At Brandeis there were warm chocolate chip cookies after the tour. 
The kids actually ARE very happy at Pomona, though. The day we toured, DS and I saw a group of 10 or 15 students engaged in a ânerf-gun battle,â and a freshman being fountain-tossed because it was her birthday. Sat in on terrific history and astrophysics classes. Intellectual and fun-loving tour guide, very articulate about engaged, supportive community. DS said it felt like home, and heâs thrilled to be a junior there now. : ) Fortuitous when the love is mutual.
My son had an overnight visit for accepted students at Georgia Tech. The accepted students spent the night in the dorm with an existing student. My sonâs hostâs girlfriend came into the room around 11:00, took off her top, and got into bed. The hosting student never said a word to my son, just got in bed with her and started making out. The other roommate told my son that if it got too loud or bothered him, they could go out into the hall. The girl ended up spending the night - got up the next morning, put on her shirt and left.
Letâs just say that was his most awkward and least impressive tour.
The following was a blunder from a tour guide. We were visiting SUNY Purchase and our tour guide showed us a hickey she had gotten the night before. Then, when she saw the guy who gave it to her, she pointed him out and started smiling as if it was cute. It was gross.
@georgiaonmymindâ Holy Cow!
College personnel responsible for tours should read this thread and incorporate the stories into tour guide training under the heading of What-Not-To-Do.
@georgiaonmymind - that is just too much.
I had an awful time touring Clark. At one point, there was a sample class for all the students. I sat next to a kid who was either playing his Nintendo or picking his nose throughout the entire class. During that time the parents were let out a bit early, and my mother spotted a student sitting on a bench in the quad smoking out of a bowl. Now, I donât know many people who smoke tobacco out of bowls, especially college students. We ended up leaving early because I could tell I would not fit in there. As we left with a path around a building passing the library, we saw a group of students passing around a bong.
I was a tour guide at McGill in Montreal. On one tour, in November when the temperature was about 30 F a parent asked me if it was always this cold in Montreal. I gave an honest answer that âit doesnât start getting cold here for another month or two.â I think she directed her son to the University of Miami after that comment.
When touring the most selective universities, Iâm always impressed by the parents who ask about a particular policy or requirement and then inquire as to how their student can âget out of itââŠ
Getting back to the OPâs original question about poor parent behavior on tours, my oldest and I toured Penn this last summer. The website where you sign up for tours makes it clear that Penn doesnât track whether potential students tour the school as part of the whole âdemonstrated interestâ thing.* Well, while we were hanging out waiting for the tour to start, a parent came up with her son and asked where to sign in. When told that they didnât have a sign-in list, she askedâI was pretty stunned by the brazenness, but points for honesty, I supposeâhow theyâd know her son was there so heâd get credit for touring when he applied. She was told that Penn doesnât track whether potential students tour so that (as they state on their website, by the way) students who arenât affluent enough to travel and take a tour wonât be disadvantaged in the application process. The parent snorted (snorted!) and left the room with her son. Iâm not sure whether they went on the tour or not, since there were four tour groups, but I didnât see them anymore that dayâŠ
- The info session after the tour made it clear that there was a little bit of speaking-with-a-forked-tongue thing going on in relation to that, but still.
Hartford also baked cookies!
University of San Francisco had a great tour. The tour guide was smart and helpful. If he didnât know something, he didnât make it up, and definitely pointed out some interesting peculiarities about the school that made it interesting.You could definitely tell he had a lot of pride in where he went to school. D was impressed with the purported small class sizes (max around 18 students, I think) and not a single lecture-hall type classroom. Plus, they have Peetâs coffee instead of Starbucks, which is a plus for her. We havenât been on a ton of tours, but tat one definitely left a great impression.
As the fourth child to go to college, we have some interesting college visit stories.
This year we went to a Pennsylvania school, and the tour guide was a complete sorority star. All she talked about was how her parents went there, closet space, food, and her goldfish. As a New York school it was pouring, and our tour guide was like âAll the buildings are unlocked.â well we found out they were not⊠as we were getting soaked. At a NJ school, we had a really up front tour guide who admitted, he wonât sugar coat it, some things in college are hard to adjust to, but to waste your time and effort because of what a lying tour guide told you would be terrible. Anyways, he was so upfront that it left a great impression. There were two girls on the tour who straight up asked for his number, that was weird. My brother once visited a school and decided not to go because it smelt like dirt. Yes, that was his exact reasoning. At a Maryland school, we had an extremely quirky tour guide, and everything about her was just making me not want to be there. I thought I was really going to like that school too.
At one Pa school, we had the weirdest group of students/parents. One mom asked the tour guide if there were parties. The tour guide said, of course, but thereâs plenty of other things to do as well. The mom then asked if her daughter would be forced to go to parties.
Another mom asked about laundry facilities when we toured the dorm. That would have been fine, except she then proceeded to ask 20 minutes of questions about the laundry. I donât think I could think of 20 minutes worth of questions about laundry. The same mom also grilled the tour guide about the on campus bank.
Another family stopped at a ROTC info desk. The whole group stood around for 45 minutes in an overheated building while they had an in depth discussion.
That tour took 2.5 hours and we didnât see nearly as much as in other, shorter tours. All my daughter wanted to do after the tour was leave. Itâs a shame, because I think the place had a lot to offer. Hey, itâs not the collegeâs fault we had a weird tour group.
wow
We took a tour with an aspiring female student that was WAY underdressed for the occasion. Made my DS rather uncomfortable. I could not help wondering how she would be âdressedâ when her parents were not present and how she expected to be taken as a serious student by the admissions reps. I concluded that this was a school she did not really want to attend.
Just returned from a tour as part of a group of college consultants⊠There were 3 students answering questions, and one consultant asked if the campus had a Hillel. They all looked a bit dumbfounded until on consultant clarified and asked where jewish students attended services. One student responded that they had vans to take the students to their Jewish churches. #-o
^^and to the Catholic synagogues too, no doubt?!
@mxl2015â: âMy brother once visited a school and decided not to go because it smelt like dirt.â
Well, my daughter toured Georgetown and said she loved the place in absolutely every way except she couldnât get past the fact that so many of the buildings smelled a bit musty to herâand to imagine living and taking classes for years in a place that smelled a bit off wasnât something she could imagine doing. There are worse reasons, I suppose.
It often smells like fresh cow manure in Madison, WI - and not just in springtime!
The Bucknell info session presenter baffled me. Why did they choose a stodgy middle-aged guy wearing a cardigan sweater for the job?? And he was so stuffy. Their coach was also the only one my son contacted who didnât have the courtesy to respond - even a âSorry, weâre not looking for any more runners at this pointâ would have been nice.