Good College Tours, Info sessions and why

Parents Forum
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<p>Tour guides have a big influence on a student's perception of a school. I am a bit surprised that the schools do not pay even more attention to it than they do. I have visited a number of schools over the last few years with my oldest and now starting again with my second son. The tour guides have been good and bad. The best ones have been:</p>

<p>Villanova, Cornell, Princeton, USC, Williams</p>

<p>Villanova was good because they would only let you go in small groups. </p>

<p>What have been the experience of others? And what are the characteristics of a good tour?</p>

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<p>Good tour: Columbia, Barnard, Brandeis, Bryn Mawr</p>

<p>Guide gives you a strong sense of his /her individuality --what he/she gets out of the school and why happy with the choice but can also tell you what other types of kids value and benefit from and give you a sense of what makes this campus unique --really special profs, major programs, or social qualities of the kids. Worse tours imply "everything is great here" so you don't gain that essential insight into specificity that will help you decide if this school is " a fit". Worse guides are those who can't give "specific examples" or anecdotes in answer to your questions. You want a guide who realizes that the essence of the school is not the buildings and facilities but how the school enables its students to realize their potential and how the students also educate each other. Must admit that these qualities were easier to find at the more selective end of our campus visits. Guide felt like someone your kid would benefit from hanging out with or at least having a nodding acquaintance with in classes.</p>

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<p>This is a great thread idea. We also have seen the "good and bad" of tour guides.</p>

<p>The very best was U of South Carolina followed by College of Charleston (which also won the "best info session award in our opinion). The tour guides were very well spoken, well informed, and not too gushy (DD's preference is for info... not gushing). </p>

<p>The worst was actually a top choice school...U of San Diego. The tour guide was good...but the tour had over 50 people. We moved to the front to hear him speak, but it was just to large a group and I'm sure many folks missed a lot of what was said. Plus we really didn't "fit compactly" anywhere. This tour needed to be divided by three.</p>

<p>DD hated the tour guide at Claremont Mckenna (sorry Xiggi but this also tainted her view of the whole school) saying she got sick of hearing "this is the BEST thing on any college campus in the country" over and over and over. The guide was a freshman and DD quipped to me "how could she POSSIBLY know what is on every college campus in the country". Enthusiasm is important, but as I said, my kid doesn't like the gushy ones. Also, I know clothing shouldn't count...but this guide looked like she was going out with her buddies for a pizza, not leading a group of potential students and their PARENTS. She was dressed in jeans, and a logo tee shirt of some kind with a sweatshirt too. DD thought she looked sloppy...so did we.</p>

<p>DD did not like the Pepperdine tour guide either...another freshman. Again...too gushy, and not very well informed.</p>

<p>The Davidson guide was also a freshman but she was terrific. She was very well informed, and our group was small and managable. </p>

<p>The guide at Elon was also a freshman and I think we might have been his first solo tour. He wasn't very dynamic, and did a mediocre job of selling the campus...but to their credit, they had only 3 students assigned to each guide. It was the most personal of the tours even though we didn't think it was that well done.</p>

<p>Personal opinion...if these groups (including parents and kids) get to be much over 20 it becomes very hard to hear and follow the tour guides. AND the tour guide should have information. Often the tour is where the real questions get asked, not in the info session. I think the guide should dress like a student...but not a sloppy one.</p>

<p>The thing that amazes me is that these guides are so capable of walking backwards (and some backwards in flip flops!!).</p>

<p>Another note...in the southeast, we were given a school logo water bottle EVERYWHERE we went. In California only Chapman gave out water. I thought this was odd...tours are typically over an hour long. A water bottle was a nice touch. One school in SC gave us a water bottle AND a voucher for a beverage in the main dining hall...that was nice too.</p>

<p>Oddly, some of our tours did NOT include the main dining hall. AND two schools said they couldn't take us into a dorm room because of privacy issues. One would think they could have a previously agreed upon agreement with some student(s) to have their dorm room included on a tour. Fourteen schools took us into dorm rooms...2 did not (Claremont MC and Pepperdine). My kid was NOT impressed...her comment "mom...this is where I have to LIVE for four years...I want to see a room".</p>

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<p>I agree. They shouldn't make or break a decision of course, but they do sour a visit sometimes. Columbia I found too, to be fine, Trinity, was okay, and Fordham was fair. The guide was so "blah". Another guide near us, was her opposite: perky, engaging, really loved the school, you could tell. Our guide was a senior, didn't know what she would do when she graduated,(honest, but still) mentioned social aspects a lot and actually couldn't answer some questions very well. At the end, we were both at the admissions office, and I could tell the other group was "pumped up" and enthused and ours was "okay, what's next?" If you really like a school though, you should visit again if you can.
My S would prefer a med. size, no frat/big partying type of college, lots of clubs,and students that want to learn, but is drawn also to ones like Haverford that are smaller. He worry's though about the dynamics of such a small school. He feels it would almost be like high school with the cliques, etc. An overnight or tour wont let you know very much, but there isn't much else you can do. We look at review sites by students,( I have about 5 bookmarked) but that again is very subjective. If I see a pattern though, I think it should be noted.</p>

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<p>The quality of the tour guides at the colleges we've visted has been far more variable than I expected. And the quality of the tour is one of the prime factors in my D's and her friends' impressions of the colleges, to my observation. Tours at Harvard, Yale, Wellesley, and Columbia were excellent. Tour guides were knowledgeable and, above all, enthusiastic. Our tour at Princeton was a nightmare. The tour guide was a typical "Valley Girl", every other word was "like" (I hate that!). She had no specific information to impart about the college other than the requirements for her proposed major (physics) which she wasn't sure she planned to major in after all. About 45 min into the tour (we had already been to the information session), my D asked to bail out. She was unimpressed, to say the least, with this guide's intellectual (or at least communication) skills and now isn't at all interested in the institution. You'd think admissions offices would weed out such students.</p>

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<p>Williams did a great job of finding out each prospie's interests and tailoring their presentation/tour to those interests. The William&Mary tour guide seemed unfamiliar with her job and some of the buildings. The Skidmore tour guide seemed like she'd rather be anywhere than guiding high school students around. I was somewhat disappointed with the tour guide at Sewanee - he just showed us around, and didn't tell us any of the traditions that make Sewanee special.</p>

<p>Of course, I can compare the live tour guides to the ones I have seen on the Collegiate Choice videos!</p>

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<p>Echo- that's funny. Our Princeton tour guide was a "Valley Girl" as well! However, she had switched majors FIVE times, so was well-versed in the requirements for just about everything! Our Princeton group was too large, and it was hard to hear.<br>
Our tourguide (3 years ago with D) at Tufts was good, but got ill in the middle of the tour, bolted for the restroom and eventually came out and apologized profusedly that she would not be able to finish the tour.
Our best- Indiana. The young man was truly gifted at walking the entire tour (huge amount of ground covered) backwards. He was entertaining and had good information. At Indiana the dorm tour is separate, which isn't a bad idea for a large campus.</p>

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<p>At Columbia, our humanities major tour guide, when asked about engineering, half-heartedly waved her arm and said "that building over there." This was after asking, at the beginning of the tour, what majors people were interested in and over half the group was there for engineering. We left the tour and wandered around on our own. She did show us her dorm room though. Son was not impressed, although he would have loved going to school in NYC. He bought his girl friend a t-shirt.</p>

<p>At Princeton we had a private tour of the engineering dept with a CS major (my son's intended major). He learned a lot, loved the campus and surrounding area, but didn't care for the school. They were on spring break, so no classes and not many students.</p>

<p>Wash U gave us water and vouchers for lunch on campus. Good campus tour, plus he had an interview with the CS department. They did a separate tour of the engineering program which was nice. He was impressed. </p>

<p>UIUC made us pay $6 or $7 dollars for parking! Long long hot tour (it's a huge campus) with no water. (We brought our own.) We had an interview in the CS dept here too, but no engineering tour. Large info session crammed in a hot room with not enough seating. This could definitely be improved.</p>

<p>RPI was on spring break but a local student came to take us on a tour. He was very informative and entertaining. It was cold and snowy, but we had hot chocolate with the admissions head before the tour. We saw everything and had lunch in the cafeteria (we paid). Son really liked the campus and the school. </p>

<p>MIT was perfect in his mind, despite the largish tour group and the 10 below wind chill. He attended a couple of classes. Very helpful admissions office. (We had to change our travel plans and needed a rental car, and they made it very easy.) I don't think we went into the dorms. Had a meeting (not really an interview) with the EECS office and the woman there was great and talked to him for over an hour, then took us on a private tour of the department and introduced him to some students and professors. Son felt very welcomed there. </p>

<p>Univ. Okla. 105+ that day and they gave us lots of ice cold water bottles. Saw everything including several dorm rooms. Medium size tour group and info session. Son was a legacy there. She too walked backward for most of the tour. After UIUC and OU he knew he wanted a smaller school.</p>

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<p>Good guides: Tufts, Penn, BU
Bad: NYU (both times)</p>

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<p>we had a similar guide at Princeton, as well, but was extremely informative,....coming from SoCal, she belonged out here. LOL</p>

<p>suggest P-Ton give their guides decaf.</p>

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<p>I included info sessions as part of the original title. However, I have found that generally speaking the students find the tours much more interesting.</p>

<p>A few general themes I am seeing as requirements:
- Smaller groups, anything over 20 is too big because you can not hear
- Knowlegable but not 'gushy'
- Guides who are willing to talk about why they chose thier schools and perhaps the others they were looking at before they had to decide.
- Like to see dorms if possible.
- Tour guides that can speak to your student's area of interest.
- Would like to see dining halls.</p>

<p>For me one of the best tours I had was done by a history major at Princeton. The tour had over 50 people in it but he could project his voice quite well. He kept my attention by telling little stories about each of the building that we visited.</p>

<p>I liked Villanova for the opposite reason, they would not let over 10 people go on the tour. The guide was very personable and discussed how she arrived at her decision to attend.</p>

<p>Worst for my oldest son and his friend - UPenn, first because the tour was way too big (about 75 people) and the student leader was quite politically lopsided. No dorm room tour. On the smaller engineering school tour there was another student on the tour that reminded them of someone they did not like from their HS. I actually found it interesting how some of their perceptions were formed.</p>

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<p>OK...info sessions...The very best was College of Charleston. The adcom was simply wonderful. They have a PP presentation that answered just about every possible question but the adcom also took questions from the crowd.</p>

<p>Worst info session...University of Richmond. The presenter basically had NO presentation. AND she couldn't answer one question posed by the students or the parents.</p>

<p>All the others were somewhere in between.</p>

<p>U of South Carolina actually did not have an info session but rather the tour was about 2 hours long (with a little break in the dining hall for something to drink). The student who led the tour (remember from the above post that I said he was terrific) knew every answer to every question except one...(related to why there were not sprinkler systems in some of the dorms). </p>

<p>Info session at Elon was really good but the adcom we spoke to after the tour was not very personable to DD. </p>

<p>I will say that the Catholic colleges do great info sessions....we've been to Catholic University, Duquesne, Santa Clara University, and U of San Diego and all had very very good info sessions.</p>

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<p>I was disappointed in the Amherst tour. THe guide said "ummm...." constantly to the point I was too distracted to enjoy the tour. We did not go in the dining hall and barely saw the library. My D did not notice and enjoyed the tour. Conn College we had a wonderful tour guide who stayed around and arranged for D to go with her to her seminar. Very personal touch to the tour. Our Wesleyan tour was in the pouring rain and they gave us a Wesleyan rain poncho which was a nice touch. The guide handled the horrific weather with humor and the school went up in my opinion after the tour.</p>

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<p>Best info session by a mile for us was Stanford. Really gave you the nitty gritty on what mattered (none of that "we look at the whole application.....; when we asked how legacies were counted, she told us that historically it has doubled their chances, etc.). </p>

<p>However, all our tours and info sessions were good (Lehigh, Lafayette, JHU, Villanova, Hofstra, Trinity, Tulane, Rice, Santa Clara, Harvey Mudd). </p>

<p>My objection was the extreme overlap and redundancy of tour/info session; yet we were reluctant to miss either.</p>

<p>To S, every dorm room looked like every other dorm room after a while and he didn't even care (of course, we didn't go to any schools with "palaces" or dungeons, so not much variation).</p>

<p>All of our tour guides were great, but that can vary so much, so I don't think one can draw a conclusion based on one tour about a given school.</p>

<p>Good things for tours: asking the prospies what their field of interest is and dividing into different groups based on that.</p>

<p>Our GC advised against tours and in favor of info sessions, just because kids DO make judgements based on how they like/don't like the individual guide, but I found that advice impossible to follow. And, obviously, GC hasn't travelled with the wonderful kids who turn thumbs down without even getting out of the car. :p</p>

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<p>We've been on four campuses so far, with a great deal of variability in the quality of the schools presentation - info session and tour. </p>

<p>Both Notre Dame and Syracuse had well done info sessions and good tours/tour guides. St Johns (Queens) was so so, the admissions counselor was a fill in for some one sick that day and did not seem prepared. Tour guide was ok. </p>

<p>Our biggest surprise was Seton Hall. A small group of prospects with parents were mixed in with a group of high school students that had come in on a bus. The presentation was mediocre and the tour guide poor. As we came upon groups of students moving to classes, more than once comments were made by them..."don't go here". What probably surprised us the most was that there was no check-in at all. They did not take our names, so did not know who was there visiting. As much as colleges seem to spend on marketing their schools, its shocking that they ignored the opportunity of pursuing potentially interested students. And because the large group of high school students needed a letter to acknowledge their excused absence it was impossible to see the one admissions counselor on duty. We just left!</p>

<p>For those of you that have gone through these info sessions, what do you think of the prevalence of the "Introduction Video"? Every campus we visited started with a video. Some good...Syracuse the best so far. Most were pretty generic. You could probably place any university's name on the title and you wouldn't know the difference. They seemed to me to serve as a crutch for the admissions counselor leading the session.</p>

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<p>We had a pretty decent tour at U Conn two weeks ago.The two presenters/tour guides were professionally dressed (U Conn polo shirts) as was the whole visitor's center staff. The "generic" video was shown but the presenters stopped it numerous times to give their comments.Very well rehearsed. Walking tour portion was divided between the two into manageable group sizes. All the high points were hit on the tour.While they took us into a dorm they use a model room setup on the ground floor (in common space area) maybe for security reasons? Boy, was it clean!!!! S's comment was he wished they spent longer in the buildings,seemed rushed to him.But there was alot of ground to cover in 90 minutes. Best touch..they have a guy who takes a picure of the tour group on the steps of the visitor's center before the group departs,then they send you an email 'postcard" thanking you for visiting,also they give a %off voucher for the Bookstore.Son had to buy a hat of course.No water and we could have used it! I must say the campus was beautiful,much nicer than I was expecting.</p>

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<p>I had a great tour of Penn. The tour guide was very nice and enthusiatic. When we lost her for some reason, we simply joined another student's tour and he didn't hesistate to take on more students. The groups were of moderate size (~15 people), so that definitely helped make the tour more personable.</p>

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<p>Must be a "guy thing". My son really didn't care about the dorms either. BUT my daughter wants to see what the rooms (and bathrooms) are like.</p>

<p>Hm...videos...we only saw one and that was at College of Charleston while we were waiting for the full tour group to assemble. It was excellent.</p>

<p>Another thought...we far preferred the places where the info sessions were AFTER the tours. However, I will say that most places had the info sessions first.</p>

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<p>Lots of so-so experiences, none really bad, but I agree that large groups are the pits. Carnegie-Mellon was one of the worst because we did not go into any dorms (or most other buildings). In almost every tour case, I think we could organize a better self-guided tour (which we've also done). The best was at Ohio University. You had to make an appointment, the size was very limited, and they broke the already manageable group into three tour guides, so that each tour guide had a max of three potential students. Also, in the small info session, the adcom guy took the time to have each student introduce him/herself, then guided the session toward the prospective majors that people had given, several times engaging in discussions with each student, using their names. This was a very effective technique. Plus, by talking directly to each student individually, it kept the session from being hijacked by parents. EXCELLENT info session and tour.</p>

<p>However, what made the day great was the appointment we made in advance with the Department Chair of S's proposed major. That led to a private tour of the department facilities and an introduction to one of the more popular professors and a long discussion/continued tour with him. Is it any wonder that Ohio Universtiy is where S ended up? Everything seemed so perfect (and it was the only campus where S's body language told us that he had found his fit) that I was actually euphoric as we drove away that afternoon. I had begun to think we'd never find the right match, and boom, we had just found it.</p>

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<p>I'm surprised they wouldn't take you into a dorm due to "privacy" issues. I had a couple tours say it was for "safety" reasons. I wasn't impressed by that either, though I still applied to those schools. They always take you in the nice dorm anyway.</p>

<p>I think having one of the schools best professors talk at the sessions is a very good thing. You're more likely to see and interact with the professor once you're at a school than the admissions staff.</p>

<p>I'm disappointed you had a bad tour at W&M fireflyscout. This year there were like 190 students who wanted to be new tour guides and they were only taking like 25. They go through 2 rounds of interviews and such. I didn't make it through the first one, and I decided it was because I'm pretty straight forward and don't like to play things up. I don't spin everything positively, which I guess they probably want in a tour guide. But after all of the effort they put in, for you to get a bad tour... it's upsetting to me as a current student.</p>

<p>I think talking to actual students, who don't have the job of "selling" the school to prospective students is more beneficial. You're more likely to get an accurate representation of what goes on and how the people are, though the tour guide can provide all the stats, random tidbits about statues, and interesting historical facts that a normal student could not.</p>