People who bother me on college tours: RANT ALERT

College Search & Selection
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<p>If you're interested in hearing my rant, please read on.</p>

<p>I was on a tour/info session at Northwestern today, my top choice school. I was sitting in the info session, waiting for it to begin, and this one girl, who says she is the editor of her high school paper, was criticizing the NU paper, saying things like "oh, it's so content driven" like she knew what the hell she was talking about. Later on the tour, she and her mom announced (very loudly, I might add) "we're leaving now, we have to go to a special Medill lecture". I live in the same state as this girl, and I know for a fact that she lives in a small, rural town. I, on the other hand, am also editor in chief of my high school paper, BUT I go to a competitive high school, in a large university town, but I knew to KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT!!! You didn't see me criticizing the NU paper. She was carrying on like she knows better than MEDILL-EDUCATED college journalists, she edits a paper in a town filled with farmers...um...discrepancy? WHO IS SHE to march around like she is already the top graduate at Medill, with this highly annoying sense of entitlement? Her mom was just as bad. My mom is a Medill-educated writer, and although she could have been justified acting this way, she didn't, because we have a touch of class, and understand that HELLO!! NONE OF US JUNIORS HAVE ACTUALLY BEEN ACCEPTED YET!!!!!!!!!!!!</p>

<p>People like this on college tours make me want to scream. Walking around with their noses in the air like they own the place, thinking that for some reason, they are automatic "ins". I don't care if you have a 4.0. I don't care if you have a 36 or a 2400. I don't care if you have cured cancer or have a planet named after you. And I ESPECIALLY don't care if you think you're the number one high school journalist in the world (I know that this girl certainly was NOT, by the way). The Ivies, NU, Duke, etc, all of these schools are CRAPSHOOTS, and almost nobody is guaranteed an acceptance. Why don't these people realize it? Do they understand that asking admissions officers endless questions about their "high qualifications" during info sessions will improve their chances? (Not only does this annoy people like me, but how do you think admissions officers feel?) Do they think that critique-ing the university paper will make them look smart? If they think they are entitled to a college to such a high extent that there is NOTHING they can learn from it, will make ad-com's want to accept them? If they do, they are dead wrong. </p>

<p>I am not BY ANY MEANS saying that high stats and qualifications can't give you confidence. Put together a great application, send it in, cross you fingers, and hope for the best, like the rest of us. But DO NOT strut around college campuses like there is NO REASON why you can't get accepted. The same goes for parents, who are, in my experience, as bad or worse than their "shoe-in" children on college visits. You know who these people are, and I'm sure tons of people on this website have encountered, or ARE them on this website. </p>

<p>I'm not trying to offend anyone. It's just that lots of prospective students and parents out there need a big dose of reality. If you apply with the attitude that you've already been accepted it WILL come through in your application. It WILL come through in your interviews. But most of all, it WILL be very clear to the watchful eyes on college tours and/or info sessions. If you act this way, you're only hurting yourself. I hope others can relate to how I feel about this. If you do, reply!</p>

<p>Thanks for listening (gosh, it felt good to get that out!)</p>

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<p>I guess she just needed something to make herself feel better. Maybe she went to NU and felt intimidated by the achievements of everyone else, and needed a boost of self-confidence?</p>

<p>Or maybe she's just the type of person you hope to avoid as much as possible. =&lt;/p>

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<p>Or maybe that's their way of trying to stand out, be remembered, so when the applications are read, the adcom can associate her application to a person or an image. It's one of the recomended techniques during tour visits, though you'd want the adcom to have a recollection of a positive nature.</p>

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<p>I wonder why that kind of thing gets to us so much sometimes. My sympathies to you, that one sounds like it was a teeth grinder.</p>

<p>I have a similar, frustrating experience - unfortunately, ongoing - with a student in my class. This person is probably the most hostile, narrow-minded, entitled person I've met at my current school; highlights of her endearing persona include comments such as "When Sikhs grow older, does their turban grow smaller and then they graduate on to being Muslim?" Bear in mind, this is right after a great speech given on Sikhism by a student approx. 1000 times more intelligent, humble, and socially competent than my teeth grindee: and before this snippet of gold, she tried to maintain her 24/7 participation point obsession by proclaiming she knew a lot of about a very similar religion... after a couple of minutes of clarification, the presenter realized this girl hadn't even caught on to the fact that yes, indeed, the topic was about Sikhism. </p>

<p>And no, it's not an American God-given right to stomp into Mosques or Sikh temples without wearing head covering (she was very righteously upset over the prospect that if, for SOME improbable reason, she'd ever have to interact with people of another faith it wouldn't be ok to wear whatever she wanted).</p>

<p>On the very first day of class, this teeth grindee made sure everybody knew that 1) she's going to PEPP-AH-DINE and 2) this classroom ain't good enough for her. Her presentation? About her. Now, I don't mind boobs, but please, for the love of God, if I wanted to see powerpoint slides of you doing quasi-professional, cleavage-liberal photo shoots for your "Hollywood Dream Career"... I would've asked. Or, you know, probably not.</p>

<p>My professor shared the news about me getting into Yale to this particular class. I'd rather she hadn't, except it felt so great, horribly horribly great, to see the PEPP-AH-DINE chick's face drop; of course, she had to nag and insult me for 30 minutes after that ("so it must've been the test scores, huh." <em>look of disgust</em> ), but who cares. Of all the people that came up to me after the class to congratulate and chat about it, she STOMPED up on me, feigned hearing loss for some weird reason, kept asking questions about how she could get into Yale without absorbing an inch of the honest advice I tried to give her and then stalked away saying I took things too personal after I told her she had to at least pretend to be respectful if she wanted my help. I don't know why I even bother sometimes.</p>

<p>Phew. Rants are great!</p>

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<p>I completely agree. I was at a U Penn tour and this girl annoyingly stated "i love going on tours and making fun of crappy schools". Even if some of the schools she was making fun of were not that good (i don't know if they were or not), she has no right to feel as if she's so superior that she can make fun of a school or the individuals attending that school.</p>

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<p>frrrph: That was the most well-written story I've seen on here. </p>

<p>Wow, you deserve to be at Yale!</p>

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<p>Wow. </p>

<p>What. a. completely. ignorant. girl.
She needs a reality-check. If she thinks she is SO superior, why doesn't she just go to Harvard? Oh, wait. She probably wouldn't be able to get in. She'll THEN just state that she was too good for them too. Uh huh. Yeah. This girl is in denial that she is simply not good enough for Northwestern. Arrogance... ew.</p>

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<p>liz1628, I agree with you but unfortunately you'll have to learn to deal with these kinds of people. You will meet them on college tours, you will meet them in college, and, if/when you apply to grad/professional schools, you will meet them on those tours as well.</p>

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<p>Yea, I hate people like that...</p>

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<p>Yeah, on the Stanford tour I ran into 'that kid' with 'that mom'. Asking a ton of questions that all either rip on the university or the other students. Such as "Do you have room for real applicants or do you have to be a minority or and athlete?" (dead serious there), or "Can Stanford challenge me?", "How many applicants have [insert some unselective but ultra expensive program or thing]?" and so on. If you think you are too good for Stanford, you aren't getting in.</p>

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<p>Yeah, best to ignore these people - some of these people actually get into the Ivies, Stanford, Duke, MIT, NU, etc. and are in for a shock after there first set of midterms come back.</p>

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<p>The one that got me was on the tour of U. Chicago. Two parents with their daughter. Both parents were decked out completely in Harvard wear - Coats, shirts, hats, and scarves (it was January). I wouldn't bother me if a kid did that, but the parents were obviously trying to make a point and being very tacky about it. Interestingly, the daughter maintained distance from them as much as possible during the tour and info session.</p>

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<p>She is ridiculous.</p>

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<p>I am reminded of when I went to try out for Jeopardy years ago. There were about a hundred of us standing in line outside waiting to go inside and take the qualifying exam. And there were 3 or 4 who were loudly showing off how much stuff they knew to the people around them. But after the test results were announced all the braggarts had to quietly slink away. None of them had passed. The six of us who passed had all been among the quiet folks prior to the test.</p>

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<p>the worst are the parents who brag about their kids achievements when visiting really good schools. "oh my kid is this honors, and this finalist, and this award winner"...yea lady, you and every else here has all those awards, too, why else would we be visiting (insert school here).</p>

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<p>have you ever had a college tour guide that made you take the school off your list?</p>

<p>Example : HARVARD
Omg, after hearing that guy talk, I was like wow, if he represents harvard, no thanks.
It came off my list the next day
Lawl.</p>

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<p>^^Which is unfortunate. Because students strike otherwise excellent schools of their list based on something they don't like about a single student during single 1 hour tour. They should dig a little deeper before crossing off a school. I've seen a girl refuse to apply to a school because she didn't like what the tour guide was wearing. I mean come on....</p>

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<p>That sounds really maddening. Once you recognize the type--someone who needs to always seek validation by making themselves seem superior to others--you almost feel sorry for them. If the sort of behavior you described is at all typical, she'll never be someone who is respected or admired, exactly the approval that she's seeking so desparately.</p>

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<p>lol.. reminded me of this</a> blog post by one of the tour guides at Hopkins</p>

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<p>I started to regret applying to Harvard after I had the interview with the alumni and after calling to ask financial aid questions. There was always someone whom had a really "I am holier than thou" attitude, even over the phone. My interviewer was the worse, and I always felt that she attempted to make me feel inferior and unintelligent. Oh, well. Cornell and their staff are much friendlier, and I like it better anyways. Yay!</p>