<p>Hi,
I just visited some colleges, and was wondering whether the tour guide students get paid on a work-study basis or something. I visited Haverford, and they had about 6-7 students just hanging out in the Admissions Office to meet and greet and to answer questions informally. I loved the school and the students, but wondered how they got so many kids to spend that sort of time on Admissions. Am I just cynical?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>It depends on the school, so do pay, some are volenteer.</p>
<p>My school actually just switched from volenteer to paid job this year. But back when it was volenteer, there were significantly more volenteers than there were tours to give, even with 3-4 people for each tour time, (and now there are significantly more applicants than spots, many of whom don't need the job for the money). So, at least in my experiance, people really want to help out with this kind of thing--and even if they are getting paid, they probably want to be there.</p>
<p>At D's school it is a paid position, VERY hard to get accepted to the program!</p>
<p>Overall (and yes, there absolutely are exceptions) I think one finds the better tour guides at the schools where it's a much more competitive and/or paid position. </p>
<p>We're doing this for the second time and I honestly had forgotten, in the intervening three years, just what a bad job some kids can do, even though they mean well and obviously love their schools. And the problem is, the awful tours/guides are more memorable than the average ones.</p>
<p>Since you mentioned Haverford specifically, I had really mixed feelings about our very recent experience there. I actually thought it was great that they had kids hanging out in the office to chat informally and answer questions separate from the tour, and I liked the two kids we met doing that. The tour guide, on the other hand, gets points for being energetic and speaking loudly, but someone needs to inform her that she does not make her own school more appealing by telling outright lies about other schools. (And yes, I am having a chat with their admissions office about it - it really isn't fair to Haverford; it makes them look desperate when they certainly aren't.)</p>
<p>It's not paid at my school, and I think most people agree we have a really good group of guides. It is very selective, though.</p>
<p>When touring the school S2 will attend next year, the tour guide (who was great) asked if we could guess what the highest paying student job on campus was. Someone yelled out "tour guide". He laughingly said tour guide was not even the second highest paying job which turned out to be commuter bus driver..$13/hr. The highest paying student job on campus?...nude model for the art dept...pays $17/hr. I'm not making that up,lol.<br>
This guy was a grad. student so I felt sure his position was a paid one.</p>
<p>Back when I was a student, the guides were not paid.</p>
<p>But they did give us a nice picnic at the end of the year.</p>
<p>At my school, tour guides during the large HS visit days were unpaid. If you came during the week, though, those guides were paid, but most had other administrative responsibilities w/in the office of admissions so there was more to the job than just tours.</p>