<p>What a difference! We visited at least 15 small schools with my older son (younger son in tow for most of them). There was a fairly consistent routine. Wife made the appointments. We would show up at the admissions office on time. Very often there would be a sign inside welcoming our son (along with 4 or 5 other names on the list). An admissions officer (often a young recent graduate) would greet us and take my son into an office for a chat (aka "interview" but they were so lowkey it was never stressful for our son). Next we would all be invited in for a "family interview" and then we would go on a guided tour of the campus which would take us through most of the buildings on campus, sometimes viewing a dorm room, sometimes not. At some schools we had a tourguide to ourselves. Usually we were joined by one or 2 other families. With some small variations, this routine was repeated every time. </p>
<p>Last Saturday we made an appointment to tour the Rutgers (New Brunswick) campus. We arrived at the student center and sat in a small auditorium with about 30 other students and parents. Saw a short slide show and were given a nice presentation by an admissions counsellor. Then we boarded a tour bus that drove us around and between the 3 campuses that make up Rutgers New Brunswick/Piscataway. The tour guide (a senior) was excellent, pointing out all the important buildings and landmarks, inviting and answering all questions. It was just striking that the only building we entered was the campus center where our tour started and ended. Overall impression was very positive, but we are going to have to go back for a more intimate "walking tour" of one of the individual campuses.</p>
<p>We toured Rutgers in August. We were shown the inside of a dorm on the Busch campus during the bus tour. We then took the walking tour of the College Ave campus, which went inside a dorm and some other buildings. You really need to take that tour.</p>
<p>I don't think this is the norm for most large universities. We toured several, but never by bus. UMich, Boston U, and U Delaware walked people in and out of several buildings--all showed dorm rooms, classrooms, library, student center, etc. Cornell was a walking tour, too, but in their eagerness to show all the colleges, we saw almost no buildings, never even were shown the outside of a dorm. </p>
<p>We never actually toured Rutgers, but I wonder if the bus tour is a symptom of our major question about it, that it would necessitate a lot of bussing from campus to campus.</p>
<p>NJRes, did you got the small schools at "off-peak" times. Last year we visited several schools in the Spring during prime Spring Break time -- even at the small schools we were generally part of a pretty large crowd.</p>
<p>Rutgers makes no secret that you go from campus to campus by bus. If you go to Rutgers College and live on the College Ave campus, you can pretty much stay in one place except for athletic facilities, unless you are studying engineering. BU may give a tour without putting you on a bus but they are only showing you part of the campus. They actually have a shuttle bus that goes form one end of campus to the other, and students also use the trolley. It is ahike from Danielsen Hall or Myles Standish to West Campus where the athletic facilities are.</p>
<p>D and I did make the walk to West Campus, a hike but not undoable (only about a mile). </p>
<p>My perceptions of Rutgers do come from hearing the complaints of many students we've known about the buses, so I will admit they're not from personal experience.</p>
<p>I've visited U of Delaware and Penn State with my daughter and both were walking tours. Penn State had a great tour - backward walking tourguides with uniform polo shirt and khaki's. Don't think I would like a bus tour. We saw a dining hall, a couple of classroom buildings, the library and a dorm.</p>
<p>I think those big impresonal tours of couple of big state U was the biggest turn off for my D. Yes, people were friendly and we've seen a lot but...</p>
<p>Actually, our tours at Delaware and PSU were not large or impersonal. At PSU we were a part of a group of about 20 people with two students and at Delaware it was a group of about 10 people and 1 student. Much better then one we had at a Bloomsburg, a small state college where we were in a group of at least 20, maybe 25 and one quiet student. And PSU has something like 40,000+ students. We also got a free lunch - really good ice cream and wings. It was one of the best tours I've been on and I think I've been to well over a dozen with both kids.</p>
<p>I graduated from Rutgers New Brunswick (Douglas College) and went on the bus tour 2 years ago with my then high school senior son. The bus tour was a real nostalgia trip for me because I loved the buses as a student. They do allow you to get anywhere among the different campuses and also take you to downtown shopping. The buses allowed me to take classes at Rutgers College and Livingston College and they were an important part of social life. I think I spent a good part of my first semester riding the buses and meeting people (boys!).</p>
<p>I also wanted to mention that another large university we toured with my son was Cornell and I (as a Rutgers graduate) was concerned about the LACK of buses. If I remember correctly there is a public bus that runs through campus (have to pay - not free). And in response to my question about how do students get to campus facilities off of the main campus the response was that you can usually hitch a ride with someone.</p>