<p>"We are on the road, looking at colleges with our younger son. Enjoy the process, we have been told. Well, we sort of can, and we sort of cant. He sits in the back seat, reading a book. Its not Tolstoy or Bertrand Russell or Freud. (He probably wont get in anywhere.) But on the other hand, its not a vampire novel or a comic book. (So maybe he will get in.) A lot of the time he sleeps. Asleep, he still looks like the baby we brought home from the hospital.</p>
<p>We pull into the college parking lot. No matter what school it is, no matter what time of day, the lot is full. So is the admissions office: packed, jammed, kids and their parents and younger siblings, slumped in chairs, or standing, shifting nervously from foot to foot. Theres always a girl standing arm-in-arm with her father, and another girl scowling as her mother urges her to pick up the brochure, and a solemn family huddled together on a couch reading the brochure ..."</p>
<p>LOL. Been there, done that. The writer here pretty much nails the tour scene, IMO.</p>
<p>I thought the thoughts on the comments on the tours was dead on … our family joke was that someone ought to sell a tape recorder to all the schools for tours and info sessions and when a topic comes up they can play one of the canned responses (“we’re big but feel like a LAC” or “or we’re a smaill LAC but have the research opportunities as a big research U”).</p>
<p>So that part of the article rang true for me … especially about info sessions which ast this point I concider pretty much useless (I’ve been to about twenty and two info sessions differentiated themselves while the others were all basically indistinguishable from each other). </p>
<p>However, for me, tours are a different story … even if the comments are pretty generic seeing the campus, the town, and the students has been invaluable to my kids figuring out which schools they liked the best. Both kids, independently, starting hanging right next to the tour guide have developed the belief the answers to questions from the tour quides was in general much more helpful and insightful than the general sound bite information.</p>
<p>I’ve been amazed how many parents and students simply follow along a campus tour without asking questions. If you want to get the most out of the tour, walk right next to the tour guide, and ask questions that are not covered by the “canned” responses. You’ll be surprised how much you can learn!!</p>