<p>You've got to remember that the admissions staff don't always reflect the social/educational/political culture of the school. Same with tour guides; at some schools they are cherry-picked and paid. At others, tour guides are volunteers, and don't always reflect the party line. My daughter almost didn't apply to Rice U, because she had such a bad experience with the admissions department setting up an interview, and had a bad info session, etc. (I think they have since corrected the problems!) Luckily, I insisted she at least apply, and she LOVED it when she visited for the admitted student's weekend. She's now a rising senior, and son is entering freshman. Please don't dismiss a school due to a ditzy adcom, poor tour guide, cold admissions staff, etc. Visit the school when in session and see what it feels like then. :)</p>
<p>Columbia's holier-than-thou info session leader and Penn's down-to-earth admissions officer influenced my opinion of them and not the school. (I didn't like Columbia and I liked Penn less for reasons independent of the impressions I got from the admissions office and tour guides).</p>
<p>The best info session that I attended by far was Harvard, because it was a parody of itself. Another memorable one was Michigan, because it was both friendly and efficient. NU showed me a boring slideshow, as did Binghamton.</p>
<p>My guess is that different schools try to accomplish different things in info sessions. Yale and Harvard did not need to sell themselves, and they didn't. The two Chicago sessions I went to were both very "this school is somewhat nerdy and we ask a lot of our students in our application," which, for Chicago, is needed.</p>
<p>I never encountered any real snootiness during these visits, not by visitors, not by admissions people, not by tour guides and current students. Should I have considered myself lucky? Or had I already crossed the snooty culprits off my list before I had the chance to visit them?</p>
<p>Who led your Columbia info session? I was really liked the guy who did mine. And the tour guides were all volunteers who showed a really nice cross section of individuals.</p>
<p>I guess the lesson to be learned is that individual experiences vary.</p>
<p>Good question-- male, bald, I didn't like him because I remember seeing him on tv (I think? I'm backtracking a few years here), and because I think he overemphasized test scores. I wasn't necessarily looking for a lecture on how to get in to Columbia, and it seemed like he was giving one. I was just looking for information on the school and its programs and for some questions that I had from reading over the school's website (yes, I did my homework in advance!) to be answered.</p>
<p>I really liked my Columbia tourguide. He was a friendly, athletic Texan who wore a "Kinky For President" t-shirt and spoke humorously yet candidly about the school.</p>
<p>Again, what really turned me off from Columbia were factors apart from the info session or tour. I disliked the physical campus itself-- no green, no trees, hardly any ivy on the buildings even-- the meal plan and housing situation over four years seemed shady--once you were on Broadway, the entire influence of the school seemed to disappear-- I have a semi-connection to a faculty member at Columbia who didn't think I was a good fit--I didn't like the idea of having to take a bus to go to the gym and work out-- even the first-year dorm situation seemed kind of pathetic and not right for me. That was enough for me to cross it off my list.</p>
<p>Oh, dear. Please remember that was 20 years ago, when the women's colleges were a little clubbier than now. D "summered" at Mt. Holyoke (yeah, I get it that I'm misusing the term) with high school girls from all over, many local girls of color, many on full scholarship. It would seem Mt. Holyoke has lost that unfortunate snootiness of yore.</p>
<p>I find it odd to ask where people have travelled overseas, giving the impression that gee everyone does that right?</p>
<p>I would send an email to the admissions director stating how odd the question was, and how really meaningless and pointless and a waste of time, time which could have and should have been spent another way</p>
<p>It was a very elitist question, which sends a signal about the school, intentianal or not</p>
<p>A BETTER question would be, hey, what country would you LIKE to see and I bet we have a program there</p>
<p>Our Penn admissions contacts were also down to earth, helpful and wonderful. Son is a soph now. There are other parts of Penn which could certainly learn from the admissions staff.....(including many residents of the City of Brotherly Love)</p>
<p>If we were on a tour with fewer than 15 students, they were all asked where they were from and what their general interests (not major) were. On the better tours, the guide then steered us towards places that we may not have otherwise seen, and emphasized things along the students' interests. For example, my d is a dancer, but not a dance major. On several tours, we saw the dance studios that were not a usual part of the school, and the guide spoke about dance opportunities for non-majors along with the spiels about theater & music. (Of course, there were then the tours with the guide saying, "I don't know where the studios are, but I think we have some.")</p>
<p>We were never asked any information orally during an info session. Any info they wanted they got on a registration form before the session.</p>
<p>I agree that asking where students have travelled is a bad idea.</p>
<p>I think Wellesley wins the best tour guide prize, for me. My guide took us to her dorm room.</p>
<p>But Wellesley also had the worst information session. Their admissions officer could barely speak english (which was a problem because when one asked questions she often could not understand and when she did her Russian accent completely obscured the answers) and the student they decided to include to answer questions seemed to be the opposite of a Wellesley woman. She was a complete ditz and had no idea what her major was going to be (in October of her sophomore year, which was kind of problem).</p>
<p>Worst tour for DS and me: Amherst. We had two tour guides who seemed to have been plucked from their beds early in the AM and told to tour us. They couldn't answer any questions intelligently, without conferring with each other and giggling. When I asked the one who was a senior what she was doing after graduation (this was in April of her senior year), she sighed, rolled her eyes, and told me she was going to "save the world." A real turn-off.</p>
<p>Second-worst tour session: Cornell. The tour guide asked everyone on the tour what their potential majors were. My son answered "math." She never, never, never mentioned the department, the courses, the buildings, or anything about math. At the end of the session she came over to us directly (we had hung around a bit) and asked if there was anything else she could tell us about the school. I mentioned math. She mentioned a great "History of Math" course she had taken. (She was a Dance and Women's Studies major.) Not good. We crossed the school off our list for a variety of reasons, but she sure didn't help matters.</p>
<p>All you can do with the gut feel from a tour and/or info session is add it to your pile of information.</p>
<p>Prior to my d's first college visit, also as a junior, we notified the admissions office that we were intereted in touring the campus, receiving more info, etc, but DID NOT want an interview @ that time because my d was trying to narrow her list down & was just starting the process. When we arrived everyone was extremely cordial & had her name on the "welcome" board. We were then introduced to "her admissions counselor" & I was immediately told to make myself comfortable while she did "a short interview" with my d. We explained what we had requested & we were told it wasn't that stressful & pretty much escorted my d into another room. After a while she came out & informed me that my d was a "perfect fit" We were then taken on a tour which excluded classrooms/labs in her major. We found this very odd that our wishes were totally ignored. She dropped it from her list immediately.</p>
<p>I don't think admissions offices really know how extremely important infos and tours are! We had different, but similarly off-putting experiences. The worst was an info at a top-rated LAC in the Northeast when the associate director of admissions (!) spent the entire hour talking about the local cows and the green environment of the school. Didn't mention anything about the school itself! Totally weird. Another off-putting info was the one where my D is actually ending up going. That speaker was elderly and kept talking about how competitive his school is. I felt totally discouraged after that session and just wanted to go home. I kept this to myself, however! Turns out D felt the same way, and she applied there last ("oh well, I might as well, even though I'll never get in...") So now, she is going to begin there in a couple of weeks (less than that...YIKES...) The moral of the story is that there is a lot more to the school than the first impression would indicate. That's a drag, though, because first impressions....</p>
<p>A general obsevation . . . Admissions offices and reps are merely the sales force for the school. They have nothing to do with the running of the place or day-to-day life there. I wouldn't cross a school off the list because you had a bad info or tour experience; it would be like deciding which car would be best for you and then refusing to get one because you didn't like the salesperson. And even the student guides are merely a sample of one from among a large and diverse student body.</p>
<p>
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15: I think that even though it was an unpleasant experience, it was an important one. Now the OP and her daughter know what the student body at that school is likely made up of.
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Here's the thing, while the above -should- be true it really isn't. Wouldn't it be nice if the entire student body, and your future four year college experience, could be averaged, medianed and distilled into one living person who then be your tour guide for an hour? Then, test drive the guide and you know the school!</p>
<p>Who you get for a tour guide on which day should have no effect on what you take away from a tour. You should filter out the guide completely except for "what building is that?" and "watch out for that curb."</p>
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it would be like deciding which car would be best for you and then refusing to get one because you didn't like the salesperson.
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</p>
<p>Actually, this happens all the time - I just go to a different car lot. There are so many different schools out there; no one school is "the" school. If the sales force doesn't know how to sell the product, no matter how good it is, the product doesn't move. How often have we told our children that "first impressions count"? Do we worry about how they wll come off in an interview, what to wear, etc.? Why shouldn't schools also put their best foot forward for their first impressions?</p>
<p>DS quit attending the tour/info sessions after the first few and left those for DH or me. If school was in session, he was out visiting classes in his areas of interest and finding profs to talk to. It has worked quite well for him and has given him some valuable "on the ground" intelligence.</p>
<p>That said, dorms and cafeterias are fungible to him. (I hope he doesn't regret that attitude next year, but for now, that's his opinion and he's sticking with it.) He's an adaptable sort and he's much more interested talking to people -- profs and students alike -- than checking out amenities.</p>
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Is it unusual for these group information sessions to feel like group interviews? I expected a canned presentation and a larger group.
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Every info session we attended from the largest public to the smallest private was more like the latter than the former. I would worry that this information session was representative of the general school atmosphere (assuming that's not the kind of place you are looking for.)</p>
<p>S would have crossed many fine schools off of his list had he made it about tour guides or info sessions. Admissions staff rotate, so do tour guides - two people there on different days can get a totally different experience. We always got the best info from just hanging out and people watching in the student union, the dining halls the libraries, etc. </p>
<p>Some schools have reputations that precede them - they can afford to be concerned, but not obsessive about the tour guides and sessions. Places not as highly "ranked" sometimes do try much harder - slick professional presentations, guides who are cherry picked to be the best, the works. I tell my kids to get the tour or the info but to look way beyond that.</p>
<p>S did visit one school where the "info session" was led by the dean of admissions - there were only a handful of kids there and the dean conducted what amounted to a group interview and even wrote down notes! I was really surprised and worried - he had not anticipated this at all. It would have been nice to know that that's what he was going in there for. The circumstances may have been unique , however - he happened to be there on an alum weekend and there were a few legacy kids there. I suppose it was really just meant as a chance for the kids to ask questions. No pretentious name dropping or questions about summering, though.</p>
<p>Have been to many info sessions where they go around the room asking intended majors. I really don't like that, either - so many kids are undecided at this stage but think they have to say something impressive. I remember one group session where they did ask each person where they would like to travel on a year or semester abroad and the rep would say whether or not they had a program that went there (in most cases they did). It was kind of like - imagine yourself doing this. I cannot imagine going around the room and asking students about their travel resume!</p>
<p>My son was one of two students at his group information at Williams, led by an admissions officer with a current Williams student available to answer questions. The other student and his father were both dressed in blazers and ties.
The admissions officer started by asking the student in the blazer to introduce himself and tell us something about himself. The kid froze and remained silent. After what seemed like a longer period than it was, the admissions officer graciously continued on, trying to focus attention on something else.
I have been to many one and two student information sessions, and the tendency is to try to make them more personalized and informal. I think that was what the admissions officer was trying to do at Williams.</p>
<p>I want to add that the initial impression was not the only reason the school was crossed off the list. We never could get info on her major & ...oh, my daughter said during the interview, the lady actually was apologizing about their religious affiliation stating, "Really, we are pretty liberal...so don't let that discourage you." My d wanted one with a strong religion dept. since she is double- majoring & religion is one-half of the major. I believe they tried to size up an applicant & say what they thought she might want to hear. The location wasn't appealing either.</p>