Good College Tours, Info sessions and why

Parents Forum
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<p>Best tour guides: CWRU (2000) and W & M (2004). Both guys, both rising seniors, both seemed genuine and personable, both displayed a quirky sense of humor. My kids liked these schools even before the info sessions, but they went to the top of their lists after the tours. I agree that guides make a powerful impression, more so than the adcom who presents the info session.</p>

<p>(And soccerguy, please apply again next year to be a guide - I've read your posts on W & M and think you'd be a great rep for the school!)</p>

<p>The only tour guide my d2 disliked was at UNC-CH (thought she was a ditz). Interestingly, our info session came after the tour at UNC, and though she liked what she heard there, my d decided against applying because the tour hadn't gone well and she just couldn't see herself on campus.</p>

<p>Worst info session: DUKE! Insufferably snotty adcom - so much so that I expected my d would want to leave before the tour (she didn't, and our excellent tour guide completely reversed my impression).</p>

<p>I'm glad that guides are showing sample dorm rooms nowadays. At Duke, the guide showed us her own room, which I thought was certainly going above and beyond. Does anyone else think it's weird that more tours don't take you through the library?</p>

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<p>Agree that the library should be part of the tour. Just have to strike out on your own to cover some parts of the campus. If you have the time, eating in the dining halls is recommended too.</p>

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<p>As I mentioned in my RIT review, the tour guides were wonderful: knowledable, full of personality, and down to earth.</p>

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<p>On our tour of CBB(Colby, Bates, Bowdoin) we dutifully went to each info session which was beginning to sound VERY repetitive. (lots of Research availibilities, dinners at prof's houses, supportive community, etc). The info session at Colby broke wide open when a parent asked a smug admissions representative(not a student),"All of these schools seem to be carbon copies of each other, what makes Colby stand out from the others?" This was a great question and it peaked the attention of the parents. The admissions person was taken aback and came out with very poor reasons. That coupled with a lack luster guide sealed the deal. Colby was off the list.</p>

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<p>Just to balance out "dogs" experience:</p>

<p>Best tours : NYU (had to prearrange and size was limited), BU, Colgate
Good tours (but way too crowded): Penn, Brown
Completely Horrible tours (left before over): Columbia, Tufts, UVA</p>

<p>My D is currently a junior at Penn. Oops, I guess she's a senior as of this week.</p>

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<p>Best tour: Duke was great. The guide was upbeat and answered all our questions. And there were tons of questions! We saw most of West campus. but not a dorm room. We didn't go to East campus, where the freshman live, but we were given lots of info about that campus. While my son had an alumni interview, I sat in on the info session. It was very informative. Even though my son and I had attended a local info session near our home, I still learned lots more facts. I found it very interesting and enjoyed meeting more Duke reps. Duke was my son's first choice and will be attending in the fall, so you could say that I am a bit bias.<br>
Emory: We had a great tour there as well. We were in a very small group and had two guides. They were fun and energetic. We saw everything, even a model dorm room. The room had samples of storage systems that could be purchased from a local store. Emory is a wow campus. Everything is beautiful and well maintained. I wanted to go there! The info session was good as well. Emory is a great school. I loved the way they choose roommates. Students talk online first and decide if they want to room together before they commit. No names are used, so there are no hurt feeling if it doesn't work out.
UNC: Not a great tour. It was very hot! The girl was very ditzy and we lost interest. In all fairness, it was in the afternoon after our morning at Duke, so we were tired. My son was not that interested in UNC, so maybe that is why we didin't like our tour. We didn't attend an info session. UNC is not Duke!</p>

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<p>Tour guide/tour/info awards - The Back-awards</p>

<p>Most earnest guide - Davidson (she was a freshman, doing her first tour, and her Mom was along?!)</p>

<p>Most enthusiastic salesman - Williams</p>

<p>Most "valley girlish" - Amherst</p>

<p>Best dressed - Vanderbilt</p>

<p>Hardiest - Yale (a long and funny, story, see the thread on Funny visit stories)</p>

<p>Would most like to date (I have a DD) - Yale</p>

<p>Best salesman for the school - a tie between Univ of Richmond and Swarthmore</p>

<p>Most informative tour - tie, Swarthmore and Rhodes</p>

<p>Worst info session - Duke "you should feel honored and humble if we stoop to admit you" with Vandy a close second, but for a different reason</p>

<p>Best sales job at an info session - Rhodes, what can I say they have an Olympian</p>

<p>Most informative regular info session - Swarthmore tied with Davidson (Dav. doesn't really have one, it is a one on one session with a student counselor)</p>

<p>Most comfortable chairs at an info session - Amherst, they had to move us to a lecture hall, which had very good seating and sightlines, extra points for good facilities</p>

<p>NOW:
Best overall - Swarthmore - all the LACS do a much better job, I guess they have to!</p>

<p>Worst overall - anything in the Ivy League plus Duke - maybe they just really don't want to read all those applications.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
she was a freshman, doing her first tour, and her Mom was along?!

[/quote]
oh, cangel, that is priceless! Do you think mom was a cc-er? :cool:</p>

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<p>Cangel...was that last summer?? We had a freshman and she was very peppy and enthusiastic at Davidson...</p>

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<p>we've gone thru college searches with our two children and we've probably visited 35-40 colleges during those searches. to me an info session is an info sessino. i thought they were all mediocre to good. i found the real difference to be in the tours. the quality of the students giving the tours seemed to vary greatly. the quality of the students giving the tours also seemed to have an enormous impact on the impression both my children and my wife and i came away with. many times we would comment on how the colleges should take greater care in who they select to give the tours and on how much they put into training the tour guides. sometimes a simple thing like making sure the entire group can hear what you are saying is overlooked. we had many very good tour guides but we found the best ones to be the ones we had a dartmouth and duke. both guides were personable, articulate and knowledgeable about the subject they were discussing.</p>

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<p>I think that any visit should include sitting in on at least one actual class plus a meeting with at least one faculty member. More is better.</p>

<p>The best visit to any college that we have had was Beloit College in Wisconsin. The tour guide was fine - but, what really made the visit stand out was the fact that admissions scheduled meetings and class visits for my daughter that were absolutely superb. The faculty members she met with went out of their way to make her feel at home, to answer her questions, and to tell her more about their departments and programs. I'm talking faculty members taking her on tours of various buildings, showing her the library, etc. It was very impressive. After the student-led tour, Beloit was probably a "maybe" on my daughter's list. After meeting with several faculty members and having them give her their tour, Beloit went up to "definitely going to apply."</p>

<p>The best "student tour guides" were the ones at Earlham. They had a very enthusiastic young man give the actual tour who focused more on social life and fun things to do on campus than on academics ("Shh! Don't tell anyone but back there are 400 acres of college-owned woods. We go back there and build campfires at night and just hang out together.") Then, another student tour guide brought us to the cafeteria for lunch, sat with us, and introduced us to some of his friends. Finally, when we returned to the admissions office, they introduced a student tour guide from California (our state) to my daughter who could answer her questions about what it was like to live in Indiana after growing up in California. ALL of the tour guides were very open about both the positives and negatives of Earlham so you felt you were getting a balanced picture, not just the "hard sell." Very, very impressive, extremely informative and definitely the reason that Earlham is number one on my daughter's college list. It was a definite plus that all of the students my daughter approached at Earlham were just as welcoming and willing to answer her questions as the "official" tour guides. </p>

<p>One other school sticks out in my mind for the way they treated us during and after our visit: The University of Portland. The admissions rep was wonderful, very enthusiastic (a recent grad), and even gave my daughter a U of P tee shirt. The tour guides (we had two --- this was only for my daughter, her friend, and myself) bent over backwards to show us places you don't usually see on a tour. And, after we got home we received personal, hand written thank you cards from both tour guides, with answers to questions that they hadn't been able to answer on the tour and the names and emails of current U of P students who had similiar interests and activities for my daughter to contact. D. has regretted ever since that U of P wasn't a fit for what she is looking for in a college.</p>

<p>Our worst "student tour guide" was probably the senior at a small Catholic LAC who, when asked how much time he spent on class work on a typical day, said, "Well, you know, I'm a senior in a hard major. So I probably work harder than most people here. I'd say I put in a good hour, hour-and-a-half of work every night!" Daughter is still laughing about that one.</p>

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<p>When we visited Amherst a couple of years ago two young women were our tour guides and they were warm, vibrant, and very informative; there was an informal info session before the tour, conducted by a senior admissions staffer, and that did a lot to demystify Amherst and make it seem like an inviting and accessible place (though D ultimately was waitlisted). Similarly positive experience with tour guides last time around at Haverford and Bates--in both cases guides were informal, well-informed, and generally on my D's wave-length. (Had visited all three several years earlier with older child who liked them but without the same strong sense of "good fit" and enthusiasm as with younger child). It just shows how a specific person can make or break a visit--whether a great adcom or a good tour guide--sometimes fair to the school and sometimes not. Along similar lines, first time around we had a great tour guide at Williams (funny, casual, enthusiastic,a nd enormously appealing) but a pompous info session; second time around info session was huge but dazzlingly warm and informative, tour guide so-so--a little dull, at least for a Williams kid. Wesleyan was a hybrid sort of experience--two very down-to-earth tour guides, bright, athletic, articulate, very pleasant, counteracted by a very pompous info session (senior admissions staffer and student) that led my D not to apply.</p>

<p>Most uniformly negative experiences were at William and Mary and Dartmouth. W and M info session was very much in the "we are wonderful but you probably won't get in" mode--and very discouraging for out of staters. And the tour guide was a senior who though reasonably well informed was really excited to be graduating and focused on that a lot; it seemed to both my D and me that a senior should be more than a bit sad to be leaving what should have been a wonderful experience and that perhaps he hadn't loved W and M as much as my D wanted to love her college. And at Dartmouth the info session was very superficial and lackluster, conducted by a somewaht cold and unprepossessing entry-level admissions staffer; tour guide was perky but not especially articulate and did not radiate the specialness that I'd expecte from a Dartmouth student--and we love Dartmouth adn know it pretty well, so this isn't an attack on the school, just a commentary on the uneven quality of tours and info sessions that even the best school can suffer from). </p>

<p>I do think it is helpful to do both the tour and the info sessions though, despite the frequent repetition of material--it's good to get different perspectives and to see how other people in the audience and on the tours interact--another window into the app pool and the school culture.</p>

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<p>To sum up, in more general terms, I think a good tour means a guide who is articulate, audible, well informed about most aspects of the curriculum and the overall life at a school--not just the areas that are of specific interest to him or her; at the very least the guide should be able to refer to a friend's experience, or direct a prospective student to some place on campus where more information can be found. And of ocurse if the guide has a great smile or a nice voice or a particularly friendly personality that's helpful, and as useful as learning a set of facts is. A good info session will not just outline curriculum requirements and SAT averages but also give some sense of what makes the school stand out from its peers and what the administration/admissions dept considers the prevailing culture or cultures at at the school.</p>

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<p>Our tour guides at Bates, aside from not knowing much about the school, made a lot of condescending comments about Lewiston ("I don't know why they don't like us, we bring them culture").</p>

<p>Amherst's tour guide couldn't tell us where the student union building was and pointed to the science center when asked where the poli sci department was.</p>

<p>The tour guides at Brown were very entertaining and knowledgable. Definitely the best of the bunch.</p>

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<p>The absolutely best tour guide we had was at Swarthmore. The tried to put only two prospective students with each guide, but a third student/parent wanted to join and it was great because the mother asked all the question! The tour guide was knowledgeable, enthusiastic and really, really loved his school and the opportunities he had been offered. It was also the absolutely worst info session we had. The adcom was a recent grad who was truly the definition of a pompous a**. There was also a current student with him that would give him these truly incredulous looks when he said something really arrogant.
(My D does wonder about schools were the adcoms are recent grads. If the schools are so great why haven’t these people found jobs in the real world?)</p>

<p>Best tour guides we had: WashU, UChicago, GaTech, Emory, Tufts and Washington and Lee. All enthusiastic and knowledgeable and loving the school. </p>

<p>The absolutely worst tour guide we had was at Duke – She was a psychology, pre-med major – but hadn’t taken any classes, joined a themed living house – but didn’t know what it really meant, but it was air-conditioned, the librarians at Duke don’t have anything to do – so they’ll write your papers for you (this was mentioned several times), dissed the TIP students, etc. She was so bad, my D will not consider Duke, because “if they’ll admit someone like that, I’m not going there.” This was after a great info session also.</p>

<p>Worst tour guides: Tulane (offensive and didn’t know it), Amherst (whatever we tell the school we need they give it to us – academics was never really mentioned – but they needed new student clubs and athletic facilities) and Princeton (no real info imparted, couldn’t answer any questions).</p>

<p>The best info sessions were at Princeton (experienced, personable, truthful), Emory (who bring in current students to mingle with the crowd between the info session and the tour), Tufts (young, enthusiastic, honest), UChicago (experienced, knowledgeable – they had the tour guides come in and mingle with the parents and students before the tours began).</p>

<p>The worst info sessions were at JHU (just recited requirements), Tulane (personable, but didn’t give you any real information) and Northwestern (just recited requirements).</p>

<p>I have learned through all of this that almost all of the student tour guides will give you pretty straight answers if you ask them questions about the schools – but it took me a few visits to figure that out.</p>

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<p>Our guide at NYU was fine, the problem was that we weren't "allowed" to go in to anything relevant. He took us to the bottom floor of the building that is their "student union" but wouldn't walk us upstairs so we could get a glimpse of one of the very few "campus like" settings.</p>

<p>Haverford did an excellent job of sharing their Honor System.</p>

<p>Penn was the best and here is why.
The student gave an overview in a small auditorium like room. She spent a good 5 minutes explaining how admissions worked, how "roll of the dice" it could be, told the proverbial "the orchestra needed a clarinetist" story and that is why one was picked over the other. Then affirmed that all the kids were "qualified" to attend but since most wouldn't get accepted she wanted everyone to just sigh and say "oh well, I guess I was a flutist the year they need piccolos". </p>

<p>This said a lot to me about the values at Penn. (or at least this extraordinary young lady)</p>

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<p>I'm not sure the Mom at Dav was a CCer or not. This was in Feb 04. She had 2 daughters at Dav, was from a faraway state, and had come down for a visit. The daughter evidently was being trained for tour guide duty, and got drafted kind of at the last minute, since Mom was visiting, she tagged along. Daughter did a good job, but she hadn't quite gotten the walking backwards down pat - she fell backwards over a post. All us polite Southerners were trying desperately to interrupt her, and point our the danger (Mom couldn't see it from her angle) - but to no avail. A nice young man with a large number of piercings for Davidson, leapt to her rescue and literally caught her halfway down.</p>

<p>There is one BIG take home message for those headed out on the admissions trail this summer - talk to your kids ahead of time about trying to keep an open mind about each school. I think it helps to ask them for concrete things they don't like or do like (it also helps to carefully limit the visits). You can see from reading this thread,that even adults form very different impressions of the same school based on experiences on different days.</p>

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<p>the librarians will do our papers at Duke? that's news to me...damn...wasted all that time writing all those 20+ page term papers last week...</p>

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<p>I thought the Swarthmore information session was informative as well when my son and I visited. We liked Brown as well - very informative, very earnest. </p>

<p>The UPenn tour guide did not impress us - but the information session was very good.</p>

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<p>Priceless!</p>