<p>nickcc - i actually agree with everything you wrote!
i live about 5 min from harvard, and my sister/dad went there, so i'm pretty familiar with the campus/environment/etc.</p>
<p>but still, when i did an info session and campus tour, i got a completely standoff-ish and cold vibe from the school. i don't remember entering a single building actually... the majority of the tour was "the library, of course, is incredible. but we don't need to show it to you... after all, it's harvard."</p>
<p>there are lots of reasons people use to justify the "coldness" of the tour (i always hear "it's harvard... they don't NEED to advertise") but i still feel like any school should do its best to appeal to prospective students</p>
<p>all that being said, i know enough about harvard through talking to alum and visiting informally through friends of mine to make a more informed decision. and i love the school and it's almost definitely my first choice</p>
<p>but if i were basing my decision solely off of the campus tour, harvard definitely would not be a top choice of mine. harvard is kind of infamous for leading less-than-stellar tours, but this is more a testament to the admissions office (or even the advertising branch of it) than to the university/college as a whole.</p>
<ol>
<li> The yard can appear "cold." It took me a while freshman year to realize that many of the people in the "yard" weren't affiliated with the university - as others have said: tourists, people cutting through, people taking pictures. You don't really congregate with fellow students in the "yard." The houses all have common rooms and wonderful gathering places. As a result, the place can appear "cold" during a tour. Arrange to spend a day or weekend, and you'll probably get a different impression. </li>
<li> S went on a tour 2 years ago and loved it. He said the student was one of the funniest tour guides he had seen. He really seemed to appreciate the student's sense of humor. </li>
<li> Harvard can seem cold at first - it's big and imposing and you have a sense of history when you're there. However, once you settle in, it's amazing. You'll meet many very interesting people and will become close to other students through your major and the houses. </li>
<li> Harvard Square is very interesting! :-) It was always a real mecca for individualists. When I was there in the 70's, there were always protests going on, groups gathering, people handing flyers in your face. It took some getting used to.</li>
<li> If you're an individual who is independent and doesn't need hand-holding, Harvard is wonderful. If you want a nurturing environment, consider another university. I came from a small Catholic school and wanted freedom, some anonymity, and more diversity. Harvard more than supplied those things.</li>
</ol>
<p>This is a sort of general comment, but I find it silly that people dismiss universities based on unfriendly people during visits. Newsflash: there are a whole lot of different people at any university. I know a kid who visited Harvard and said that the students he talked to were by far the friendliest.</p>
<p>D's Harvard visit was "colder" than many others, but Princeton was by far the worst in that respect. In our experience, all the Ivies but Yale had less appealing info. sessions and tours than schools in the selectivity tier one notch down. The Ivies exude an apathy in salesmanship which says "We know we you'll apply anyway because of our reputation."</p>
<p>But the top LAC's are not immune either. When we visited Amherst, the info. session failed to communicate to us any sense of identity or uniqueness to the school. Frustrated, I asked the Adcom to comment on what makes Amherst distinctive, or why should a student choose Amherst over another small, private LAC. He stared at me like I was a cockroach and answered, "We're the top-ranked LAC in the country." Hmm. S didn't apply.</p>
<p>i definitely agree with gfg about yale - yale was so inviting and enthusiastic and welcoming and passionate! definitely unique among the rest of the ivy league...</p>
<p>plumsnow, thanks for the insight. You articulated, much better than I, what I was trying to say in my post.</p>
<p>goldenratiophi, While I agree that is is "silly that people dismiss universities based on unfriendly people during visits." A "feel" for the university is exactly why you visit. You can research the school on the internet, look at rankings, ask on CC, but the actual visit can not be denied as important. It seems from these posts that Harvard info sessions are inconsistent. It is on a Harvard forum, so perhaps a little biased towards those who are inclined to have applied and had a great tour. That said, the OP, my daughter and plumsnow had the same experience. Only my daughter of these three, did not apply. So the info session was not fatal to all who thought it was a marginal experience. So if the "Newsflash" was for us, I agree with you, but you can't apply for your child and my point is that our tour had a HUGE impact on her. Will Harvard miss another applicant? no. Does Harvard "need" to court the 1000s who come to visit? no. Did my daughter miss out on possibly a great experience because she did not apply to Harvard? perhaps. (She is very excited about the schools to which she did apply... so all will be well). I guess my daughter just expected something more, maybe because it was Harvard. Maybe because it is so highly regarded we held it to a higher standard. Do they have a huge problem with tourists and volume of applicants? sure. Great school...Great students...just an inconsistent admissions tour experience. Which was the question the original OP asked about...Good luck to everyone applying! </p>
<p>TheGFG, shame on Princeton and Amherst. It is a "customer service" thing...all these schools need to set aside the frustration of being so overwhelmed with "volume" and figure out how to make it a postive experience. I am confident they can find a way to "protect" current students and have prospective students walk away impressed.</p>
<p>And merkalicious43...Harvard does NOT s***, that is the point. It is a wonderful world-class organization, who should evaulate its info session, tour content and personnel so this aspect of the college is world-class as well. I do agree that Yale is fabulous too, my D had a great visit there. Loved it.</p>
<p>It is interesting to see pro-Yale people continuously bashing Harvard but rarely other way around. IMHO, both schools are great, you can’t go wrong with either. Our visiting experiences actually were opposite of the BlueHouseMom’s. The visit to Harvard was great (we had a real good tour guide). The visit to Yale was so-so.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input everyone. I realize that impressions can be isolated so that was why I was asking. Interestingly, when we were there at one point we were standing next to a student who didn’t have his swipe card and was trying to get entry somewhere and he got some of the same cold shoulder we did. Maybe it’s just the people that work at the University are grouchy from some combination of dealing with tourists, the weather or maybe it's a New Englander thing. Sounds like some other people experienced this during their visit, but generally once there, students find the place inviting which is reassuring. If they have 25,000+ applicants a year and a similar number of visitors, I’m sure there will be inconsistency. While we didn’t see certain buildings, we did see a good number of the athletic facilities and certainly they are some of the best if not the best of similar schools (Princeton being pretty close).</p>
<p>mushmouse, shame on Yale too. Maybe all the Ivy's need to realize that even though there are 10 students (more or less)that would be thrilled to attend for every student that is accepted, they "never get a second chance to make a first impression". I guess the inconsistency of the visit process is universal.</p>
<p>There was no admissions officer at Yale when we visited, only a current student. That being said, our tour guide was excellent. Our tour at Harvard was just okay; the admissions session was good. We didn't even know that there were houses at Harvard until we arrived at the admitted students weekend. That ended up being a good thing, because the students are so tired of the tourists in the Yard, that by the time they get to the Houses as sophomores, they're glad most people don't know they exist!</p>
<p>We had an awful tour at Cornell. Having family that had been there before, I had visited several times previously. The tour didn't even go near any of the beautiful gorges.</p>
<p>The tour guide we had at B.U. was monotone and totally unenthused. </p>
<p>It's all a crap shoot, really. My feeling is that if you think the school might be somewhere you might like, apply. If you're accepted, go back on the days for admitted students.</p>
<p>"The tour guide we had at B.U. was monotone and totally unenthused. " That describes our tour guide at Princeton. However, we were quite impressed with Princeton when we were there this spring for the admitted students weekend.</p>
<p>My tour at Harvard was awful. First, there was a one hour information session which wasn't half bad. During the session, an admissions officer (a young enthusiastic woman) and a current student talked about the school, curriculum (core etc.), study abroad program, housing, and admissions. Then when they took questions, there were several uptight parents asking about admissions and nothing else. For example, one guy asked how much legacy status aids an applicant. It kind of felt like the parents where trying to get into Harvard themselves. After the information session, they split us up into tour groups depending on intended area of study. Basically, the repeated everything that was said in the information session. Like many of you have stated, they would not allow us to see the insides of Harvard (libraries, cafeterias, labs, classrooms (which where not in use), dorms, etc.). </p>
<p>I realize that Harvard does not need to recruit future applicants; however, I would have appreciated it if they didn't waste my time (and their time for that matter). For those of you arguing that Harvard is trying to ensure the saftey of its students, why would they not let us see classrooms which were not in session or possibly a dorm that was not in use by a student?</p>
<p>There are no dorms not in use by students. The classrooms are old, and not particularly impressive! </p>
<p>I have no doubt that there were plenty of uptight parents at the session. The same ones were probably at sessions at other schools. I heard the same legacy questions at an off site Wash U session and at Brown and Wesleyan. (I toured a lot of schools with twins.)</p>
<p>"D's Harvard visit was "colder" than many others, but Princeton was by far the worst in that respect. In our experience, all the Ivies but Yale had less appealing info. sessions and tours than schools in the selectivity tier one notch down. The Ivies exude an apathy in salesmanship which says "We know we you'll apply anyway because of our reputation."</p>
<p>I agree with the above. DD, her friend and I visited in the summer. We were completely put off by Harvard's information session. Surprising that a top-notch school would fail to employ the psychological/marketing knowledge available to entice students. Yes, Harvard does have more than enough applicants. However, this attitude one day will catch up to even as fine a school as Harvard. Harvard's embrace of prospective students should match its reputation.</p>
<p>I loved my Harvard tour, my guide was great and everyone was nice. I even have an acquaintance (as in person who went to my school whom I barely know) take me to her three-person class and the freshman dining hall. Her classmates were incredibly happy and excited. And no where was the admissions director a bigger ball of positive energy and the students so affable and smiling than at Princeton.</p>
<p>Clearly, the tour really depends on the day. I mean, I can't even imagine how some of you got to these comments, in the same way that you are probably wondering about mine!</p>
<p>I don't understand the "people didn't bend over backwards to be helpful to us, therefore I would not be happy here" mentality of college visits. Harvard exists as an institution of learning, not an elaborate advertising campaign to get your tuition dollars. Especially with a school like Harvard, you have to realize that THOUSANDS of prospective students (many of whom, frankly, don't stand a chance of getting in), not to mention other random tourists, visit the school every year. Instead of funneling their resources into making all of those visitors feel like they've just entered a campus full of their best friends, Harvard has decided to fund, you know, EDUCATION.</p>
<p>Besides, how can you base your opinion of a university with more than 5000 undergrads based on a 2-hour tour+info session? You get the perspectives of one or two students and one admissions officer. You need to talk to more students than THAT to get a good idea of what it's really like to live there.</p>
<p>[Note: This post is proof that Yalies can say nice things about Harvard.]</p>
<p>When we toured Yale, the admissions secretary was actually quite rude. This was compensated for by a student who worked in the admissions office and an enthusiastic tour guide (except that she kept referring to Harvard)! Also the profs S met were extremely welcoming (he had made appointments) and informative.</p>
<p>When S1 toured Swarthmore, the Admissions Dean opened her talk by saying "Most of you won't get in." We got shown around by a young man we knew; he was very impressive and informative about Swarthmore, and far friendlier!</p>