<p>Heck, California gets most of its water from Colorado anyway!!! We understand the water issue FAR too well, unfortunately.</p>
<p>Slo - I did read with interest your thread regarding your D's decision to go to NYU - congrats; great choice. And by the way, husband and I LOVE San Luis Obispo. If I could live in California, that's where I'd be.</p>
<p>Newmass - I do agree with your assessment of "east" per California definitions. I've seen a few easterners approach it the same way regarding "west". The U.S. drops off after the Hudson River, then there's Chicago, then a vast nothingness (black hole) until you hit Vegas and then Los Angeles/San Fran.</p>
<p>We thought our PSU tour was very well organized and informative. The free lunch coupons were a nice touch. Plus, we stopped at the honors college (made an appt prior) and had an individual sit-down with the admisssions guy plus a personal tour of the honors dorms. Not bad.
Our UNC tour was just OK. The group was too big and we couldn't hear the tour guide. Might be because it was spring break. Same thing at Duke.
Cornell offered a good tour. The campus is beautiful...</p>
<p>Toneranger,
We just returned from tours at UNC and Duke. The UNC one was fine-- they broke the large crowd into small tour groups, and then convened all of us into one large room for the info session. At Duke, apparently all the tourguides bailed after the first tour was over for the day, so the poor Admissions office had to take us around, in her suit and high heels! I felt bad for her, but sadly it wasn't very helpful, as she didn't have much to say about the "college life", she didn't have the art of walking backwards mastered (so she didn't) and the one tour group was too big to really have the opportunity to ask questions. My s. is spending his second summer at Duke, so he is familiar with the grounds, and we are familiar with the dorms (neither school took us into the dorms). So, the "tour" itelf wasn't that important. But, I would have liked to have heard a student talk abuot his/her experience. Oh well...</p>
<p>Oh.. did I mention someone hit my car in the parking lot at UNC??? Grrrrr. The car is only one year old. Had to get the campus police to come out and do a police report. He said it happens all the time. Swell.</p>
<p>dudedad,
We saw the same spirit at Penn State but our group as a whole didn't know how to respond. A group of students was driving by and spotted our tour group and yelled out, "WE ARE....!" but none of us said anything. Some nearby students shouted out "Penn State!" The next time another bunch of student shouted, "We are...!" We were able to complete it. My husband graduated from West Virginia University and walking around the campus at PSU reminded me of the school spirit there. We loved going to the football and basketball games at WVU. However, the mountaineers slogan for their rival was a little different then what I heard on campus at PSU.</p>
<p>When D did tours of large schools we did two things. First, we contacted admissions and made an appointment to meet with an individual and then used this person for all contact in future. By second or third visit they knew D by name walking down the hall. Second, we allowed extra time at school and walked into schools office and were able to talk to an available advisor. We found both of these additional steps helped round out our large school tour.</p>
<p>How true that tour guides can make or break a campus if it is not already on students radar. Rating for TG on last years NE campus tour w/ explanations:
Wesleyan - 3 - TG training tour, little info, very opinionated
Vassar - 8- TG friendly, knowledgeable and informative
Cornell 7 - 2 TG's, very hot day, good tour, seemed industrial
RPI -9- good info, friendly, not intimidated by alumni parent
Amherst - ?- closed on Sunday/alumni weekend
MIT - 5 - TG too quite for a large tour, didn't matter loved campus.
End result DD did not aply to Wesleyan, Cornell or Amherst.</p>
<p>Over the last 2 years, we have visited quite a few large schools (that is what my son wanted). We have visited Penn State, UConn, UMiami, UFlorida, Boston University, UMaryland, Villanova, & Clemson. My son's favorites were PSU, Clemson & Miami.</p>
<p>None of the tours was perfect, but we were able to get a sense of what the school was all about. I have to agree with some of the other comments here... alot depends on the tour guide. It is really helpful if you can try to get up to the front of the tour, so you can hear & ask questions. We usually try to eat lunch on the campus too. Probably one of the most important things would be to go when school is in session, if you can.</p>