<p>We are going to be in Boston later this month on a Saturday and D wants to visit a couple of colleges, neither of which have tours etc. that day. Still, it seems sensible to walk around and get the feel of the campusses, since we'll be there. Any suggestions on doing this and really getting something from it without feeling like an intruder? There don't seem to be 'self-guided tours' for either place.</p>
<p>We did this at Wellsley. I think colleges are used to this… in fact, they had a box outside of admissions where you could sign in so you could get mailings, and I think they had some campus materials. That said, we did not try to get into buildings that were not public (eg, we didn’t ask anyone to let us into a dorm). We struck up conversations with a couple of people, told them why we were there, and they were happy to talk about their experiences.</p>
<p>I think it’s ALWAYS worth it to see a campus, even if all you do is drive by the gate. We’ve done several visits where we just drive around whatever driveways we can get into, and don’t even go into the buildings. There’s such a vibe and such a sense of “can I see myself here.” Some of them need another visit - the yesses and maybes, but not always, and we’ve had some pretty useful and quick “nos” from this kind of view.</p>
<p>Do it!! And get out and talk to people, look at maps, do whatever. Sometimes that’s the most useful part of a college visit, anyway. We’re pretty dulled out by official tours at this point, actually, and usually just do our own even if there is something scheduled. Finding someone specific to connect with is nice - someone in your favorite department, or even a student you or someone else knows who can sit down with you for a minute. Or just ask around while you’re there; even on weekends there are people around most campuses.</p>
<p>Talk to random passing students. Ask what they like. Ask what they’d change if they could.</p>
<p>We did this with my son one Saturday when he was a Jr in HS. A student noticed us standing outside the school’s library trying to decide where to go, and asked us if we were visiting the campus. After getting a book from the library, she gave us a personal tour, including the labs, and some architectural features of the campus only students, faculty, etc. would know about. She even showed us her dorm. We learned a lot from her we wouldn’t get on a formal tour (which we took the next year). He used some of the information in his essays. My son is now a freshman there.<br>
My advice, don’t be afraid to talk to students who are walking around the campus, you get great information and feel for the students. By all means, visit, and walk around. Have fun doing it.</p>
<p>Many of the Boston schools also have info for “do it yourself” tours with great handbooks that show you all the various buildings/info/hot spots. We did this at Northeastern and thought they had great tools to do this, as did MIT. We often never even went on actual tours because we’d make our way through the areas where students hung out to get an idea of how social/what types of social interaction/the vibe/etc we’d find. Many times our first impression in stepping on a campus was confirmed in doing our own walkabout, I definitely think there is value in doing so. Have fun!</p>
<p>We are not the “tour group” type - we get impatient and dislike being herded in close quarters with strangers, so other than for the first college we visited, we did only “walkaround” tours of all colleges. We printed out a map of the college off the internet and figured out which parts we wanted to see before arriving. We felt we got a very good feel for each college. </p>
<p>After reading here on cc how so many students were totally turned off of a college simply because of the tour guide, I think we did the right thing. In hindsight it would have been a terrible mistake if my Ds had not chosen their current colleges for that reason.</p>
<p>In the visits where we had to bring the 9-yr old little sister, she always needed a bathroom after the drive and it was our benchmark for how friendly, helpful people were - and how clean their bathrooms were!</p>
<p>^^ I love that! And you all felt comfortable walking into classroom buildings, library, dining hall etc? I tend to feel I’m going to be arrested for trespassing!</p>
<p>Most schools are very open to the public on school days. Only place I have been that ws not was Yale which was pretty closed off. That’s one out of around 400 I have been to and never taken a formal tour.</p>
<p>Yale has tours specifically focused on its art collections and the architecture of its buildings. I know several people who don’t have kids and who love the tours- so Barrons, you must have been extremely unlucky when you visited. There are guides who can take you all over and will show you the Guttenberg Bible, focus on the various memorials to alums and students who died in the armed forces, as well as point out the galleries which are open to the public, discuss the controversies over the different building styles (pro and con), etc.</p>
<p>A very satisfying way to visit a university even if you aren’t interested in admissions…</p>
<p>I really like the idea of self guided ‘walkaround’ tours. We seem to spend so much time on guided tours, and quite frankly we’ve learned so much more by just striking up random conversations with students and eating/people watching in the cafetaria. We saw some people doing their own tour while we were at BC. Lets face it, tours are often reiterations of facts and they are putting on their best face. </p>
<p>The only thing I would say is to watch for schools that want records of ‘demonstrated interest’. If its a school you really like you may want it to be recorded. I hope you enjoy your tours of Boston.</p>
<p>i’ve done it before. I had to come early to the campus to arrange for my DA arrangments so we took the time to drive around.</p>
<p>Walk around, and include bookstore (good way to see what courses are like) and cafeteria if you can (get a cup of coffee and sit there and soak in the vibe). Ww also learned to skip the organized info sessions and tours :)</p>
<p>That’s a very good point - if you like the school, make sure they know that you made the visit. It occurs to me that we should probably do that with a couple we drove through last year. As I said if they end up on the list, we plan to go back (these are audition schools, so we’ll make the trip to audition on campus - they don’t travel to our area for the Unified Auditions). But if it’s something we thought we’d do post-acceptance, I guess they won’t see the “interest” unless we tell them!</p>
<p>Go online before you visit and look at each school’s campus newspaper. That’ll give you a timely idea of issues that the students think are relevant, and you may see things on the campus that enhances your understanding of those issues.</p>
<p>I prefer the organized tours because you find out interesting tidbits of information you might not know otherwise. But if there is no available tour, a self-guided tour is definitely better than no visit at all. If the application asks if your student has visited campus, be sure to have them say yes to show interest.</p>
<p>I think a self-guided tour can be even better than an official tour, if you have an idea of where you’re going.</p>
<p>Depends on the person - my second child tended to dislike a school based on some little factor on the tour so she actually did better walking around on her own. (With a few tours under our belt, we were able to keep up our own snarky commentary that parodied the standard tour, anyway.) D3 liked the tour as a jumping-off point.</p>
<p>We visited College of Wooster on a summer Saturday when no tours were offered. We found a very attractive, engaging senior entering one of the dorms. We asked if he would mind showing up the common room, which led to a complete personalized campus tour (he worked on campus for the summer and had keys), followed by “payment” of lunch out at his choice of restaurants. We got to hear this student’s story, hear the pride in his voice regarding his school, and see the school as he saw it. Great experience! BTW, we made sure to report our visit to Admissions so they could know of DD interest in COW.</p>