<p>It seems to me that when you go to a very small college, the atmosphere is really important since it might be overwhelmingly dominant. OTOH, at a large university there is more likely to be something for everybody.</p>
<p>We visited a 2nd tier LAC that would be a match (but no $$$) for my kid. In the group info session, there were about a dozen kids. Everyone went around and introduced him/herself, and two of the kids were singled out by the admissions staff as "accepted students" there for another look. They were then applauded each in turn as if they had cured cancer rather than be accepted to college!</p>
<p>The "vibe" continued as the admission staff emphasized how special you had to be to be admitted to the school. </p>
<p>They continued to scare the hell out of my laid-back but straight-A son by talking about grad school admissions, internships, and semesters abroad. To a bunch of HS juniors who I think would have liked to have learned more about the college itself!</p>
<p>Son has happily found a few 3rd tier LAC's that fit his personality if not his academics much better.</p>
<p>I think it's time for someone to say the following: Give these poor people a break!</p>
<p>Yes, contacts with admissions staff and tour guides are important and have a huge influence on how high school students view a college. Yes, it would be nice if every one of those people were a great, trained communicator, encyclopedic in his or her knowledge about the institution AND about the needs, interests, and psychology of visitors, and on-message, in a consistent way, 24-7. But they're not, not even close. Every college takes its complement of full-time staff, volunteers, and work-study kids and tries to get as close as it can to that ideal. Some try harder than others, some succeed more than others. But none of them gets anywhere near perfect, and we can't expect them to.</p>
<p>I like a good "clueless tour guide" anecdote as much as the next guy, and I'm happy to swap them. But none of them are sales professionals working on commission, and we would hate it if they were. (It's interesting to speculate, by the way, what difference having professional sales staff would make. Perhaps they would hone in even more on the most stereotypically likely prospects, and make a calculated bet to ignore the outliers. "There's no way I'm going to convince Mr. Crunchy Granola there to come to Greek U., even if he applies and is accepted, so I'm not wasting my time on him.")</p>
<p>Given the motley, imperfectly organized crew that populates most admissions offices, it's inevitable that applicants and their parents are going to have a wide range of responses to the same institution. In the end, that's not even so bad. Something has to help kids narrow down their lists. Flipping coins would not seem like a good method, but playing the tour-guide lottery has just enough rationality about it to allow people to move on to the next school without feeling that they are being arbitrary.</p>
<p>I will give tour guides every break in the world, but when it comes to admission staff (paid), I expect them to do their job well. They are your first, and often main, contact with the school, and they know that. Just as in any other profession or job, they have a responsibility. If they are trained to scare people away, fine. But if that is NOT what the Dean of Admissions or the President of the University intends, then they deserve criticism.<br>
I'm not a recruiter or a trained HR professional, but I have to display a certain skill in interviewing applicants for jobs in our legal department. When I take them out to lunch or talk about the company, I know what my role is and how important it can be.</p>
<p>I think the important thing to take from this group session is not that the admissions rep did a bad job, but that the other prospective students seemed really different from your daughter. Doesn't sound like a good fit.</p>
<p>DS and I toured 6 schools with mostly large info sessions. Parents were asking lots of questions. I found ways to gather more information about his major and had learned how to get more information about specific courses in order to better cross compare. Unfortunately, the 7th school we toured was completely different (more like an interview) and my info gathering was totally inappropriate. I didn't realize until half way through the process that it was more of an interview than an info session. If I had had even one similar experience I would never have gone into the interview with DS. Of course, in a perfect world, DS would have been asking the questions himself, but as discussed in another thread, the kids are often unprepared in their junior year to do this and they are often embarrassed or uncomfortable asking questions.</p>
<p>I have read a few of those books about getting into college, and what I find interesting is this claim by an admissions person that they discovered some student at a college fair or the like, that the student stuck in their mind by their "amazing questions" and talked to them for 20 minutes at the event</p>
<p>well, gee, doesn't that mean they DIDNT talk to how many other students because one obnoxious know it all student hogged their time and felt they were impressing someone</p>
<p>I don't believe those stories about finding some amazing student and remembering them from a college fair, I think that is something exagerated to give us the impression that the Admissions people have some sort of esp or whatever or that some kid impressed them that much and theat they tracked their progress...yeah, they have time for singling out one kid among the thousands and thousands they see</p>
<p>I think that maybe one kid out of the thousands each admissions officer receives applications from could make an impression.</p>
<p>My college counselor loves to say that Jim, our regional Harvard rep, knows who he's going to accept 5 minutes into his visits to my school.</p>
<p>But that would probably vary among admissions officers.</p>
<p>to the OP - I think the consenus is that what you experienced was unusual. The tours and the info sessions will vary from place to place (and from day to day at the same school), but you are now ready to see other schools and have a frame of reference for what you might expect. The great thing is - you started the whole process early so you have lots of time to visit other places and then perhaps revisit some as you narrow your list.</p>
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I think the important thing to take from this group session is not that the admissions rep did a bad job, but that the other prospective students seemed really different from your daughter. Doesn't sound like a good fit.
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<p>I think this is the important part of the story, as well. My D and I attended the info session for an extremely well-regarded, extremely intense research university. The presenter asked members of the fairly large group to say a little about themselves. Eight years later, I can still hear the can-you-top-this of what European boarding school they went to, how much research the've done, etc etc. The whole thing turned into a competition. D decided on the spot it wasn't for her. These were definitely not the crowd she wanted to go to school with.</p>
<p>We've found that most admissions people are good for general information (we have, however, met a few who were exceptional.) If you want specific academic info go to the website. If you have questions you can likely email faculty or arrange to meet them. If you want to know about campus life talk to a variety of current students (also check out individual college threads on CC or facebook/my space groups if you can) because they will have different perspectives depending on their personal preferences. You have to put together your own profile based on what your needs are. Tours and info sessions can seem like a waste of time, but there is usually something you can take away from any experience.</p>
<p>garland makes a valid point: </p>
<p>We attended an info session recently where the vast majority of parents and students only asked about the 10 spots offered for the dual degree medical scholars program. That would have been okay if only they hadn't been such a humorless, unfriendly, competitive bunch. No humanities people and no humanity! Not what D was hoping to see in future classmates.</p>
<p>On the other end of the spectrum: We attended a large group info session in NYC for the 5 sisters (Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mt Holyoke, Smith & Wellesley) that both D & I thought was super. We had lengthy personal contact with admissions directors and alumnae. Everyone was warm, friendly, helpful, and encouraging. They also directed D to where to find answers to specific questions that they couldn't answer rather than just saying they didn't know. D had been uncertain about attending a woman's college up until then.</p>
<p>curious, was it Rochester?</p>
<p>Lower your expectations of tour sessions/guides. Your negative reactions are as much about your culture shock as their insensitivity.</p>
<p>99% of the info is on the net. There is no perfect world.</p>
<p>We attended an info session at one of the smaller colleges at Cornell which was very intimate. Many questions were asked of the students; I thought it was a warm and informative session. I did wonder, however, if the director took notes right after we left and remembered specific prospies when they applied. (Kids did not apply to that school.)</p>
<p>We also had the same experience at Cornell. We were expecting a group session but it ended up being 3 students, 4 parents, and the admissions director for that college at Cornell. It was more of a roundtable discussion if you will but the director asked specific questions about each applicant and some were generated from a form the student filled out while there. It turned out ok but we were not prepared for this at all as it was for us more information gathering than information sharing. Daughter was not the most engaging of the group but whatever notes he took didn't harm because she was accepted.</p>
<p>Interesting perspectives - I actually suggested to d that she not put much stock in the kids who showed up for the sessions/tours. After all, they're not necessarily the ones going to the school! I believed (and still do!) that, while imperfect, the tour guides are a much better barometer of the school itself - after all, they applied, were accepted and chose the school.</p>
<p>That being said, though, I don't think the tour guide or the admissions session is the make-or-break part of a college visit. I think it's a general gestalt that one gets, and if the tour guide or admissions counselor fits the gestalt, they probably won't stand out. If there's a disconnect, however, with overall being good and guide/counselor being bad, it's easier to discount the negative and say it's just an aberration.</p>
<p>In the case I cited, I think the adcom actually did S a favor. He realized that regardless of his grades/SAT's, he is not the aggressive, ambitious type that this school attracted.</p>
<p>Bluejay - Yes, that's exactly how it was when we were there. We never attended another information session that was like that anywhere else. In fact, we went to other info sessions at Cornell which were not like that at all.</p>