<p>It occurs to me that the only colleges we've toured are on the small side, as son is adamant that he doesn't want to go to a huge college. The largest campus we've toured so far is Emory.
I think my son should at least <em>look</em> at UF or FSU, even though he says he doesn't want to go to a school with approx 50K students. Question: how do they even conduct a campus tour when the campus is huge and spread out? Do the tours take longer? Do you see less of the campus and more of it ends up being a self-guided tour? The other small schools we've toured have all been very informative, detailed walking tours where we were able to pretty much cover the campus.</p>
<p>To be honest, it’s a lot more walking and a bit less talking.</p>
<p>definitely longer, you probably don’t get to se all of campus, the people in back can’t hear the tour guide, more sense of ‘move fast or get left behind’</p>
<p>Did you come away with the impression that you’d gotten a good ‘feel’ for the university, or did you feel as if you’d barely scratched the surface? We’ve been spoiled on our tours of small colleges with lots of one on one between the student and the tour guides, individual meetings with admission counselors afterward, etc. etc.</p>
<p>the overwhelming feel for me was ‘big’. there was no one-n one anything, but i don’t know if that had to be arranged beforehand. admissions presentation was very general-most info could be found on the website</p>
<p>Two hours and a lot of walking and not as much in depth touring. I just toured a giant, U Wisconsin. With some schools with split campuses, you only see the main one. Also some of the smaller schools have spread out, big campuses and so it’s not just the size in terms of student number but the actual area that makes the difference. </p>
<p>I 've toured big universitites before but UWi, though all in one location are was huge in area as well.</p>
<p>We had a good tour at UNC-CH; excellent guide and relatively small group. But think that’s one of the smaller state universities. </p>
<p>If you’re able to pick your own tour group, look for the smallest one regardless of what letter of the alphabet your name starts with. They won’t be checking ID’s ;)</p>
<p>There is actually a section on this website (Campus Vibe) where you can get a rundown of what visits were like at various schools.</p>
<p>Penn State was great. Maybe a bit biased becuase I’m going there, but my prospective student tour went as followed: We got there and they ushered us into a large conference-type room in the admissions office, our group had about 200 people total. They talked for about an hour on admissions, what they’re looking for, etc. Then they split us up into groups of about 15-20 and each group had 2 current student tour guides to show us around. We covered most of the campus in about ~45 minutes. Some things we didn’t get to see in the interest of time, but everything important was. People asked questions, and there didn’t seem to really be any rush. Depending on what time your tour is, you either eat a free lunch in the freshman dining hall before or after the tour. </p>
<p>It felt pretty personal for a school of 40,000</p>
<p>You really should tour FSU (or UF if he wants to go into Engineering), just for the experience. It will give you something to compare with all of the small schools, and as an Alumni, you’ll have fun seeing the old campus. :)</p>
<p>I really recommend you attend one of the optional information sessions offered by some colleges, departments or programs. These will give you a lot more detail information (vs the general info session/tour). Check the FSU calendar to see when they are available. At UF we did the engineering school tour, and it was great; we spent most of our time talking with the engineering students.</p>
<p>[FSU</a> Visitor Center | Visit Suggestions](<a href=“FSU Visitor Center | Error 404 page not found”>FSU Visitor Center | Error 404 page not found)</p>
<p>We have toured a number of big schools, including Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. There tend to be around 20 people per tour group and we always self-assigned to the group led by someone who shared academic interest with my son – avoiding the engineering or business student and going with the humanities/social science student.</p>
<p>Most of the big schools have specialized info sessions you can do, in addition to general admissions session. We always signed up for the Letters and Science info session – at Illinois, that turned out to be 45 minute one-on-one with Letters and Science undergrad advisor (to my som’s chagrin). </p>
<p>Tours cover highlights, may or may not include going into a dorm, etc. wear comfortable shoes, as you are likely to cover lots of ground!</p>
<p>Tour of UMASS-Amherst: two tour guides working together with over 50 people on the tour. Student had to keep up to the front to hear. My wife and I joked that it gives you the feel for the school because you have to be aggressive to gain access to scarce resources. Meanwhile, guys in cars are driving by yelling stuff at the tour group about how much we’d be spending so that our kids could get wasted. I think we got a great feel for the school. We were all in a good mood and kind of liked it. </p>
<p>Wisconsin-Madison (twice) - very well organized, smaller group pretty good feel for the school. A lot more OOS students. </p>
<p>Pitt - somewhere between the two. Pitt is a very loud campus because of all of the traffic running by in the city streets. Smallest dorm room I’ve ever seen, shaped like a pizza slice. It was a double but I joked that it was a quad and some other parents believed me. Not overcrowded tour.</p>
<p>University of Michigan: very well organized, large info session, then you break into pre-assigned small groups (assigned when you check in before info session) of about 20 for tours. Multiple tour guides have unique pre-arranged routes so groups are not tripping over each other. You generally need to sign up for tours and info sessions online in advance so they can control the numbers and schedule an appropriate number of tour guides. The standard tour covers only Central Campus, so you don’t really see the South Campus (Athletic Dept facilities), Medical Campus (med school and hospitals, not of much interest to most prospective undergrads), or North Campus (engineering, music, and some residence halls are located there, a shuttle bus away) but you can explore these on your own if you like. There are also separate North Campus walking tours leaving from a North Campus location, and the engineering school offers its own Segway tour on selected dates in the spring and summer. </p>
<p>The standard tour is long enough to give you a pretty good feel for Central Campus, where most undergrads will spend most of their time. Because of the way the campus is broken down into four discrete units, it doesn’t feel nearly as big as it is when you’re on Central Campus.</p>