<p>@ssswims My son and I had the identical experience at Amherst. Pompous admissions officer could barely string a coherent sentence together and all he did was trash Williams. Not classy at all. </p>
<p>@lacec25, I think we must have been on the Columbia tour the same day. The tour didn’t save it for my DD. I believe they lost quite a few people that day but as the AO mentioned. We don’t need to convince you to apply. Everything he said I could have found on the website. </p>
<p>@ssswims @knitter1968 Really? I had the kiss of love at Amherst this summer. The info session I went to was very intimate, in a small conference room with all the students around the table with an admissions officer and two current students who shared their experiences. I also had a great tour with a hilarious tour guide.</p>
<p>We also had a very good experience at Amherst this summer. Decent/not bad info session but private tour (just us and our guide). </p>
<p>Columbia’s info session was one of the best we’ve attended. It was led by a woman, she was a senior admissions officer I think. Full of energy, knew her stuff, very enthusiastic. D didn’t apply (core…) but not because of the info session or tour. </p>
<p>In an interview at Oberlin, I was listing my ECs (as asked by the senior interviewer) and in response he snottily asked: “Wow…how do you have any time for a social life?” Very passive aggressive and rude, I wasn’t sure how to respond so I just laughed and said I find a balance and that I love writing and community service (basically what summed up my ECs) so it’s not a struggle for me. Still, so rude. We (family and I) left immediately after.</p>
<p>^ Yes. Oberlin was awful for my D as well. In the info session, the adcom rep was talking about average standardized test scores but kept saying “median”. She didn’t know the difference between “mean” and “median” which is basically a middle school concept. A lot of parents in the session had to call her out on it. Embarrassing. </p>
<p>@annwank Is it possible that she meant median? Medians are more resistant to outliers, and can give a better picture of the average student/applicant.</p>
<p>If she didn’t know the difference, that’s still not good.</p>
<p>^ I don’t know what she meant, probably meant “median” but she kept referring to “average test score”. It was clear she did not know the difference. </p>
<p>@I’msostressed…Just wondering about your daughter who was treated rudely at Oberlin…did she perhaps look too “mainstream,” and did not seem like the type whose politics and views would fit in there?</p>
<p>Speaking of confusion over mean/median, I’m always amazed at the number of people who throw around ACT and SAT stats without clarifying if they are referring to the scores of accepted applicants or the scores of enrolled freshmen.</p>
<p>My D is pretty mainstream looking, preppy even, and loved Oberlin. Our tour guide was NOT mainstream looking at all - she was from the west coast, dyed black hair, nose ring, gamer…my D thought she was cool and came away loving Oberlin (though she didn’t want to visit in the first place).</p>
<p>Our tour was great, the info session just so-so.</p>
<p>aside: I was an alumni interviewer for Oberlin for a good handful of years and once was told off by a prospective so it goes both ways I suppose.</p>
<p>These experiences are so interesting! I went on a tour with DS16 and DS20 this past summer, and had some similar, and some different experiences.</p>
<p>But before mentioning those “kisses” - I will say that although I enjoyed MIT while visiting with my own parents back in the dark ages, I really hated it on my early-accepted-student visit (and was almost about to try to apply to Tufts instead because we went to a party at Tufts and everyone was so much nicer), but my parents pressured me a bit and I did go to MIT and adored it. So even the same kid, and the same school, can have varying tour experiences!</p>
<p>I will also say that I’m Jewish and I did a grad degree at BC. While the crucifixes made me a bit uncomfortable, I actually found that the faculty and Catholic clergy were very welcoming and let me use my own Jewish scripture as texts for quotes/etc. in a very positive way for courses in which it was appropriate. My husband said, after my graduation, “wow, the Archbishop and I were the only two guys in there wearing yarmulkes.” 
OTOH, I’m not sure it would be so good as a single person and/or as a young undergrad, if looking for a more generic or diverse religious community.</p>
<p>So this past summer - we were disappointed with the student “example student on stage” at JHU, because her stories about how great JHU was, were focused on grade-grubbing and non-academic priorities winning out, which seemed weird and faux-apologetic. Meanwhile, the audience of parents seemed oddly cut-throat. We did very much like our tour guide there, even though yes, she spoke quickly. My DS20 said she was “really enthusiastic” on the survey card which I thought was cute. And the adult-given presentation was informative and interesting.</p>
<p>We were pleasantly surprised with how much we loved University of Maryland at CP - I knew it was a great school, but everyone was OMG overboard in terms of how happy and friendly and helpful they were to us. And they seem really to value diversity, and to be knowledgable about it, like a speaker of one overt ethnicity bragged about another ethnicity being known to be very well supported.</p>
<p>We were unpleasantly surprised with the feel at CMU. There was so much trash-talking about MIT, and they really didn’t need to do that. I don’t like the chip-on-the-shoulder feel.</p>
<p>We had a great student tour guide at Princeton, a cute British guy like someone else described having at Yale 
who confessed, “Well, yes, we have the most a cappella groups. I hate a cappella.”</p>
<p>But by far our best student tour guide was at Cornell! Yes, the cattle call and the color-coding was a bit ridiculous to start, but she was outstanding. Whereas a question about a statue at CMU had gotten the response, “oh, everyone asks about that; I have no idea” - on the other hand, at Cornell, every question got an enthusiastic answer or else, “I will find out for you!” and she did, at least for my son’s question. Also, she was from Alaska, and said the winters were “no big deal” which I thought was hilarious. ;)</p>
<p>Penn seemed nice, but all alumni/ae I know in real life have overemphasized how hard it is to get in, again with the chip-on-shoulder-we’re-really-an-ivy thing.</p>
<p>@fretfulmother wrote: Penn seemed nice, but all alumni/ae I know in real life have overemphasized how hard it is to get in, again with the chip-on-shoulder-we’re-really-an-ivy thing.</p>
<p>But we’re not all like that, I promise! (Of course, I was there for grad school, and there really is a massive undergrad/grad student divide at Penn, so I might not be representative of what you’re reacting to.)</p>
<p>“Penn seemed nice, but all alumni/ae I know in real life have overemphasized how hard it is to get in, again with the chip-on-shoulder-we’re-really-an-ivy thing.”</p>
<p>Oh you mean like Donald Trump. Lol. Thought to be fair I’ve heard his kid who is there now is hard working and nice. </p>
<p>@dfbdfb and @Jara123 - thank you! Yes, it’s so weird. We expected/wanted to really like Penn, as it’s kind of the perfect distance away (we’re in Boston), has a great Hillel, has great engineering, does have Classics and Mandarin as well, all of which DS is interested in. And we enjoyed our visit (though even for a Boston driver, not so much the traffic patterns which seemed to have some “sources” and “sinks” i.e. “Ya can’t get there from hyeah” as my people say )</p>
<p>But so then we were at synagogue talking to friends about where we’d visited. And the Yale people were talking about how Yale was great, and the Columbia, Harvard, MIT, the same thing, and UMD woman was happy we had such a great time and did we know about XYZ program in the Honors College. And then the Penn people (independently!) - would say things to DS like, “remember, it’s not easy to get into Penn; don’t assume you can” and “you know Penn isn’t a state school, right?” which was a weird juxtaposition. If Mr. Yale didn’t say “you might not get in” (which yes, of course, he knows, about every college!), then why Mr. Penn?</p>
<p>“Actually, that number one rule wasn’t in effect for many of us oldsters when we went off to college. Few students had the money to visit colleges. You just went and enjoyed or made do for four years. College tours are a recent innovation from what I remember.”</p>
<p>Not at all. I did college tours in the early 80’s with my parents all up and down the east coast. Same general concept.</p>
<p>I went to college in the 80’s and I remember groups of students visiting my campus. I recall only visiting 2 or 3 colleges, but very informally. </p>
<p>Back in 1980, my best friend in high school went to Grinnell, sight unseen. That was not considered odd. I remember one of my sister’s friends traveled from Texas to Illinois to look for schools, and that DID seem a little strange. When my sister brought that up to my dad, he informed her he would take her on visits in-state, but not out.</p>
<p>When my parents went to school, they didn’t do a lot of looking. My dad was choosing between UC-Davis and UC-Berkeley. He chose Davis because his sister was going to Berkeley. My mom went to the state flagship because it was the only state program offering occupational therapy. When my brother and I started looking at schools, my parents were kind of overwhelmed by how much things had changed in terms of the choices that seemed to be available and the consideration of going to a private school or something out of state.</p>
<p>This is why you shouldn’t visit a school until after you are admitted. Better to spend the time on your applications/studies. And the money you save can go towards tuition.</p>