<p>Ahem…DD is a tour guide and works in undergrad admissions AND she was also in her high school band (and is in the college orchestra). Perhaps this is true at your kids’ schools, but it’s not universally true. Many student ambassadors are ALSO involved in other student activities. I know you didn’t mean to overgeneralize, but it sort of sounded that way.</p>
<p>My DD, the tour guide, also advises that students visit when school is in session. She also suggests that students go to their student center and talk to current students who are NOT tour guides. The students at her school are mighty friendly and are very willing to chat with a prospective student (this was one of the reasons my kid chose this school over her second choice).</p>
<p>we crossed one off our list after a visit. It had the right academic programs, was in a beautiful area, small campus (which is what he wanted) price was right, etc. EVerything was right except… we never saw anyone smiling. Kids all seemed to be walking alone, heads down. Something just felt “off”. Then we checked the ratings for “happiness” and it was rated as one of the lowest around.
Funny that S chose his college he now attends by a visit, during which within the first hour he said “I am so going here”. Checked its <em>happiness</em> rating and is rated right up there in the top. Unfortunately it was the most expensive school we had visited.</p>
<p>Most of the tour guides we’ve had have been stellar–bright, likable kids who did a great job of representing their school as a distinctive, attractive place. If they weren’t among the coolest kids in the place, you could have fooled me. I would single out Brandeis, Goucher, Skidmore, Hampshire, Ithaca and Tufts as colleges where this has been particularly the case, but nowhere, not once, have we had a tour guide that turned our son or us off of the school. Maybe we’ve just been lucky.</p>
<p>We’ve had great tour guides too - many drama majors who seem to like the extra practice. My kids aren’t cool so they’d probably be turned off by cool tourguides.</p>
<h1>theorymom: my son had the exact same reaction to a school. “This is it.” Unfortunately for us, its a tippy top and we’re applying this year. I don’t think it’s one of the happy ones though.</h1>
<p>Do you guys think there is a strategy to making your first college visit? Should we consider the first visit more of a “getting your feet wet” adventure and test the waters with a school way down on the list or not even on the list? I guess I am asking if the first exposure is basically a cross off because your teenager is just getting the hang of the whole college visit process.</p>
<p>I agree that visits can be very important. Take advantage of all the college offers for the visits. If possible, try to arrange to sit in on a class. This has really made an impression on S2. Also, at some colleges they arranged for him to lunch with students, and I went and ate elsewhere. This helps him get a sense for how he would fit in.</p>
<p>One thing college admissions offices could do is to be better prepared for Jr. year spring break visits. Colleges that asked some student guides to stick around for spring break made a better impression than those where there were very few students around.</p>
<p>Kajon, I think that’s actually a pretty good idea. If possible, do a “dry run” at a nearby college the student may not even be interested in – no emotional involvement, no possibility of not living up to expectations. It gives a good baseline for other visits, and lets you talk with your kid about how to use visits to get useful information, without it becoming a veiled conversation about your different tastes.</p>
<p>But I think kids burn out on visits pretty quickly. Five in as many days was too many for mine, and they lost focus.</p>
<p>By the way, I am reasonably certain colleges DO train their tour guides, and DO choose them with the idea that they are going to represent the school. No one is perfect all the time, but if you get a real dud I would have to think that is on the Admissions Department.</p>
<p>Our tour guide at Brown was an articulate, jocky sorority sister and International Relations major who was great at walking backwards in flip-flops and looked great doing it. Unfortunately, she did not exactly give off an air of intellectual curiosity, and she knew nothing about the many sensational sculptures that dot the campus. So much for Brown, as far as my kids were concerned.</p>
<p>D is a recruited athlete and is now going on official visits. These are longer in duration and so theoretically should be better evalutative tools. But the same random variables are in play, though one supposes the coach might try to control for them a bit if s/he can. At one school, her hostess was very outgoing, and took D to a large, wildish social event. At the other, her hostess was more reserved and took D to a small, dorm room-sized party. She realizes that her feelings about the schools could have been completely different had the hostesses’ personalities been the opposite of what they were.</p>
<p>Also, at one school two of the classes she planned to sit in on were cancelled. Even though there was a valid reason for this, it still left an impression because her hostess didn’t know in advance her class was going to be cancelled. It is highly unlikely this happens on a regular basis, but she can’t erase the impression either.</p>
<p>We did a couple of tours with ShawbridgeSon. In both cases, one could see the personality of the tour guide on display as much as anything else. Brown’s tour guide incidentally was a very cute, very self-absorbed young woman about whose likes and dislikes we became familiar; less so about Brown. He felt he didn’t learn much more about either school than he already knew from reading (though in one case, his best friend was there and he’d slept over a couple of times already). </p>
<p>My son actually decided that he didn’t want to visit schools until he got accepted. ["Why should I fall in love with a school that has a 10% chance of admissions?] He then narrowed down the schools and went to admitted students shindigs. He did one admitted students shindig first for practice, so he’d know what to do at later ones. These were very informative.</p>
<p>ShawbridgeDaughter, now a HS junior, will need some tours to get a feel for the kind of school she would like. ShawbridgeSon already knew – rural or suburban but isolated in any case, smart kids, intellectually oriented, few distribution requirements, … .</p>
<p>I’ve taken my daughter to visit a few of the schools the second time, which brought about even more confusion. In one case, the “in love” feeling definitely wore off, and in another, the school started growing on her. My opinions were changing, too, albeit for different reasons than the ones she came up with, making me realize that there is no one way of looking at things and no magical fit…you just have to have something positive to work with and build on it. We were going into all of this with too much expectation.</p>
<p>Recently, my D went to another school for the second time, accompanied only by H, who had seen it once before. I figured my H would stay solid in his view, but he came back and said he had a totally different outlook this time around!</p>
<p>So my advice is: If you don’t want to confuse yourself to the point of insanity, don’t visit these schools a second time!!</p>
<p>Seems like a lot of time out of high school <<<<</p>
<p>I suggest starting college visits during the junior year of high school. And, as I wrote earlier, visit on days that the college is having regular classes.</p>
<p>Look at your child’s school calendar and determine what days his school is closed (or has a half day or some other “academically lite” day)’ then check some college calendars. There are many days when high schools are closed, but colleges are having classes (Also…sometimes, colleges begin classes in the fall before high schools start). If you “time it right,” you won’t have to miss many days of school at all. :)</p>
<p>And, again, if your kid’s school states that it only allows 2 excused college days, ask if there are any exceptions. My kids’ school had the same limitation in the handbook, but in reality, it allowed any good student unlimited days off for college visits. Besides, many students also have to take other days off during the year to attend interviews for competitive scholarships, honors program interviews, music auditions, etc. </p>
<p>Schools really can’t be that strict, otherwise parents would just call and say their kid is sick that day.</p>
<p>I still can’t get over the stories about “bad tours”…We’ve been on many campus tours, and we’ve always had very pleasant experiences. All of our guides have been students who’ve conducted themselves in a very professional manner, while also being friendly and informative. I think many of our guides have been Communication majors.</p>
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<p>Without intending to, this is what we did. During DS1’s junior year, he wasn’t interested in college visits, but I knew that we needed to start visiting. So, when his school announced an unexpected “day off,” I scrambled to schedule a college visit at one of the state schools. While it never was on my son’s “list,” the visit was pleasant, and it “turned him on” to the idea of visiting other colleges. He really liked seeing that college life was so much more interesting than high school life.</p>
<p>When we visited (only schools to which S had been accepted - we visited 6, having eliminated some before visits once acceptances came in) we didn’t do the usual tour, visit days thing, for the most part. At each one we had interviews set up with a prof in S’d intended major and/or a class he could sit in on. Where possible he spent the night in a dorm, ate in the cafeteria, hung out with students, and got a feel for the place.</p>
<p>We found that it was very difficult to figure out when to visit. Especially since most of the schools my D. wanted to see were far away and with a heavy academic load she was reluctant to miss much, if any, school.</p>
<p>Luckily her high school has a weeklong break following President’s Day. And better yet, we were quite surprised to find that many of the east coast schools were in session on the holiday. So during her junior year we were able to fit in a full week of college touring, capped off by a Saturday sightseeing in Boston. We saw 8 schools, all carefully selected, and yet four of them got crossed off her list. We didn’t feel that this was a problem, instead it helped her to highlight what she did and did not want in a college.</p>
<p>The timing was good, as it allowed her to have several months to continue researching schools (and to fit in a few more visits during another break) and then she was able to start on her applications in the summer.</p>
<p>I think as stated on a similar thread, emphasis should be on the fact that before you go, the tour guide might be someone you don’t like. We have had a few dippy types, one that seemed like “Why did I say I’d do this” but we understand after going through it once before. Some students really need a job and some colleges just don’t have enough students wanting to do it that would be a great guide. Sometimes you can’t be fussy. My guys found spending the day at the school was great if we lived close enough. That way they were in the mode of a student, not a tourist. We mainly used tours to look at the college, see the buildings, look at the students and reactions…any info you really should be able to get online or in a pamphlet. Sometimes I hear parents say a tour guide said something I read online to be contrary…maybe they didn’t know or didn’t want to say that, but I would never take their word as fact without checking.
My niece’s friend went to H. Cross but her overnight was horrid…her host was awful. She didn’t want to go there but her only great scholarship came from there. So she went and loved it, and became a host to help another student not have that experience…she’s a rarity I think.
I also think applying EA when feasible is a good idea and visiting the ones that you know you will be attending.</p>
<p>Can’t speak for anything but DD’s school. The application process was exhaustive…multiple interviews, multiple letters of recommendation. The new student ambassadors receive training…days of it…and then each year, they have training again. </p>
<p>Not wishing to be a PITA…but what IS “cool”? Is that the football player, or the president of the student body? Is it an engineering major, or a music major? Is it someone who dresses in Gap clothes or someone who is more eclectic?</p>
<p>I’m not sure that what is “cool” for one student would be deemed “cool” for others.</p>
<p>No college can match the personality of every guide to every kid and parent, no matter how much training they do–there are too many types of kids and parents (intellectuals; jocks; artsy; etc) to please and the child and the parent may be looking for different things. But colleges can try for guides who are friendly, informative and responsive to visitors’ interests.</p>
<p>Ideally, families get to do a nearby quasi-practice visit; check out large/small/urban/suburban/rural campuses; do overnights after acceptances; and do it all on sunny days when the HS is not in session but the college is–but that is all hard to do–or impossible if you are looking at distant schools; play multiple sports; etc.</p>
<p>But, if you think that is hard, at least in my day, law schools did not offer tours, Open Houses or anything else even to accepted students and there were not web boards or guides. Somehow, our kids will will wind up ok</p>
<p>We did our first visit with S2 as a day trip during February break. He was on vacation, the two colleges weren’t. The colleges were an easy drive from us (about two hours) and less than an hour from each other. One college I thought would be a pretty good fit (it’s still on his list) even though he thought it might be too small (smaller than his high school), the other one I thought had an attractive academic approach, but knew the more isolated campus might be an issue - it was. Seeing two quite contrasting colleges helped him figure out what was important to him.</p>