>
<p>Presentation at same LAC (again): "Unlike some colleges we try to give RD applicantants the same opportunity that we give ED applicants." Funny, since the brochure says 550 admits from 870 ED applications, and 700 admits from 8800 RD applications.</p>
<p>Most kids were dressed cleanly, but one girl stood out: overalls with patches, tatoos, obscene bumper sticker on backpack (anti-Bush), tatoos -- would've been a perfect fit at Berkeley in the '60s. </p>
<p>While on tour, the guide was discussing the dorm situation, and she asked about gender-specific rooms. The tour guide completely missed the meaning of the question, and went on to answer that rooms were assigned by Housing, blah, blah. The girl persisted: what about the women's rooming council? Or, special feminist housing? Again, the guide said, Huh? The girl allowed that she had just come from Smith and they had......why was Amherst so backwards in its treatment of women students? </p>
<p>The guide gave a wonderful obfuscating answer, when my quick response was that it had to do with chromosomes.</p>
<p>UPenn presentation was one of the best I heard - informative, and funny. He kept our attention throughout. But I love his line about "We have many top students here - the valedictorians and salutatorians of their classes, and I personally prefer the salutatorians - they are more humble!"</p>
<p>We enjoyed attending the tour at Macalester 2 years ago. One young women, wearing red high heels, a lot of make-up, flowing gypsy skirt, clutching the hand of her boyfriend.... on seeing the dorm room asked if one was allowed to signup for a double with roommate of the opposite sex. Was upset that the answer was "No".</p>
<p>I still think that it's unfair that you can't have a roommate of the oppisate sex. I live in an on campus apartment, and I would much rather live with four other guys than four other girls. Just my personal preference. Can someone point me in the direction of exactly why this isn't allowed?</p>
<p>my daughter will be sharing an on campus townhouse with a boy next year however it is a two bedroom.
I have no idea why it wouldn't be allowed- at Reed it does seem like the shared dorm rooms are genderspecific although the floors are co-ed and room assignments alternate between sexes- bathrooms are also coed
But the on campus apts and townhouses it doesn't matter what sex your room mate is- why that should be different than dorms?</p>
<p>When I went on a Dartmouth tour with my son, a young woman's dad asked about the reputation for excessive drinking there. The tour guide was large and heavyset young man who had told us he was an officer in the college Republican club. Af the drinking question, he became very defensive and started a long tirade about how wrong the standard definition of excessive drinking is, and how he was tired of people saying that students drink too much. "Like, if I weigh 315 pounds and I have 8 drinks over 6 hours, who is to say that is excessive? ......" I don't think the girl's dad was very comforted about his concerns by the tour guide's answer.</p>
<p>well I can kinda see his point
I went out to a club last weekend and had 3 drinks over a 6 hr period- ( they weren't very strong and I had a bottle of water inbetween each drink- I also haven't had 3 drinks in one evening since forever)
I don't feel that I was "drunk at all' and I weigh less than half of what that young man weighs- part of it is that women metabolize alcohol differently- but what is he counting as a drink? A beer? a mixed drink with one shot of liquor or more? A drink with a teaspoon of liquor and the rest club soda?
I don't think the tirade was appropriate- and I agree it probably didn't make anyone feel better about the party rep.</p>
<p>One of those "hey, I know that guy" moments: D's tour guide at Carleton was in a wheelchair (being pushed by a friend - 2 guides for the price of one) due to a very recently broken leg. He told the group he would be getting his cast on later that week. About 4 months later, D turned on College Jeopardy, and there he was standing behind his podium and responding to questions about his broken leg! He informed Alex Trebeck (sp?) that he had just gotten his cast on that week in time to travel to compete on the show. The illusion of game shows in real time. Cracked D up. Ultimate disappointment as he got creamed by a Middlebury fellow.</p>
<p>
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I still think that it's unfair that you can't have a roommate of the oppisate sex.
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There's nothing wrong with having a roommate of the opposite sex - but, when you are sharing a double room (as opposed to having individual bedrooms) with a person of the opposite sex, there is not a lot of privacy or personal space. The red-heeled young lady who was asking wanted to room with her boyfriend. Morally, it doesn't matter to me - but practically, most relationships break up and it would be a MESS for housing if they had to keep moving kids around as their relationships split and regrouped.</p>
<p>
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but what is he counting as a drink? A beer? a mixed drink with one shot of liquor or more? A drink with a teaspoon of liquor and the rest club soda?
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</p>
<p>He probably counts one hour of beer pong as "one drink". So eight "drinks" wouldn't be considered excessive.</p>
<p>No kidding..while we were touring the dorms at UCSB a RATTLESNAKE suddenly appeared outside the dorm and slithered right past me.</p>
<p>Someone picked up the emergency phone and when the janitors got there they said "oh, this happens all the time!" Then a cute girl, (in a thong bikini riding a bike I might add!) cruised by and just weaved around it like it was nothing.</p>
<p>One girl who screamed the loudest said "I'm not going here no matter what, Mom, and left the tour right then and there!"</p>
<p>Thanks for starting this thread...these stories are hilarious! I think you should transfer this over to the college search or admin. post. I think alot of kids should know what went on during tours (like the alcohol story). Might help them make decisions easier.</p>
<p>My anecdotes are second hand because in a brilliant move I sent my D and H back to the US last Oct for college tours - promoting this as a big father-daughter bonding opportunity. (I was amazed they came back still on speaking terms. ) I asked for a report on Harvard and all my D answered was 'really cool!' What did she think of the Yard? 'Really cool!' Concentrations? Cambridge? Houses? All were 'really cool!" It turned out they had the worst tour guide, whose description of every single aspect of Harvard was, you guessed it, 'really cool!' But after the official tour, my H took D on his own unofficial tour which lasted a couple of hours and consisted of them going into places clearly off limits to the general public - my H as an alum simple walked/blagged his way into wherever he wanted to go and my D who is incredibly law abiding, was incredibly stressed by the whole thing. So much for pushing the dear old alma mater on her. And then there was Amherst - I'd thought it important that they see a rural LAC. My D who was ambivalent about almost every single school they visited absolutely hated Amherst. Why? Because of the 'quiz' they were given in the info session. Apparently the person leading the session wanted to check up on who had done their homework by asking questions like 'how big is the student body?' and then calling on people for the answers .... D could'nt get out of there fast enough.</p>
<p>One less application from a student who wouldn't have liked it there for the adcoms to deal with. Maybe other colleges will think of surprises for their tour groups to weed out - way in advance - students who wouldn't really "fit" there.</p>
<p>That would not faze my younger daughter at all- she desperately wants to go to Australia next summer for a month- in an effort to give her some perspective of what she would find there I gave her Bill Brysons book on the adventures with box jellyfish/saltwater crocodiles/17 ft long worms but it just made her more eager to go :eek:</p>