<p>I will be on tour at a campus in the morning and will be pondering the viewpoints expressed here.</p>
<p>I think the OP’s point stands though that when a parent is looking at a campus which charges more tuition in a few years than some folks pay for a home, there is an expectation of quality of the student reps and their presentation skills.</p>
<p>It would be like going to a four-star restaurant paying full price, but having the experience of being at a fast food chain.</p>
<p>My D would have loved to be a tour guide at her college–she really takes to that sort of thing and would have been a wonderful ambassador for the school. But they don’t pay the guides at all. There’s was no way she was going to be an unpaid laborer when everyone else in the admissions function gets paid for their contribution. I think when a tour guide is a paying position, it attracts competitive applicants who will take the job seriously and allows a college to chose the best candidates, whereas relying on volunteers turns the process into a crapshoot with a high turnover rate. I can easily see some students signing up to give tours on a lark, then getting tired of it after a few sessions and dropping out or half-assing it thereafter.</p>
<p>Wow, so now the analogy is fast food restaurants vs four star because the tuition is high. So you don’t expect much from the guides at the state flagship, after-all they’re just public and you’re only paying $20k, but by golly those elite privates better have you perfectly matched with your idea of a primo tour guide that represents their $60k school properly. </p>
<p>The issue with this, beyond the obvious, is the tour guide one student may find pretentious may totally connect with any number of other students on a tour. Just like college ‘one size does not fit all’ there’s not ‘one type’ of student at any college. So get together the tour guides for any given university who has a competitive process of selection, they are well trained and well paid. You will find a wide range of students. Some you are going to gravitate towards and connect with, others may be like nails on a chalkboard. It’s random selection of the day and the tour as to which one will be your guide. It doesn’t mean the program isn’t well run, that they’re a great or poor guide, or that the school doesn’t see that these students represent them. It’s all about who you personally connect with, and just like the rest of our lives we are all going to be draw to, and respond positively to, different personalities.</p>
<p>One of our best tour guides was a freshman in only her second month of college! She gave us a personal tour, was very well-informed and proud of her school, and talked to our son about his interests. That college started out low on his list and ended up very high, all because of the tour. The personal attention was wonderful, and he received it from every person he talked to that day, not only the guide, but also the admissions officer, two professors, and a few students who ate lunch with us.</p>
<p>The only tour guide we’ve had who really put us off was the one who told us nonchalantly, in answer to a parent’s question, that there was an after-hours EMS service, and that they dealt with a lot of alcohol poisoning. My child immediately looked at me and made a cutting motion across the throat. That university was out! At least we found out early in the process. I was grateful that the tour guide had been so poorly trained.</p>
<p>Marsian, EVERY college has ambulance runs dealing with alcohol poisoning. If that’s your criteria, then have your kid stay home and go to CC. At least your tour guide was honest. A “well-trained” tour guide would have glossed it over with the standard, “Yes, there are alcohol and drugs here, just as there are on all campuses, but you don’t have to do them to have fun and you won’t be left out if you don’t. I don’t do those things, and I love this school and have lots of friends.” If I had a nickel for every time I heard that line during the times I took my two kids college hunting (one at small, highly competitive LACs and one at large state-flagship Univs)…</p>
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AMEN!</p>
<p>I wish the tour guide at the university my D is now attending would have been honest about the food… lol I would have picked the lower cost food plan. </p>
<p>But to the orginal OP, I am sorry you had a bad tour guide. I think the best thing is to have a list of questions that you want answered before the tour starts. Some will most likely be covered in the tour if they are not then you need to ask…(or your student should ask) D and I tag teamed it sort of I would ask the safety, medical and mom types of questions and she would ask campus life and accademic questions</p>
<p>We had one tour where the guide mumbled answers and was not personable. While it was off putting we looked at the campus as a whole. It was a very expensive private school and its reputation would far out weigh the tour guide…</p>
<p>For the most part our tour guides have been good to excellent. I do wish more schools tried to match tour guides to the visiting student’s interests though. We’ve had a lot of tour guides that were say art majors for our STEM kids. The WORST tour guide was at a CC favorite school, so bad that my normally passive son walked into the admissions office after the tour and told them to take his name off their lists because he would NEVER go to that school. </p>
<p>What HAS turned us off of a couple schools were the admissions counselors themselves. One school messed up DD’s application so badly there was no WAY she would attend that school. These are people that are regular employees of the college and their main sales force. It would be the same in the business world, if the sales people for a company were that bad, there is no way I would do business with that company.</p>
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<p>Ha, that’s funny. I’ve said the exact same thing to my D.
There is one intriguing college choice my D would (should) consider.
But we have met the head of admissions twice at college fairs and let’s just say she is not the most dynamic person in the world.
Which is a shame because I think her school has a lot to offer and I wonder how many other families take the school off their list because of her.
And, just as you say, I’ve tried to convince my D that once actually at the school, she’ll never talk to this woman again.</p>
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<p>Yes, visiting a college is not a fool-proof methodology.<br>
One cannot completely learn all things about an institution in just a few hours.
But I agree, and have experienced, that there is usually a certain “vibe” one can feel while visiting … a sense that “I can picture myself here.”
The funny thing is, my D and I seem to have, so far, completely agreed on the “vibeness” of each school we’ve visited.</p>
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<p>When it is most convenient for you and your family.
That is the most important thing IMHO.
The less stress, the better.
You’ll hear a lot about “don’t go in the summer” (no students there). “Don’t go in the winter” (too cold). “Don’t go during bad weather.” Etc.
All those might be factors but I say – go when you feel most comfortable.</p>
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<p>Lafalum84, the child who nixed the “alcohol poisoning” school is now at a large state university, absolutely happy and thriving. She does not drink, but she is with a lot of other highly motivated, high achieving students who don’t drink either, and they are very supportive of one another. We have since learned that the university I was talking about has a particularly bad reputation for alcohol, and, as I said before, I was glad that the guide was poorly trained enough to say that to the parents! Sometimes a poorly-trained guide can be a good thing. :)</p>
<p>I completely agree that admissions offices must invest in tour guide selection and training, as they are so much more influential than the attractive but generic flyers that are mailed out. Our worst experience was in Johns Hopkins, where the guide, just pointed to each building and rattled off how much it cost JHU to build them. (no exaggeration). It was very difficult to get our D. to look at their programs after that. The best was in Williams, where the guide was greeted, and waved at by so many people on campus, that “we are a close knit community” came alive. My D. who was not looking at rural schools became open to them in general because of the representation of life there. The tour in NYU was also very good, with the fast talking, go-getter type, media studies major representing the university very well.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus:</p>
<p>College campus visits were the deciding factor for my kids. </p>
<p>D2 had narrowed her list to two universities - equal in quality of education and both “suitable”. So her campus visits were meant to look at:</p>
<ol>
<li> Dorms - she didn’t want community baths if it could be avoided</li>
<li> Facilities (concert halls, music building mainly, number of practice rooms, etc.)</li>
<li> Faculty - approachability, availability, overall “vibe”</li>
<li> Type of students - again, just the “vibe”</li>
<li> School spirit - feeling of belonging</li>
<li> Efficiency - Do the people in charge seem like they “have it together”?</li>
<li> Dining - Where is it, how many facilities, quality, range of choices?</li>
<li> Religious organizations/churches - What kind, proximity, what are the people like, what are the services like?</li>
<li> Town - What is there to do, and what is available off campus? What is the community like?</li>
</ol>
<p>D3 was much the same. Our policy is to try to go on a Friday morning during the school year. Faculty is more available to talk to, but there is still a lot of campus activity - so you can get the feel of the campus. We would try to spend the night and check out the town the next day, check out the church scene and see if there was someone we could talk to, etc.</p>
<p>Both D2 & D3 made their choices BASED ON campus visit. But not the tour guide - what we actually observed for ourselves during the visit.</p>
<p>Stevmom, you should start your own thread since most of your questions aren’t related to this one.</p>
<p>There is no best time to visit a campus, but I think you are much better off visiting when classes are in session. That way your only impression is not the tour guide.</p>
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<p>Gum chewing seems inappropriate, but what’s wrong with someone wearing a sorority sweater or eyeliner? Is there only one type of acceptable student?</p>
<p>Between two girls and many college visits, we’ve seen a wide, wide range of tour guides. Some have been remarkable, some have been inarticulate and unfocused. At one school, we actually left one tour mid-tour and joined another because the first guide seemed so ditzy and clueless and the second seemed to be bright and engaged. We’ve also seen a wide range of quality among adults who run information sessions. One D was terribly affected by the tours and presentations, even to the point where she’d assume she’d never fit in based on a single person’s demeanor or where she was offended by a presentation. Other D had a better sense of humor and was more tolerant. Even so, she ended up attending the college where she’d had the best introductory session and guide.</p>
<p>I believe that being a guide is a competitive position but I also think there is a tendency, at least at some schools, including my D’s school, to prefer financial aid work/study kids for these positions. I’m not suggesting in any way that these kids are less able! I’m only suggesting that the school has more than one priority in choosing its guides.</p>
<p>We have had multiple tour guides on various campuses - and we usually get a kick out of the ones who we consider a little “different”. LOL - they provide for amusing conversation over dinner.</p>
<p>We had one who kept referring to “Cameron”. </p>
<p>We’d walk by a bike rack, and she would proceed to tell us about rules concerning bicycles on campus and where racks are located, and then she’d say, “This is where Cameron parks his bike.”</p>
<p>And she kept doing that throughout the tour! 
We all kept looking at each other and saying, “Who the heck is Cameron?” We still joke about it. Sometimes someone in the family will just randomly say, “That’s where Cameron likes to eat lunch”. or similar - and everyone will bust out laughing.</p>
<p>To the point about the “heavy eyeliner, sorority girl” - our tour guide at Bryn Mawr was FABULOUS - and she had purple hair and was very theatrical / gothy-looking. My D isn’t like that at all, she’s much more preppy all-American, but so what? A great tour guide is a great tour guide.</p>
<p>SteveMA - You make an excellent point about STEM students. At GWU, after the admission session the tour guides all introduced themselves. There must have been at least 12 of them - NO STEM majors, all were political science, history, international relations majors. Immediate conclusion - this is not where you want to study engineering!
To their credit - they do allow you to visit the engineering building where a nice student gave us a private tour of the facilities and labs (which turned out to be strikes 2 and 3).
And at Union College in NY (which my husband and I liked a lot) my son never got over the tour guide who: used the word AWESOME at least twice per sentence, was an engineering/dance double-major, couldn’t get her keycard to open most of the buildings she tried to show us, and who was walking backwards in flip-flops. What **engineer **would wear flip-flops while walking backwards? Oh yeah, the one who fell over backwards when the laws of physics took hold, and, yes, she was wearing a skirt. I felt bad for her but my son just thought she was an idiot.</p>
<p>BeanTownGirl:</p>
<p>LOL - Awesome! Exactly the kind of experience that builds memories! </p>
<p>Glad they let you tour the engineering building with a separate tour - at least you found the definitive information you were looking for.</p>
<p>At Texas A&M, you have to sign up for campus tours online and schedule your sessions. They have a general welcome session, campus walking tour, dorm tour, and separate tours per major. The slots fill up fast too. Sometimes it’s a challenge to get all of the sessions you’re interested in for the same day.</p>
<p>Because I learned here on CC about the lasting effect tour guides can have on applicants, I specifically did not take my S on any organized tours on campuses where visiting/demonstrated interest is not considered in the app, like the state u’s. We picked up maps and/or walking guides and did those tours ourselves.</p>
<p>I had the experience of touring the same college twice with different kids–and in some cases, with radically different tour guides. The most extreme case was Columbia–both guides were friendly, informative, and polite–but the first was an extremely flamboyant gay guy, and the second was a sorority girl who looked like a junior Sarah Jessica Parker. I also recall that we had an “outlandish” guide at Amherst–a guy with a lot of piercings (including a paper clip) an weird clothing. In that case, it was a positive for my daughter, who had been worried that Amherst was too preppy for her.</p>
<p>So you can’t take away too much from this, at least if the guides are friendly and knowledgeable.</p>