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Leading a group of nearly two dozen high school juniors and seniors to various points of interest around campus, Tufts University tour guide Michelle Davis reportedly took time while describing every location Thursday to remind tour members that, first off, they have to be admitted.
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At press time, Davis was asking the tour members if those among them who had a realistic shot of being accepted and could afford four years of the private institution’s tuition had any questions.
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<p>I thought this blurb from The Onion was very funny, so I wanted to share it for a laugh. But seriously, it is related to the question of if you should take your kids to visit high reach schools which they would be unlikely to be admitted to.</p>
<p>Only if u have unlimited time to go do the tour, and unlimited patience to console them when they get rejected or when u refuse to pay the ridiculous COA</p>
<p>at $75 to $90 each to apply it can get expensive to apply - a few applications to tough reach schools should be enough to satisfy a teen’s curiosity.</p>
<p>But maybe the tour guide’s spiel is worth the price of the train tickets to Boston :)</p>
<p>Ha ha the guides should do that! We went on a bunch of tours junior year. We also went on one tour senior year after the decisions came out to a school where my son was waitlisted. The tour was a verrry different experience from that side of the fence, because it really all could have been an exercise in futility. He did get accepted eventually, and it no doubt helped that we made the effort to go on the tour and top to meet the admissions counselor.</p>
<p>I take my kids to different colleges for educational programming, exhibitions, and other events. Yale, for instance, has a day of low cost classes for high schoolers (taught by students) that’s a lot of fun. The students are friendly, well spoken, and good with the children. As a home schooler, I use opportunities like the Yale program to give my children a peak at what a traditional school day looks like. Attending cultural, sports, and other events at different colleges also gives them a chance to become familiar with college campuses in general and experience talking with both students and staff. The decision about where to apply will be based on what their interests/abilities are and how much we can afford to spend.</p>
<p>We stuck to schools we knew our Ss could get into. S2 probably could have gotten more fin. aid. from the LAC at which he was accepted, but he wanted to go a regional state U. I didn’t want him coming back in 25 years complaining that we chose his school for him, so we let him go. </p>
<p>Oh brother. My kiddo worked in undergrad admissions at her college. She also gave regular tours, and specialty tours for prospective engineering students. Part of her job was to sell the school and hope that these students would apply.</p>
<p>I have heard of students being annoyed when the admissions presentation spends all of their time talking about the difficulty of admissions, without leaving any time for why a student should want to attend. </p>
<p>I think it’s at Princeton. The AO presenting on the stage essentially told her audience that no one was good enough for her school. Can’t remember what exactly she said but the way she put it was very discouraging. And there was this olde student visiting by himself who was diligently taking notes asked about how “transfer” worked and was told flatly that Princeton didn’t accept any transferee students, which was pretty cruel…</p>
<p>What would you rather have Princeton do? Lie to get his hopes up and waste his time and money when there was a 0% chance of him getting in as a transfer?</p>
<p>It is a tough line - to not encourage false hopes but also to not crush spirits in an info session. We were at an info session this summer and my daughter was waiting to ask the admissions officer a question - when we witnessed another prospective applicant share some stats and ask her question, to be told bluntly “I would discourage you from applying, there is very little chance of you being admitted with that GPA”. </p>
<p>Of course, there was probably no better way to communicate that “no transfer” message. Seeing the kid taking all that trouble visiting a school with no hope to get in in the first place, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. That’s all…</p>
<p>If the criteria for touring a college included touring only those schools where a student was likely to be admitted, then no one could tour the Ivies or any elite school. No one is “likely” to get into a school with an acceptance rate below 8%. And yes, we have taken our son to tour reach schools, but also prepare him for the likelihood he won’t be accepted. I don’t think it’s up to tour guides to do this, as funny as the Onion article may be.</p>
<p>Have to comment that both my DDs found the Princeton info session so arrogant and off-putting that we almost cancelled out of the tour. Neither applied. We were at plenty of other ivies and “lottery” schools and all were gracious if realistic. Princeton was just snobbish and mean.</p>
<p>Apparently when my sister visited Duke all they talked about was what absolutely amazing things their students did in high school. That’s pretty lame if you asked me.</p>
<p>Honestly, after having graduated from Penn, I would almost say it isn’t worth it to tour top schools unless you are thinking about applying SCEA or ED. Most people apply based on the reputation anyway so I think it makes a lot more sense to just wait until you are admitted. That’s what I did for grad school.</p>
<p>@GMTplus7, these schools for the most part don’t care if you visit or how much love you show them. You think Harvard, Yale, etc. don’t already know that most of the applicants really want to go there? Plenty of students are accepted who never visited. You can do plenty of research about schools online.</p>