^^ Oh, you are wrong. The feds are all over pot use and growing in Colorado, and even though it may be legal to grow it in your own home, it is not allowed in dorm rooms. Even medical use in offices and public facilities is regulated.
It must be the curmudgeon in me but if a tour guide was incessantly braying on and on about herself, Iād raise a point and try to get her to cease ā if possible, without embarrassing her. But I wouldnāt let it continueā¦ I just couldnāt remain quiet and have my time wasted.
Ok, this happened this afternoon, so I am still sitting here scratching my head. D and I are visiting one of her top LAC choices where she has already been admitted. This is not an admitted student event. The visit is starting off with an overnight to be followed tomorrow by class, tour, etc. Her host was supposed to meet us at the admissions office (which was closed since itās Sunday) at 4:30. At 4:50, D calls a kid we just met from our home town who happens to work in the admissions office and knew who the host was. He found another friend who knew the host who came and met us and invited my D to go to dinner with her and offered to let D stay with her, even overnight, if necessary.
I sat in the student center waiting to find out if this overnight was going to happen or whether D would just come back to the hotel with me (host had a sleeping bag for D as well as the folder containing Dās schedule which we hadnāt seen yet). Turns out, the host was busy with a sorority meeting until 7 at which time she would meet my D. I think the host just sold my D on her other top choice! Can you imagine how this would have played out if we didnāt connect with the home town kid? @KAMmom, @AllisonMP
Although Iām sure Iād be frustruated and worried and thinking the exact same thing if I were in your situation, I wonder if its fair to judge the college by the reliability of one student. And you never know, the initial host and your daughter might hit it off after all.
@MomofM, I agree. I advised my D that she should not consider this a deal-breaker if she loves everything else about the school. I thinks sheās already leaning toward the other school: this is just the icing on the cake.
You never know-this could work out even better than the original plan. We had a tour appointment last summer and waited, waited at the meeting spot for the tour guide. We knew no one else there and finally called the admissions office, got a confused student on the other end, who promised to see what was going on. Finally after about 46 minutes a young grad student came running up and explained that the tour guide had been taken very ill and had been calling around to find a new guide for us. We got the best tour of any of them-3 full hours-met the dean of the department D is interested in, a recent grad from that department, the head of the freshman support program for her major, even the college president. The young lady showed us things not on the official tour and we left with 5 or 6 business cards from people who asked us to please, really, contact them with any questions-including the college president. Iām so glad we stuck around.
Itās always really hard not to be influenced by the other parents. When we toured the University of Rochester, the parents all seemed really weird and competitive. My son was do freaked out by the competitive vibe that the other parents were sending out that it was really hard for him to process anything else. And to this day, I donāt know if the school is fiercely competitive or there was just something wrong with the people in the waiting room that day.
@sseamom, it didnāt, but not because of the mixup. We found out that the school is really not a good fit for my D for mostly academic reasons. It turns out that the student host had informed the visit coordinator that she was not available until 7pm, but the coordinator did not communicate that with us. Some people say decisions about whether the school is a good choice should not depend on experiences with the Admissions Office. To me, the Admissions Office is the public face of the schoolās administration. If the Admissions Office canāt get it right, why should I believe that any other part of the schoolās administration will do better? The AO reflects the attitudes of the school and what it views as an acceptable way of conducting its business.
When my parents and I toured University of Alabama at Birmingham, the tour guide kept talking about an escort service for late nights. One of the parents finally had to ask about it. What the tour guide meant was that there were people who made sure you got to your dorm safely after a late night of studying in the library.
@futuredoc96 Thatās funny! We used to say that on our tours until someone mentioned how inappropriate it sounded we specified to say that we have a free taxi service to get kids from each campus after our buses stopped running
I had one mother ask our tour guide with concern where all the students were, as we stood in a dorm building at maybe 8:30 or 9 AM on a Saturday. apparently someone hadnāt heard of āsleeping ināā¦
edit: another time, about two years ago a bunch of kids interested in STEM were selected to go tour a state school in a bordering state from us. Our tour guide at one point mentioned that this school had good parties and that āthe cops werenāt too badā about catching miscreants, I presume. In any case, I wasnāt impressed by the academics- or the students!
We went on our first tour in May. We had a relatively new guide who insisted on walking backward the entire time. I really thought she was going to wipe out at least a dozen times. It was so distracting watching her try to navigate the way that it was actually disruptive. When we went on our second tour this week, the guy running the info session mentioned the upcoming tour and said, āand everyone will be facing forward.ā That alone moved the school up a few notches for me!
Not head scratching, but pretty remarkable IMO was the Northwestern tour guide who was wearing only what appeared to be a t-shirt and a light jacket on our early February tour. Meanwhile, I had to run into the campus bookstore and buy a hat, I was so cold!
At a scholars open house, an activity center employee gave us a tour and kept pointing out what would get you kicked out. āIf you come in and are drunk, Iāll throw you outā, āIf you let people in through that door, Iāll find out and throw you outāā¦and on and on. Overall she was really nice, it just seemed odd we were getting the troublemaker tour!
My daughter was a tour guide at her college and they were instructed to walk backwards. They practiced. She was darn good, both at walking backwards and at leading tours.
We had the backward walking tour guide as well. When my son met with a department head he mentioned that they all did it.
I donāt see the big deal about backwards walking. Tour guides of all types do it. Itās not even notable.
DD walked backwards as well when giving tours. That way she was facing the tour group when she spoke. How else would she have been able to speak with them AND continue walking to the next spot on the tour?
I never thought twice about it. We went on about 28 toursā¦totalā¦and every tour guide walked backwardsā¦so,they could speak to the tour group while walking.
Do people really find this odd? Why?
Our family went on twenty plus tours and had a variety of experiences. The most notable experiences were at one Ivy league school where seemingly for the entire student led information session she repeatedly commented about how unlikely it was that an applicant would be admitted there.
UVA was my favorite, the tour guide was bright, funny and extremely knowledgable about the school. He also had a compelling story about his own acceptance there that brought tears to my eyes.
Our daughter is now a tour guide at Harvard and my wife and I recently went on a tour that she led, to see her in action. Afterwards I teased her, I told her she was very good but she was no Aaron,(our UVA tour guide). āNot funny dadā was her reply.
Penn? That seemed to be pretty much the entire content of the info session when we were there.
And as for backward walking, thereās a division of opinion amongst admissions offices. (No, seriouslyāthereās even serious academic research on it.) We really havenāt felt like thereās a difference between forward or backward modes, ourselves.