<p>Mootmom,
The funny thing about the MIT info session that I recounted in post #48 was that the MIT admissions counsellor was NOT telling a joke when he suggested that MIT students need not study abroad because, in his words, "they are already receiving the best engineering education in the world." I thought it was funny (and sad at the same time) that a person who represents such a fine institution as MIT could be so closed-minded.<br>
Fortuanately, Garland's comment is well timed: we should not be judging the educational standing of a university by the marketing ploys (or gaffes) of the admissions counsellors.</p>
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[quote]
"No, we wouldn't give any special attention to an application from Belgian Royalty."
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</p>
<p>He missed the opportunity for a great punch line: </p>
<p>"We're Haaavaaard. Belgian royalty goes to lesser Ivies. You have to be the Queen of England to get accepted here!"</p>
<p>Actually, when we toured Harvard I had my antennae up and finely tuned to detect any snottiness on Harvard's part. But there was none. The adcom and guide were kind, polite, gracious, and efficient all the way through, which I think contributed to D's positive impression.</p>
<p>I was a sometime tour guide at my school, when the regularly scheduled tour guide didn't show up. In actuality I was a work study who did office work with admissions. We sometimes had to give tours because the positions were completly volunteer and unpaid.
I always had a hard time going into the dorms since I didn't live on campus. Most guides showed their own dorm room, but we were told to use a first floor suite in one of the high-rises. Upon entering, (on a Sat. morning at 11 AM), I find a pop-corn strewn common area with a TV blaring and a co-ed draped over an arm chair(the only furniture in the room...what happened to the couches?) with the full-facial, green mud masque beauty treatment smeared all over her face. Fortunately, she was reasonably clothed...and didn't seem fazed in the slightest that I had brought @15 parents/students into her living room! I guess because she was disguised!
Also conducted a tour where one of my students helped me extinguish a trash can fire as we exited the bookstore!</p>
<p>I appreciated that several schools had little cards with directions to neighboring schools put out with the literature, maps, etc... They obviously knew many families were on a multi-school swing and that these directions would be very handy.</p>
<p>I also loved the adcom who spoke at Trinity's info session: he made a really nice speech and refered to many other schools by name during the speech--- along the lines of: "You could get a superlative education at Trinity, but also at Gettysburg, at Vassar, at Bucknell, at Smith...." Throughout the speech he'd refer back to compliment other schools, and always different ones--- I loved that he was not doing the "hard sell" and also he was helping the kids relax, by de-emphasizing that a single school admission could be a make or break thing.</p>
<p>My D got a raging stomach virus the night before her interview at Smith. Luckily her appointment was for 3:00 in the afternoon, so she had all morning to get over the nastiest part of it. We were just holding our breath that she wouldn't have another spell and puke on her interviewer. It might be hard to get a positive review after that!</p>
<p>Not funny, but weird...and hoping someone might have an explanation. We went to Princeton over spring break (followed by Yale, Harvard, Amherst, Welleley)...and the tour guide was nothing short of atrocious. After 30minutes of "like, well the dorms are nice, like, the school is nice, like the EC's are nice, like I think I'm gonna major in physics so, like, I don't know anything about anything else, like"...I think you get the picture, a young man joined the back of the tour (with me) and asked how long the tour had been going on. About 5 minutes later, 2 boys in white coats came screaming out of one of the dorms, jumped on this kid, and pretended to inject whatever (empty syringe with no needle) into his neck. What the heck??? I swear, I think every kid who uses the word "like" in appropriately (in a way not meaning near love or in a comparative sense) should be automatically put in the reject pile. My daughter asked to bail out of the tour immediately after and has NO interest in returning to Princeton.</p>
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Reminded me of the funny part of our Stanford visit. Adcom, discouraging excess recs, told how their record was 37, including one from the kid's dentist saying that he had "great teeth."</p>
<p>We flew in from the east to Portland on Thursday. Proceeded to visit Reed and U. of Portland. (two guides at UP). The next day we were up early and down to Willamette and than U of O. Saturday morning we were up early again for the 9 AM tour of Lewis & Clark. It was cool and raining out. After the tour, the group gathered in a very nice cozy room with a warm fire in the fireplace. Most kids were in the front including my D who was on the front row. About half way through the talk I saw her head nodding. She was asleep before the end! Nothing to do with the talk, she was just tired from the the trip.</p>
<p>Mom and D are at Barnard for the Open House. The activities included a sleep over and some seminars. This morning one of the other high school girls who lives in New York talked my daughter and one of the other high school seniors into skipping the morning seminar for a half day of shopping in downtown Manhattan. I swear this is a girl who has never enjoyed shopping in her life. She made it back in time for the lunch, but my wife and I think our real daughter was abducted by aliens and they left a substitute.</p>
<p>Hey - a BIG reason to attend Barnard is to be part of the New York scene, right? It's part of what will make her comfortable, or hate it - I think she made a very wise decision.</p>
<p>Kind of funny but more strange category:</p>
<p>Touring Stanford last year, D and I ran from the dance class she was able to take to the tour starting point. While catching her breath, she heard her name, looked up, and was surprised to see one of her HS classmates also in the tour group, 3,000 miles from home.</p>
<p>At the University of Chicago, the presenter kept telling us that "Really, really we have fun here, really!" By the end of the presentation we loved the school but believed that no one could possibly have any fun if she tried so hard.</p>
<p>DD and I had a little extra time after visiting GW and decided to spend it walking around Georgetown. DD "kinda" liked it, so I headed over to admissions. But where is it? I stopped a student. "You passed it. It's the white building." I look and no white building. I stop another student. It's the white building, near where they're grilling. I look and look - all I see is brick and stone. I decided to get serious and ask a staff member. "Down the steps, take a right, third building on your left." And she was right. The sign beside the large stone building proclaimed it: White-Gravenor Hall.</p>
<p>When taking a tour at Arizona State (of the Honors Complex) during Parents Weekend we (pretty big group) went inside a dorm we hadn't seen before but had been intrigued with the looks of from the outside. It was very small,obviously older with a decoish flair,built in a square with an open courtyard in the middle (lots of buildings at ASu have open courtyards and corriders). It was pretty early on a Saturday morning after a breakfast reception for parents.
The courtyard was set up like a living room (open air mind you!) with couches, lamps and extension cords running somewhere, tables, stereo speakers,leftover snacks and beverages, and hammocks. Someone in the group said..wouldn't it be funny if someone was sleeping off a hangover down there.. (we were up on the second level overlooking the courtyard... sure enough..there were multiple occupants of the hammocks and couches! One kid... I guess ...heard the groups noises, looked up at us, turned over and presumably went back to sleep!</p>
<p>On every tour my DD and I took the most common adjective(?) was the word "tons", as in, the have tons of ECs, tons of outside speakers, etc.</p>
<p>I always like to ask the tour guides what they would be doing if they weren't giving this tour. Almost all have responded "Sleeping!"</p>
<p>My tour of Case Western Reserve University a few years back I would now classify as funny, though at the time it was rather disappointing. The entire tour was led at close to a run, the guide seemed to want to get done quickly. He repeatedly told us to not come to Case, because it was an awful school and we wouldn't have any fun, etc. After a quick run past the main quad, he showed us the "largest lecture hall on campus" (which was not) and brought us out through a research poster fair. He brought us into a corner, grabbed a sandwich from the platter, and then took off again, stuffing his face for much of the rest of the tour. The rest was rather uneventful, except for him leaving us in the middle of campus at the end of the tour rather than bringing us back to the admissions office.<br>
Since then I guess Case has completely re-vamped the tour guide program...good thing.
A bad tour isn't the end-all though. I ended up loving the atmosphere of the school, and I'm now at Case!</p>
<p>My favorite question on a college tour: asked by a parent on our tour at UVA: is there a curfew?</p>
<p>Our tour guide for Harvard has to be one of the ditziest people I have ever met; "...and Harvard was, like, founded by, like, John Harvard? We have, like, interhouse intramurals?" At Princeton, upon asking about study abroad: "Um, why would you want to leave Princeton? It's a destination in and of itself." Ugh.</p>