<p>At many schools we visited with my two kids there was something that happened that was the " kiss of death" in my kids' mind about the school. My two were looking at very different places but here's what's killed the chances of their applying at their various schools :</p>
<p>Rice: school sent e mail confirming time of info session and tour months in advance. After we had travelled over 1000 miles we arrived at the school only to be told session had already occurred. Are first they accused us of getting it wrong they " never said session was at 11" and then we produced a copy of e mail they sighed and said essentially, "oh well whatever, we changed it". </p>
<p>Northwestern: you are hard to get into? Really? Never would have guessed. So that's why your info session was led by someone who kept telling us that and seemed bored to death and kept saying " ahhh what else should I tell you? I don't know you can look up everything on our website." </p>
<p>Virginia. Info session held in Chapel which you claimed " had no religious imagery" you mean except fir the GIANT cross on top of the building? Ya this Jewish kid did not feel comfortable with that at all. Not the fact that there was a cross on the chapel but that you'd be so ignorant about it. </p>
<p>Iowa. The nursing student to be did not need to hear 4 separate times that if she was caught in a bar after 10 pm she could be expelled from the program. And this is a kid who got the following text from a boy in her homecoming group ( I was sort of snooping and saw it) " we know you don't drink and we respect that but know that when we are back at X's house some of us might since no one is driving home."</p>
<p>Rochester. We merely asked if you had merit aid. That wasn't a rude question so hot sure why you answered as though it was. </p>
<p>New College of Florida. Kiss of death for me: students walking around barefoot in dining hall and classrooms. For my S: no tv’s in dorm rooms (in order to encourage socializing).</p>
<p>Seemingly unrelated story (but bear with me):</p>
<p>After graduating from college, my daughter rented an apartment in a large complex in a major city. She had a lot of trouble with the rental office while trying to arrange the lease. The people there gave her contradictory information, didn’t return her calls, and at one point discovered that the apartment they had “rented” to her was still occupied, which meant that they had to put her in a different building.</p>
<p>I didn’t feel confident about her living in that complex.</p>
<p>But once she moved in, everything was fine. The building was extremely well cared for, the maintenance people were prompt and efficient, and the office never lost a rent check. The person at the front desk even sent someone up to her apartment to kill a mouse within an hour after she called them late at night on a national holiday.</p>
<p>The lesson: The quality of service at the office that rents apartments was in no way indicative of the quality of service received by the tenants once they had moved in.</p>
<p>@Jara123, the examples you give have to do with the admissions office and the tour guides. And it’s clear that at the schools your kids visited, they weren’t as well trained as they might have been. But once students enroll at a university, they never have contact with these people again. Their experience as students may be entirely different from their experience as visitors.</p>
<p>@Cschecmia’s examples seem more relevant to me. She and her son were reacting to things that reflected the way the students live, not the way the tour-and-info-session people do their jobs.</p>
<p>Walked out the door saying no way: dean and undergrad advisor of the dept could not tell where a single undergrad had gone to grad school. On the receiving end of a rant about how their classrooms were full of AP Scholars who couldn’t think at all, didn’t understand how to apply math, and that kids were crying in classes bc they thought they were good students but really didn’t know anything at all.</p>
<p>The admissions office and tour guides are the first impression, and if you can’t get by it, it can be the kiss of death.</p>
<p>I do disagree that ‘she didn’t need to hear it 4 times.’ Some kids need to hear ‘it’ (whatever it is) 20 times. I think if the tour guide said there were no icons IN the building, it was a true statement. You are going to eliminate a lot of colleges if you expect every tour guide to repeat every fact on the info cards. I know someone who swears there are no crucifixes on the walls at Fordham. Some people don’t notice things.</p>
<p>Stevens Institute of Technology - they scheduled my D for a full day with no lunch break. She got low blood sugar & the professor she was meeting with had to call an ambulance when she almost fainted.</p>
<p>DeSales University sent my daughter information on how she could convert to Catholicism while she was a student, after we toured and attended an information session, but before she had mailed in her application. Which, of course, was never sent.</p>
<p>She went to a different Catholic University, and attended Mass regularly (loves the liturgy, disagrees with the theology).</p>
<p>When we arrived for a tour at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, the person behind the counter at the admissions office handed my daughter a clipboard with a two-sided form that asked for, among much more information, her social security number. There were lines to be filled in with all her extracurricular activities and half a page for her to write why she wanted to attend SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. When my daughter told the woman that she didn’t feel comfortable giving her social security number just so she could tour a college, the woman said all the information was necessary. So we left.</p>
<p>Rice University. After the tour and interview my theater loving DD asked the admissions office where the theatre was on campus. Nobody knew. Even with the map they could not figure it out. That was enough for her. Crossed off the list.</p>
<p>I visited Bowdoin with my niece, who is a serious musician. The person doing the tour knew nothing about the orchestra or any other musical opportunities. He said they didn’t exist. We later found out that Bowdoin in fact has a very lively and serious music scene. Oh well. She wouldn’t have gone there anyway, as it turns out. But still. </p>
<p>@GertrudeMcFuzz I am horrified but also laughing bc this reads like an episode of The Big Bang Theory. Hope your D was ok and ended up at a school more attuned to the physical needs of its students.</p>
<p>I agree with @Marian. Some of these complaints seem awfully petty and not connected at all to the education one will get and effect a school will have on a student, both in their time in school and afterwards.</p>
<p>For my S, LaSalle U when the tour guide said she hears gunfire periodically and wouldn’t walk to the nearby mass transit stop without an escort.</p>
<p>Claremont McKenna…tour guide looked like she rolled out of bed to do the tour. She was beyond sloppy. And she said many times “there is NOTHING like this at any other college in the country.” </p>
<p>My kid finally said to me “how would she know that? Has she been to every other college?”</p>
<p>Elon…kid asked if non-majors could play in their college orchestra (she plays oboe and English horn). Answer was one word “no”. Kid said " this isn’t exactly Juilliard."</p>
<p>Columbia: tour guide told us 3 times how she and other students walk around campus in their pajamas, and that once she was studying very late at night and a professor came and sat right next to her, close, and every time she slid over, he slid over.</p>
<p>Tufts: rude to the point of hostile young tour guide seemingly more concerned with making sure we all knew that kids with even remotely conservative political leanings would feel unwelcome than answering questions or showing off his lovely campus. Several of us peeled off and toured campus on our own. My somewhat conservative son still liked it. Amazing that some of these ambassadors aren’t better coached.</p>
<p>I don’t think these issues are petty. There are many great schools out there and they are expensive to tour and to attend. It is good to know what kills the deal and sometimes that is a good thing…narrows down the list!</p>
<p>At Beloit, a very nice little school: We attended a theater performance…posters all over campus, main department performance etc. We were two of 18 in the audience. It was not vacation or exam period, no weather issues. </p>
<p>Also, in general if we saw kids smoking and cigarette butts at entrances to buildings at any campus.</p>