<p>All I want is for them to speak clearly, intelligently and have some degree of knowledge of the school and buildings. I also want to know some personal views of their situation to better gauge reality vs. sales pitch.</p>
<p>Don't care if a freshman or senior does this, just please be good for that hour plus you haul us around campus.</p>
<p>I agree that the tour guide is a huge part of selling the campus - some schools do a great job with this and others fail miserably. It can really affect a highschooler's decision.
UVA - great school but their tour guides are all student run - no connection with the admissions office or other University admin - worst tour ever! Instead of dividing the 100+ people into smaller groups they had 3 groups of 30+ each with 3 guides. In our group 2 of the guides left after the first 5 minutes of the tour and while the remaining guide was ok, he was also brand new and we couldn't get anywhere close enough to hear him. We left with the feeling that we had visited a pretty place but knew nothing about the school (even the info session was vague - the rep blabbed on and on about the essay he wrote to get into UVA - practically read it to us). Long way to travel for that. My daughter didn't even apply.</p>
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[quote]
frazzled writes: My d was turned off (violently so) by the sophomore tour guide at a school I really wanted her to like But I can't be too annoyed with my d, since the most off-putting thing the guide did during the tour was to embarrass me by repeating my question in a withering tone, complete with eyeball roll. </p>
<p>We were the third family to walk off the tour, btw.
[/quote]
Insulting people on the tour is just inexcusable! I suggest you email the admissions office with a copy of what you wrote here to let them know the face they are presenting to the world.</p>
<p>A freshman girl led our Feburary tour of the GWU Mount Vernon Campus and everyone on the tour loved it. She was enthusiastic and well informed.</p>
<p>It just depends on the tour guide, I think.</p>
<p>To me, a really good tour allows you to see the highlights of the campus, including going inside the buildings, getting to see a typical dorm room, the library, the student center, the athletic facilities and classroom buildings. The really good ones keep moving and the guides have that walking backwards thing down to a science (so they can take questions, and talk at the same time as covering ground)! The guide should be well informed and able to answer questions. Like frazzled1, I was disappointed recently when a school I <em>really</em> wanted D to like had one of the worst tours we'd been on - the guide basically stood in one place and pointed around a large courtyard while reciting boring stats (maybe we were on the same tour, frazzled!) . She was not a freshman, so I guess there's no exclusive on the age of a bad tour guide. At least D still has the school on her list - it didn't hurt that she bought a sweatshirt and has been approached nonstop by enthusiastic alumni ever since getting home. That also gave her the clear message that a tour can be misleading!</p>
<p>Looking back, I now realize that the senior tour guide for the school that S is at now (and loves) gave one of the more mediocre tours. It was probably not his fault - he was personable, but we were not allowed to go inside very many of the buildings - in the case of this school, which is in the middle of a city, I think it's a security issue (I wonder if more tours will be affected by overall changes colleges make due to security concerns, now). They also don't have to try very hard to sell the place. I know that his school makes good use of freshmen as well - S knows several who give tours and he considered doing it himself.</p>
<p>We've had the opposite experience too - a great tour and marketing effort at a school that D is considering as a safe bet on her list - where we had an obviously well trained freshman as a tour guide. There were bright, colorful bulletin boards at every turn of the tour, easily readable, with recent news of the school highlighted , undergraduate research projects and upcoming speakers profiled, , plans of expansion highlighted, immaculately cared for grounds, friendly kids everywhere we went (and a gorgeous spring day on top of all of that). It was hard for even a kid who thinks she wants a totally different type of place not to come away feeling impressed!</p>
<p>I gave admissions tours during the summers after my junior and senior years.</p>
<p>You wouldn't believe how much some parents and kids focus on the freshman experience to the exclusion of all else. These families didn't want to hear ANYTHING about upperclass life, and acted very skeptical when I talked about how freshmen were integrated into my musical, social, and academic experience there. A few families even abandoned my tour the minute I told them I'd spent my freshman year elsewhere.</p>
<p>So I don't blame a college for selecting freshmen as guides, even though I personally prefer to hear from more experienced students (I still take college tours frequently). If that college gets a high proportion of those freshman-obsessed families, it may just be a strategy to try and make their customers happy.</p>