<p>We’ve had both–the schools that did match up majors did a good job at both. Our kids have no interest in the theater departments at schools yet, we learned a lot about the department at one school and NOTHING about the science department…yes, schools should do a better job matching tour guides to prospective students–again, they are the main sales force for that school.</p>
<p>Don’t many schools offer choices for tours? We were offered general tours, tours of the science buildings, engineering tours, athletic center tours, and general tours offered by kids representing different majors. I liked being able to split up and look at different aspects of the school and then compare notes later. </p>
<p>I always admired the ability of the kids to walk backward, no matter what the terrain :)</p>
<p>At Syracuse the tour guide explained that they were now REQUIRED to not walk backwards due to safety concerns. I thought that was very smart. He would just stop every so often to talk about what we were seeing.
Not all schools have more than one type of tour. I wish they all had them.</p>
<p>All tours don’t have students with all of the same interests and intended majors. At DDs school, students were taken to the places where MOST students would be at some point if they enrolled…the library, dining halls, student center, fitness center/athletic facilities, health center, main outdoor campus area, and the chapel (because that was also used for large school gatherings). If students wanted more in depth tours of the arts facilities or engineering facilities, they could arrange an add on to their tour. Tour guides with these interest were SOMETIMES available to conduct these added tours.</p>
<p>Remember that student tour guides are unpaid VOLUNTEERS</p>
<p>Look alike was blocking our view of the student tour guide at a school tour recently. </p>
<p>Nice polite kid too; he jumped out of the way when he heard my boy mention something. I </p>
<p>thought, we’ll never get in here.</p>
<p>Actually GMT, at some schools they are volunteers, but at others they are paid.</p>
<p>We only got the more specialized tours on accepted students weekends.</p>
<p>My DD was paid…kids who worked in admissions and were tour guides had the highest paying on campus jobs at DDs school. Very competitive jobs!</p>
<p>They did NOT, however, get paid for working accepted student weekends…two very full days held twice in the spring (one for EA and one for RD), or for preview days held in the fall.</p>
<p>They got paid for tours, and work in the admissions office preparing for tours (assembling info packets, scheduling, etc).</p>
<p>One of our tour guides, I think it was at MIT, told us he got paid about $20 or $25 per tour. He was the only one who quoted a number, but my impression from other schools was that most tour guides got paid.</p>
<p>We had a fantastic tour by one of the school’s senior staff when D and I found ourselves in the same vacation town as one of the HBCU’s she had on her list. Only in 7th grade at the time, she was “too young” for the “real tour”, so instead we got a private tour that included meeting the head and vice-chair of the department for the major she is interested in. We passed the “real tour” several times, with about 30 kids and their parents trailing along after a tour guide yelling to be heard. Boy, am I glad we got the “unofficial tour”! Although the town is far smaller than D would like her college to be in, this school remains at the top of her list because she was taken seriously and treated with respect.</p>
<p>That said, though, I don’t think we’d cross a school of our list because a student guide, paid or not, didn’t do a great job. If we weren’t getting the answers we needed, we’d go looking for FT, paid, adult staff to help. When my older D and I toured the west coast schools she looked at, we did informal tours and asked questions along the way-we were not disappointed.</p>
<p>Wow, I had no idea that some schools pay their guides. If the schools pay, then they should expect a reasonable level of performance.</p>
<p>We had mixed experiences with tour guides while looking for colleges for D. We had some small (almost private) tours and the guides on these tours seemed to be way more at ease, able to handle questions. D hated the tour we took at her current school - as she put it, the girls were weird. We did convince her to take a second look at the school - and she ended up going there! She is now a tour guide there, gets paid (definitely not 20$ an hour!) and loves it. She recently met a freshman at a mentor-mentee event and the girl told her that she had been on one of D’s tours and chose the school primarily because she was so impressed on that tour :)</p>
<p>Everywhere we’ve been there were few if any STEM major tours unless it was a predominantly STEM school. I think their schedules tend to be less flexible and many are less outgoing. Even at Carnegie Mellon we had someone from the drama department.</p>
<p>With D2, and the college she is now attending, we had the standard general tour, and then we just went into the music building on our own and started looking around. A nice man (professor) poked his head out of an office door and said with a smile, “Can I help you?” I just told him she had been on a campus tour and wanted to be a music major and that we were just looking around. He dropped what he was doing (Friday after lunch) and showed us all around the music buildings and theaters and introduced us to the Dean of the Fine Arts department and just became our host! Everyone was SO nice and welcoming. Pretty much nailed it for her.</p>
<p>D3 took the tour of A&M including the Mechanical Engineering department and labs - DONE. She didn’t even want to look at any other schools any more.</p>
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<p>A paid tour guide position is a good resume-building job for students who might want to go into public relations type careers, or any other career that involves public/extemporaneous speaking or presentations. I do not think such job is as useful for STEM majors.</p>
<p>I agree that some may not see it as useful, but the ability to lead groups of people and speak extemporaneously and confidently is a tremendously useful life skill in general. Indeed, my (STEM) daughter learned that skill in her high school job where she did something similar in concept, and my (non STEM) son is learning it through participation in a particular campus EC where he has to address large groups. I’m not saying every kid should rush out and be a tour guide, but it is shortsighted to think that it’s not a useful skill to develop.</p>
<p>I agree, while I never gave campus tours, one summer one of the things I did was give tours of the National Cathedral in Washington DC. Good practice for standing up in front of zoning and architectural review boards.</p>
<p>I agree that public speaking is a valuable skill for everyone to develop, my point was that STEM majors may seek out other jobs that are more directly related to their careers and that could be why some people noticed a dearth of STEM tour guides.</p>
<p>Actually, most engineering majors I know wait until summer to work, and then get high paying co-op jobs, which makes working during the school year unattractive and often unnecessary.</p>
<p>The tour guide would be a great job for them during the year if they could do it without it detracting from their studies. Public speaking and being able to field questions is a must if you want to move up in engineering today.</p>
<p>Over the years, a large percentage of our guides (or guides from which to choose) have been economics majors, with the rest in everything from engineering to drama. It’s a joke in our family – another econ major!</p>