Yep, and we’ll “assess and move forward.” I just thought it was interesting that the OP had an experience like ours. We’re not a scientific sample, we’re just 'rents relating on social media.
3 Likes
Most definitely! The thought of spending multiple-100s of thousands of dollars on a school makes me want to help my child assess every data point, big and small, relating to her choice. A bad tour or an indication that a school didn’t have an interest in selling itself to a potential candidate is one of those data points.
As I said, I wouldn’t rule a school in or out on just a tour. But I wouldn’t forget about it either.
4 Likes
Tour guides are a lot more make or break about school decisions than admissions offices seem to know! The tour guide should not loom as large, but teenage applicants are very much affected by the tour guide.
It is possible, given the time of year, that these were new to the job.
I think Tufts is a great school and hope you will do in-person.
3 Likes
Very well stated! Schools have their factors in considering admissions, and students and their parents have their own factors in considering whether to apply.
1 Like
My son, a top student, applied to one school because the tour guide had keys to the theater. My son loves keys 
4 Likes
It’s implicit in the OP’s original and follow-up posts.
Ah, dear @skieurope, as always, your logic is unassailable. But that’s kinda’ the way CC works, isn’t it? Especially with parents!
Seriously, though, as I’ve said, I wouldn’t rule out a school on this issue alone, nor would I advise our D to go to a school just because she had an excellent tour. It’s just a data point for consideration, but it is a data point.
We went through this with boarding/day school admissions, and the attitude of the guide makes an impression on candidates and their parents. My wife, who generally has more patience for this stuff than me, along with our D, talked extensively about both the tours and the guides. I don’t think college admissions will be any different, at least for us.
Tufts is clearly an excellent school, and it would be wrong to base a decision to apply solely on a tour. But when our students and their parents generally have finite time for school visits and applications and finite money to pay for visits, applications, tuition fees, and room & board, we factor everything into our decision-making process.
2 Likes
I am being totally serious, but a love of keys is at least as good a reason to apply to a school as is whether the school is HYPSMC, Ivy, and T-20 (or whatever the acronym du jour is)!
I’m not sure I understand? I am not wishing for anything, I’m just stating my perception as I see it.
Well, I don’t see mascot-costumed employees at Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Apple, Sullivan & Cromwell, or other businesses either. Am I missing something?
Yes. I was joking.
2 Likes
Ah, I’m sorry. That went RIGHT over my head, as do most things!
Too many late nights at work and not enough coffee I guess does that…
1 Like
No need to apologize. The spectre of $300,000 in tuition and fees staring you right in the face is enough to make anyone lose sleep.
2 Likes
Without any doubt. I was doing planning for this just a few hours ago. And working to pay for it all as we speak!
1 Like
I think these are somewhat contradictory priorities, if a lot of students are off in major city, doing major city activities, then they arent as likely to be rah rah about campus life. There can be exceptions of course, but big city exploration isnt what I associate with kids who paint their faces and cheer on the squad.
1 Like
In my view, putting much stock into the tour guide as to whether the school is a good fit or not, is too insignificant. That is just one kid at the school. I think when MANY people do a campus visit (I realize this was a virtual one), they just do the tour and information session, which is quite limiting. Meet with other students, such as lining up visits with students in extracurricular groups you’re interested in. Line up visits with faculty and students in the department that interests you. Eat in the cafeteria and strike up conversations with current students. Approach students who are entering their dorms and ask if they will show you inside and besides seeing the rooms, strike up conversations with students in the dorm. And so on and so forth. Get a much more complete picture than that you get from the tour guide alone. I’d say this about any college.
That said, I am a Tufts alum, and have been a Tufts interviewer. I loved the school and it was my first choice. One of my kids chose to apply. She visited twice. When acceptances were in hand, she narrowed them all down to revisit her favorites for accepted student events in April. She chose Tufts over Penn, for example. In the very end, in making her final decision of where to attend, she chose Brown over Tufts, her final two favorites, but would have been happy to attend Tufts as well. Her two campus visits were very thorough and went way beyond a tour and only talking to the tour guide. I realize virtual visits are different, but again, that one student who does the tour is too insignificant in the total picture as to whether a school is a good fit for the applicant. Please dig way deeper.
2 Likes
And yet there’s Georgetown and BC, two other schools we’ve visited where serious academics, city life and school spirit seem to coexist very well. Also, she’s not looking for “rah, rah,” but she does want to avoid “meh.”
1 Like
We are digging very deep and will revisit Tufts for an in-person tour after visiting the campus on our own and attending the aforementioned virtual visit. But you have to appreciate that there is a good deal of directional power in the presentation of the students who act as ambassadors for the admissions office, and you have to acknowledge that many high schoolers are trying to assess fit and narrow their lists in the way a job candidate might assess fit when interviewing at a company: the person in front of you is not a representative sample, but they’re what you’ve got in making a personal and subjective choice.
To put this in perspective, my daughter is enrolled at an independent boarding school. We did not have a good tour when she applied there. But she did understand through other research and her own network of friends that the school had the programs and the culture she wanted. So once she enrolled, she became a tour guide because she wanted to provide a better tour experience.
This is about marketing, really. If a big Tufts asset is its access and proximity to Boston, they should really make sure the guides are promoting that instead of demonstrating indifference to it.
1 Like
I understand that the tour guides are an important front face of the university. My own daughter was a tour guide at Brown. And I know very often that teens may size up a school based on their tour guide. I just would strongly encourage any teen to NOT do that and to do a much more thorough tour of the school and to talk to many students who attend, not just one. I’m sorry that this tour guide gave a poor impression. I just don’t think it is indicative as to whether the school is a good fit or not. I’m glad that you will be able to do a more thorough visit on campus and that your teen has not ruled the school out based on that one student. She is wise to remember that experience she had when looking into boarding schools and ultimately being happy at where the landed despite a not so good tour as a perspective applicant.
Agree 100%. She is the customer here, and she’s learning there’s no such thing as the “perfect” school, so she’s bring some healthy maturity to the process. That maturity includes not making snap judgements. Back to the OP, I just thought it was interesting that someone had an experience like ours. That experience was head scratching but not dispositive.
I am not sure how many folks here are saying it’s dispositive…it’s just a data point. And it’s not immature to think this.
As I mentioned, if a business did this to me, I would be out of there in a hurry. Are you saying you would be fine if not treated well at a business?
I suppose it’s all in a spectrum, but mild cursing and not being helpful about a basic question, even if only to say “here’s where you can check”, is odd. We’ve been on many tours for boarding/high schools. and haven’t seen anything but helpful and enthusiastic kids. I can say the same when I went to undergrad and law school visits prior to applying.
If the tables were turned at an interview at college where a student cursed and said “I don’t know” to an interviewer’s basic questions, I don’t think the student would fare well. Maybe the student will get in because of other reasons, but maybe not. The same applies when a student gets the impression from a guide that the student isn’t all that important. It’s an impression and you can certainly get over it, but it is an impression
I’ll cut a college a little more slack on this than I would for a for-profit business, but it would certainly make my family wonder. I wouldn’t rule the college out on this basis alone, but I am certain my DD would factor it in to her overall decision. As a result, I doubt she would rank it as Number 1 with a bullet on her list. And she is very mature.
On edit and upon reading some of the more recent posts in this thread: I think we are all kind of saying the same thing. Don’t discard a school just because of a single bad (or, perhaps, not so great) tour. But I also don’t think you can discard that impression, as it is somewhat of a unique event when this happens.
It’s just one of many things to consider. Also, my comments are definitely not addressed to Tufts, which is a fine school. My comments are directed at any school, not just one.
3 Likes