D19 has a long weekend in September and I am thinking of heading up to NY/VT to tour some schools. We live in FL so it’s quite a hike. It is not easy to fit in all of the schools we would like to see in the short time we will have. One day in particular that is giving me trouble is the Saturday we would end up in VT. I’d like her to see UVM and Middlebury but with their time schedules it isn’t possible.
Have you ever had luck calling and asking for a “private” tour? Nothing formal, just a student to show us around?
We have one other option - a friend of ours has a son going to Middlebury as a freshman. We will call them and see if he can show us around but since he will have only been there about a month he may not know too much yet.
Thank you!
My DD gave a few private tours to students visiting her college. DD worked in the admissions office and gave tours as well. She was happy to host CC families!
Perhaps someone here will see your query and send you a PM!
Some schools have online tours/guides of campuses. What you could do if you can’t find a private tour is simply tour the campus yourselves and then use the college online tours to guide you through the school. Virtual tours in most cases are like the same tours they give in person. They cover some major buildings, show you around, and answer questions which is more or less what the virtual tour is.
Contact them with your dates. Explain that you will be there when there are no scheduled tours. Ask if they have a self-guided option. They may, or they may assign a student to give you a private tour. In either case, you will also have “demonstrated intetst”. I’d meet up with the boy you know to get his impressions after a month in any case.
I did this last year by emailing admissions at Howard to ask if a student could show my D around. They did not have any official tours scheduled yet as it was the first week of school. I was going for work and D was meeting me in DC (we’re from CA so couldn’t afford to do it again). They were super helpful and arranged for a private tour and my D had a wonderful experience.
Does your daughter have a specific area of interest? Sometimes it can help to contact someone in a specific department and request a tour ( or a major-specific tour) that way. UVM has a great bunch of enthusiastic tour guides!
Thank you all so much - looks like I will give the schools a call when I get a plan together. I figured we would go do s self-guided tour if we couldn’t find any times that fit. And we will definitely be calling the friend’s son - he is the nephew of DH’s best friend since pre-school. 
@cameo43 She has no clue what she wants to study yet. That is one of the many things stressing her out when we talk about college but also why we are focusing on liberal arts for now!