<p>We had a good tour at Cornell, fortunately no scorn for us there. </p>
<p>And our tour of Brown started with what sounded to me like a head-scratching moment, with the guide introducing herself by saying “You can find me in the library, in the gym or in front of my mirror dancing and lip-synching to Beyonce” I thought that made her sound like an airhead but she turned out to be smart, quirky and fun.</p>
<p>The real head-scratching moment on the Brown tour was with a loud family–mom, dad, kid who looked like he was around 11 or 12 at most. The mom was talking quite loudly at the same time as the guide in spite of people turning around to glare at her. When they realized that she was translating for the kid some of them stopped glaring but she really could have turned down the volume a bit. And I heard another family saying “What is a 12 year old kid who doesn’t even speak English going to get out of this tour?!?”</p>
<p>One of the other posts reminded me of a funny story… not during an official tour, but once when my mom came to visit me at Umich we were walking across the Diag, and when we got near the M I said, “Oh, don’t step on the M!” just sort of out of habit, and my mom leapt back and YELPED – much to the amusement of the other kids on the diag. </p>
<p>Thankfully I think they were laughing because they understood, rather than out of malice.</p>
<p>Worst tour guide for us was at U Penn - he must have answered “I don’t know” to at least half of the questions.
Best tour was at Vassar, but the absolutely gorgeous, perfect spring day didn’t hurt. The quad was packed with students throwing balls and frisbees, studying, and singing or playing music. At one point 2 guys playing guitar got up and accompanied our group, serenading us! My D loved it
Most interesting tour had to be Brown - definitely lives up to its “open” reputation!
Best info session was at Tufts, hands down. Incredibly passion and honesty. And he refused to discuss information that is readily available on their web site - finally!
Worst info session - Amherst. The “we’re incredibly selective, most of you won’t get in here” approach. Yuck.</p>
<p>Well, we’re a very gay-friendly household, so when the 2 guides (1 was training) truly “swished” us around campus my daughter was in heaven. Gay rights is a huge passion of hers (future poly sci major) and the Brown campus did not disappoint in its share of same-sex couples displaying affection.</p>
<p>I was on an early Saturday tour at U Idaho with my daughter and only one other girl with her mother. The tour guide mentioned a couple of times that they were always arranging really interesting speakers like Glenn Beck and Ron Paul. Neither my tie-dye wearing daughter nor the artsy girl in her Doc Martens seemed impressed. She also mentioned that, in order to have a social life, you pretty much needed to join a sorority. D may still apply, though it dropped a rung or two.</p>
<p>Years ago on my college tour of Bucknell the guide kept saying things like “work hard, play hard” and “not to brag, but we probably have the best group of people of any college.” It wasn’t that bad, just a bit over the top. The water tower on campus had a giant graffiti that said “James Bong 007.”</p>
<p>Info session at Amherst, someone asked what SAT scores would be needed to be admitted. Admin counselor said that most accepted students are in the 700’s across the board–but if you can play football, you can be in the 600’s, and IF you play hockey, you can be in the 500’s!!</p>
<p>When a parent asked what was up with that, he replied, “Well, the alumni like winning teams.”</p>
<p>@murmur - same thing happened to my son and about 50 other people at BU (tour cancelled, actually scheduling glitch). I complained. It’s my alma mater and I told them how embarrassed I felt. They waived his admission fee.</p>
<p>Son applied to BU and almost went there, but ended up at Vandy off the wait list. They really aren’t as disorganized as your tour experience would suggest. Everything runs smoothly and son is happy.</p>
<p>It was a prof that was a turn-off at admitted student’s day at one college. Son was admitted to CS school, and was interested in NS. On the schedule, it said to show up at this prof’s office at 11 am. So, 6 or 8 people show up. The prof is upset, saying on her schedule, it was at 1:00 pm. She kept protesting the time instead of going with the flow, and just talking about the department for 15 minutes or so. </p>
<p>Best visit was Caltech (believe it or not). The admission person chatted with son & me (though I didn’t open my mouth until end, with one comment) for long time, gave son a few classes to sit in on that day, and encouraged him to return the next day, with other classes. Tour guide was good too.</p>
<p>^I believe it. We had a great tour at Caltech too. Engaging tour guide, lots of stories about pranks, but as many about how the honor system including take home exams really work. We got a tour through the decorated halls of the dorm with ribbing from other students that most rooms weren’t as big as the tour guide’s room - which she had already told us. I felt like we got a very good view of both the plusses and minuses of the place.</p>
<p>The tour guide at CalTech was very good, but all in all gave us a bad feeling about the place. She was obviously struggling with the work load, and none of the students we saw on campus were excited about anything. It was the thing to play it cool and not show enthusiasm, even though students were obviously proud of their school and environment. </p>
<p>The tour guide also kept making comparisons to “other schools” that didn’t really apply. (The comparisons were to big state U, not to peer institutions.)</p>
<p>We had a weird admissions info session at Lehigh. They admissions rep asked the students in the room to go around, say their name, hometown, possible major and favorite dessert. Okay, cute ice breaker. But it was spring break and there were at least 50 students (plus 50+ more parents) in the room. It took about 20 minutes of the session, totally useless.</p>
<p>I feel like we have had pretty good tour guides, maybe we got lucky. I do give them the benefit of the doubt when I hear anecdotal stuff. At least 2 or 3 schools gave us the old urban legend that the reason sororities don’t have houses on campus is because of a local law that says 3 unrelated women living together is a brothel. But these kids believed that and I’m sure the admissions training did not include that gem.</p>
<p>Surf,
I never heard that about sororities=brothels.</p>
<p>Mathmom,
As I’ve said before, we have kindred “twins” in many ways.</p>
<p>The first impressions of colleges can be helpful but can cause irreparable harm, too. It is certainly easier to choose a college where one knows many older students who attend, and has a feel for the range of personalities. Talking to older friends on breaks from college, made a difference to my son.</p>
<p>Our Amherst College tour was really bad as well. There must have been 90 people in the group. I felt bad for the tour guide. We couldn’t go into any building because “there are too many people in the group”.</p>
<p>Boston College was another that was weird. The guide (a young woman who talked way too fast) talked about their meal plan and the fact that it’s an a la carte plan - you pay for everything you purchase. When asked what happens if you exceed what you paid, she shrugged and said “guys should find a girlfriend who doesn’t eat a lot”. Yeah - that was a great solution.</p>
<p>The tour at Caltech was good for us. The had donuts, fruits, coffee, drinks before the tour and ice cream after the tour during a hot summer. Plus the admission director gave some good advices about the essays and some funny stories about helicopter parents requested to withdraw submitted essays and submit the new ones after their kids let them read.</p>
<p>Tours and accepted student days at UMass-Amherst were surprisingly good, given the huge number of attendees and the huge size of the campus. They really have their act together, down to the buses waiting to take us to the largest dining hall for lunch, to save time.</p>
<p>“I get that it could be expensive if you have thousands of people touring, but I always felt like a free lunch is a small price to pay for someone who is going to possibly spend $100-200K+ at the school.”</p>
<p>I agree that rural LACs should always hand out dining hall passes. But at the schools with thousands of people touring, like Ivies, I doubt it’s primarily about the cost of meals. It’s about student privacy and space in the dining hall. Schools don’t want their students to be overwhelmed by visitors or unable to find a table during a brief lunch period. They don’t build residential dining halls to accommodate lots of visitors on top of students and staff.</p>
<p>When I was a tour guide at Harvard, this was a major issue. The admissions office brought groups into the freshman dining hall, which is a Harry Potter stained glass fantasy. When it was unveiled after a renovation, it was a showstopper on the tour. But students didn’t want strangers looking at them while they were eating, so the college banned the tour groups.</p>
