When my parents took my younger brother on a tour of Rice years ago, the student guide wore a “#!¥! Happens” tee shirt. Big letters, couldn’t miss it.
At Northwestern, our tour guide was talking about the blue security lights on campus and said that the security is very good on campus and that if you pull the handle for assistance, campus police will be there in less than 2 minutes (or something like that). So then a mom went and pulled the alarm button just to make sure the guide was telling the truth. The guide then proceeded to tell her that pulling a fake alarm was a major no-no. We all had to wait until the campus police showed up to let them know it was a mistake.
@annwank Was it less than 2 minutes?
Yes, they were really prompt, but kind of ticked off as you can imagine. God forbid if there was a real emergency somewhere else…
Did they make an arrest for an unauthorized helicopter landing?
@Irishmomof2 and @jazzii, the last day of classes at Canadian universities is always the first week of April and then there is an exam period. At some universities you could still have snow on the ground in April. Air conditioning might be needed for a couple of weeks in September but that is about it!
@SomeOldGuy. Kudos, good one! (embarrassed to admit it took me a minute to get it!)
I have 2 good ones, not about parents, but about tour guides:
- At a well known university, not an ivy, but well regarded… the tour guide (chomping on gum for the entire 90 minutes) was bragging about the helpfulness of the librarians. This student had to write a research paper about agriculture in the Netherlands and didn’t even know where it was. A Mom on the tour (from Europe herself) about died! Thank goodness for the librarian.
- At a Catholic University, with the campus church as a backdrop, the tour guide chose this location to tell everyone that each student must take 2 religion classes and that they were “Pretty much, no one’s favorite class.” (Pretty much was uttered at least 25 times during the 90 minute tour.) This school didn’t make my DD final list.
This didn’t make me scratch my head, but I thought it was amusing. During a soccer identification camp at the Claremont Colleges the student helpers (who were soccer players) gave a tour of the campuses, and parents were invited to attend. What we parents didn’t realize until it was too late was that these students were not official tour guides, and walked at 3 times the normal pace (it felt like a sprint to me), plus they didn’t use sidewalks and hiked through brush and unmarked paths. Parents left and right were dropping off the tour.
I also chuckled that the student helpers were debating whether to go to the Harvey Mudd campus as it was the furthest one away. They asked if anyone was planning to apply to Mudd, when no one raised their hand they said they didn’t think so. No respect for Harvey Mudd, well except for their top-ranked ROI and all that excellent education and such.
We have had excellent tour guides, except one. We were at a school my daughter was considering for her safety school. That is until the tour guide said, “That is the library. Don’t worry about finding it again though, because no one goes there.” He would make a better stand up comedian than a tour guide.
At Haverford, we went into a dorm and I totally get that a bunch of guys are going to live like pigs, but OMG - it really should have been condemned. This went beyond normal messiness all the way to vomit-inducing. I wouldn’t have been surprised if there were rats running around. It made Animal House look like the Ritz-Carlton. Use a little common sense.
re not knowing who the president of a college is- that is one of the least relevant bits of information for students.
Although all the tour guides at the 5 small LACs we visited did mention the president of the college; in fact, it almost became its own stereotype about how the pres will know your name, has a dog you can pet, hires students as babysitter and the like. I actually thought that was great.
By about the third college tour we were on, I’d heard all I ever needed to about ‘designing your own major.’ I don’t want my kids getting a degree in ‘theater/art/history/hockey but never/never/never math’ or ‘math/math/some science/a little more math but not the math courses required to get a math degree’ . I want their degrees to be in subjects that an actual future employer might recognize.
At the Claremont Colleges:
The tour guide at Pitzer mentioned that there are no language requirements for any study-abroad programs since that would be too rigid and that students would either pick up the language or starve.
The tour guide at CMC, who went on and on about politics and economics but wouldn’t even show us the science building. “It’s the big thing over there, behind those other buildings.” Clearly science seems not that important (We actually toured the school twice and this happened on 2 different days with 2 different guides).
Our great tour guide at Pomona spoke about how happy the students are there. Not the ones we saw. They all looked stressed to us, and we never saw any students socializing. They all had headphones on and were walking around alone (Other people we met on our tour mentioned the same thing).
I realize that taking a tour is just a snapshot of a college, but all of this did make us think…
@Mamabear16 I could not agree more! One thing that drew me to my school is that people DID socialize, all the time! I remember being on tour and having other students say hi to the tour guides, which is awesome. At my job they tell us to take advantage of it, because parents and students do notice the environment. During open house when I assisted at tours, (I stood somewhere in the middle) and the parent I was talking to kept saying that we all seemed so friendly- and my answer was “I know you think that I’m supposed to say this but I really do love it here and it’s because of the people that I’ve met. My part here is volunteer so I’m here bc I want to be.”
Just as a tip for future open houses- look at whose helping- at how many people are helping they recruit students to volunteer and that alone should speak volumes
It was the end of October when I toured Harvard. For some reason, half the European continent also decided the end of October was a good time to tour elite Northeast colleges. When our tour guide was talking about social life on campus, one Italian mom said “In America, the legal drinking age is 3 years later than in Europe. If the kids don’t drink, what do they do for fun?” It was the first and last time I ever saw a tour guide rendered speechless, but she came back with a solid answer. I was impressed.
I have a good story from out visit to U of Richmond last year. It was an early Spring afternoon and all the parents were nice and friendly. It was a tony group of parents. We exchanged info about where we were from and the tour guides were two adorable girls. The campus was pristine and it all most felt that we were on a movie shoot it was so perfect. As we approach the main dining hall all the Moms can see a male student sitting on a bench lighting up a joint. We had to pass right by him as he was right next to the front doors we were walking through. The tour guides were so flustered they just marched us as fast as they could.
Oh man, I am flabbergasted at the many awful,tour guides we have been with. We have toured Borwn, Wesleyan, Tufts, Clark, BC, Northeastern, BU, Vassar. The best guide was at Wesleyan, all other were forgettable,or terrible. The worst was at Clark. She was at Tufts. she was aflame, her shoes were of ratty they were virtually falling off her feet, she giggled like an 3 year old,the whole time. Still, my D loves the school. I have to wonder who chooses the guides that represent their schools.
Ok. Here’s the opposite. The nicest moment of all our visits. At UT Austin there was a huge panel with various campus reps: professors, admissions officers and other admin people, students, and the chief of campus police. They all answered questions and then at the end gave a word of advice. The police chiefs was: " enjoy yourself here. It’s the experience of a lifetime" I was so not expecting that from him.