<p>Freecycle, we also appreciated at Providence the honesty of the AO in the info session. He spoke of how arbitray admissions can be, “what do we need this year?”, guidance on submitting or not submitting SAT scores, etc. It was well balanced.</p>
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<p>BC has the worst dorms of any school I’ve ever seen. I stayed in one when I was younger for a camp trip and it was literally a jail cell.</p>
<p>OUr tour guide experience at Goucher turned us of on the entire school. The guide went on and on about some biZarre roleplaying game the kids did over several days – zombies and bimbos or something? Leaving us with the impression that the school was full of idiots pretending to go to college and wasting their time and their parents’ money. YMMV … and I hope that that’s not the real Goucher. But my son was so turned off that it’s off the list – and I had thought before our tour that it might be an awesome safety school with programs that matched his interests.</p>
<p>Hah, it sounds like I’d fit in at Goucher. Maybe that’s not really the tour guide’s fault, but instead just a reflection that the school would be a bit too quirky for your S. I would have been impressed with that tour, I think, assuming that academics was talked about at least somewhat.</p>
<p>I went on a tour at one school, Ithaca College, which I somehow convinced myself that I HAD to go to. If I had paid attention at the time, I would’ve noticed that most of the students were very high maintenance-looking and if you’d asked “which one is not like the others?” I would’ve been the answer. Other than that, the tour guide was so forgettable, I vaguely remember that she was female, but I can’t remember anything she talked about.</p>
<p>However, I really convinced myself that I had to go to said school, so I didn’t pick up on those signs that might’ve warned me I wasn’t going to fit in.</p>
<p>re Goucher? the academics were clearly secondary to how much fun there was to be had … but YMMV!</p>
<p>Since then we’ve seen schools with apparently similar academic profiles of admitted students but with completely different vibes in terms of academics. It’s clearly all about fit!</p>
<p>@ hyper: I think we had the same tour guide at Ithaca hahaha. I was just there last week. I didn’t like the college anyways =].</p>
<p>And basically all of the tour guides I had were either average or really good, so I never had any bad experiences like some of the stories on this website.</p>
<p>cnp55, that’s too bad. Our tour guide mentioned the zombie game but spent about fifteen seconds on it. She spent a lot more time on the great arts facilities, the close student-faculty relationships, and the international study opportunities. She certainly didn’t leave us with the impression that academics were secondary to anything.</p>
<p>I like this thread… It’s almost like going on more college tours.</p>
<p>I wish they wouldn’t hire guides who are freshmen. We had 2 tours with freshmen guides, and both were unable to tell us much more about the school than what we had already learned online. The upper classmen were able to give us much more info about their schools and shared some very interesting stories.</p>
<p>(Thumper- not sure if your daughter was our guide, or not-- but we loved the tour guide and the helpful admin staff at her school. We had a couple of unanswerable questions, but the staff graciously called several offices to find someone we could talk to.)</p>
<p>Had a tour of Cornell this afternoon - fantastic tour. Rising senior tour guide was knowledgeable, friendly and charming. Totally sold my daughter on Cornell. He did his job well! The only downside was that it was very hot and humid - we could’ve used some breaks in the shade. Nevertheless, what a lovely school.</p>
<p>Cornell really is a pretty school. There’s so much more to see than they can possibly show you on the tour. I hope you got over to North Campus where the freshmen live. Did you get to see West Campus – lots of new dorms and some pretty gothic style old dorms – where upperclassmen live?</p>
<p>My son is a rising senior at Cornell, but because of his particular admissions situation I never went on a tour until last spring when my rising high school senior wanted to formally see the school aside from freshman dorms, frat houses and Schulkoff Field! (Any questions – please ask. My son has had an amazing experience)</p>
<p>We saw west campus from up on the hill and did not go to North Campus - he told us right at the beginning we’d have to go on the “Freshman Experience” tour to see a dorm. </p>
<p>I will send you a message if we have any further questions! Thank you!</p>
<p>Recently took a tour at Brandeis. The group was a bit on the large side, so the two available tour guides introduced themselves, and we split up into two groups. The tour guide I went with, a rising senior in a humanities major, was very knowledgeable, going beyond naming buildings to mention interesting campus rumors, alumni, and the like. Also, she was quite good at walking backwards, and seemed enthusiastic about being a tour guide. She told a good amount of information regarding Jewish life, but also mentioned that the campus was growing more spiritually diverse and there were 17 religions represented on campus and whatnot. She did seem a little on the preppy side, as did the other prospective students (I was probably the odd one out there), but it seemed more balanced in the other group. I went into Brandeis uncertain if it would stay on my list- it’s definitely staying there.</p>
<p>My experience with the admissions department and tour guide at Hobart and William Smith led me to not consider the school. The tour guide told us that he was from the area, and decided to go there because he didn’t think about going to college until late in his senior year, and they were still taking applications. He said that he had spent the whole previous semester without going to the library to study at all, and he didn’t recommend that; maybe somebody should go a few times. His entire delivery was just very laid back, out of it, almost seeming stoned…</p>
<p>The admissions officer was just extremely parochial. She went to HWS, her children went to HWS, and her job evolved from an undergrad job in the HWS admissions department. I talked to her privately (wasn’t a formal interview) and she seemed to miss the point of many of the questions I asked, and kept trying to show me pictures of HWS alums who made the Olympic crew team. While I was a coxswain, I was not getting recruited or planning on the Olympics anytime.</p>
<p>I know people who have gone to HWS and like it, so I might have just had awful luck, but the whole experience really turned me off to the place.</p>
<p>Happygirl18 - tour guides need to practice walking backwards while speaking in a LOUD voice. I agree that it would be very beneficial if the groups were divided up by areas of interest. </p>
<p>We had one guide who spent most of the tour telling us about her performance in a Barbie and Ken theater production (she was Barbie). At the end of the tour she started hugging all the kids. My son very quickly backed away and very quickly crossed that one off his list.</p>
<p>The best guide we had was very open and honest. She told us that during her freshman year she had to get tutored in calculus and now she is a calculus tutor! She also tracked us down after the information session to follow up on answers to our questions.</p>
<p>I also appreciate when they show you the worst case scenario for freshman dorms.</p>
<p>At my tour of UCLA, the guide spent the entire time talking about the long standing rivalry between USC and UCLA. He began describing pranks that they had recently pulled, and how fun they were and how well they worked.</p>
<p>My dad, sick of listening to this, opened up his blackberry and googled the pranks the tour guide spoke of. Most did not exist and were urban legends. The ones that did exist occurred in the 1950s and 1970s.</p>
<p>We took the rest of what he said with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>Had an amusing (sort of) experience at UMass Amherst today. At an info session, my wife and I sat with our son, but my wife left one seat between herself and him, I think out of an instinct to give him a bit of space. The admissions staffer took a question from my son and after answering it looked at the three of us and said to our son, “what’s with the big divide there? are you smelly today or something?” </p>
<p>We’re highly easygoing people, but that was at least a couple of steps out of even our comfort zone. I’m sure she was just chattering in an attempt to connect, but, um, hello?</p>
<p>^^ Haha, that’s a bit uncomfortable! At your UMass info session did the woman go around and ask everyone what other schools they had toured and their top choices? That was also a bit awkward.</p>
<p>The boring-est information session I had was at UMass-Amherst</p>
<p>The admissions staffer was probably a graduate student. She was reading from a script and never bothered to look up. She also would (annoyingly) play around with her hair every few seconds. And she couldn’t answer any questions, she just gave the email/phone number of the admissions office to get my question answered haha</p>
<p>Yeah, I had to deal with the boring-ness plus a tour on a day when it was about 8 degrees outside with insane winds whipping my face. Needless to say, I no longer look upon the school as favorably!</p>
<p>jenx1234, I guess the theme with western Mass. schools is extreme temperatures. We toured UMass yesterday in such ferocious heat that one girl fainted and landed pretty hard on the blacktop–they had to get her an ambulance. It must have been 90 in the shade. Earlier in the day we had toured Hampshire, and the tour guide was talking a lot about the winters and how you need state-of-the-art parka and boots and so on, while the whole tour group was broiling in the sun. Very strange.</p>