<p>Ucba…wouldn’t those be questions you might ask at the info session? </p>
<p>At my kids school…they would have special tours for certain departmental wannabes… They would have an engineering tour for example. That would include a more in depth look at those facilities than the regular tour.</p>
<p>Any student who wanted to meet with departmental personnel was able to schedule a meeting…but this was NOT the tour guide’ s responsibility.</p>
<p>At one school, on admitted student day, they had a separate residence hall tour, and school was in session. But I don’t think they run those normally. One option to see dorm rooms is to do a search on YouTube. Just plug in the name of a college and you will not only see students showing off their rooms but a variety of other interesting stuff–how many show up at basketball games, a Capella performances, drunks at keggers, and offbeat unofficial tours of the “real” college. I even found a video (actually a super 8 made into a video) of someone’s freshman move in day from 1969!</p>
<p><a href=“UMass Amherst Freshman year - Sept 1969 - YouTube”>UMass Amherst Freshman year - Sept 1969 - YouTube;
<p>If you want to see a res hall room, you can politely ask a current student. The worst you can get is a no, and when students asked me off-the-record (i.e., when I was NOT leading a tour - I could get in trouble for doing this when I was leading a tour) if they could see my room, I was always happy to show them. Then again, I kept my room relatively tidy as a college student.</p>
<p>I agree with seeing academic buildings/classrooms, the library, the student center, at least one cafeteria. If your student has a special interest, ask for that too (the theater, the black box, music practice rooms, the gym, art studio, etc.) You may also want to specifically ask about the availability of study spaces and ask how crowded they are at peak times (we have a reasonable number of study spaces at my university but they are ALWAYS CROWDED in the evenings, and especially on Sundays. You can have a hard time getting a carrel in the more popular libraries).</p>
<p>I also think that students (maybe with their parents) should spend some time exploring outside of the officially sanctioned tour. I was a tour guide for my college and we have to stick to the party line, you know - only taking you in sanctioned buildings, no res hall, being brightly positive about the school, etc. If you walk around on your own, most of our buildings (at both my undergrad and my grad) are open to the public. For the few that aren’t (student center and libraries), you can ask security for a guest pass to enter. Plus you can talk candidly to some students who are far more likely to give you what they really think about the school.</p>
<p>Most tours I’ve been on with my son and daughter included a dorm room visit. However, as expected (!!), the dorms they ended up in were both quite different from the one shown at their choosen schools. I felt the biggest benefit was my kids being able to get a feel for what dorm life would be like. Just looking around as we entered and walked thru was educating for them.</p>
<p>One of the best tips I can give is to pick up the student newspaper while on the tour (most student newspapers are also online, so you can view more than just the one available during your tour). That and just looking around while on the tour will give you the best impression of what the school is like. </p>
<p>Talking with the tour guide after the tour is also helpful (having a tour guide stick around after the tour can be a good indication of how much that person really likes the school and not just acting as tour guide for the money). Classes vary depending on who is teaching the class, so hard to get a real feel there. Admission briefings are really sales pitches.</p>
<p>Funny story: I wanted to get my daughter to get a feel of what a college tour was like so we went on one while on vacation in New England (we live in CA but with ties to MA). Did it so she would have no pressure as the college wasn’t on her radar at the time. She actually liked it enough to apply and was accepted. She ended up going there and is currently a sophomore and still loves it.</p>
<p>About the NYU thing - on the welcome weekend recently they showed us several current student’s room, people who volunteered to share their rooms. They also redid a couple of the dorms recently.</p>
<p>Many colleges I know of have some type of dorm tour for ADMITTED students, but not for prospectives.</p>
<p>I think all tours should be like Colgate’s - they give out chipwich ice cream sandwiches at the end!</p>
<p>^^ Now that is some good marketing.</p>
<p>Her second year, D shared a fantastic dorm room, partly because she drew a high lottery number and got first choice. It was large, had 3 closets for 2 students, and a fireplace. It was also on the ground floor on the corner of a building close to the front door. In addition, D and her roommate were neat freaks, so their room was almost always picture perfect.</p>
<p>As you might imagine, their friends in Admissions frequently asked if they could use their room on their tours. However, even when students are willing to have their dorm room viewed, they had to coordinate to make sure they were there, awake, and not in the process of dressing/undressing, etc. They didn’t give tour guides the key to their room, and at least one of them was present during the tour. They also wanted to make sure no one tried to pick up any souvenirs of their tour while in their room, since all their belongings are there.</p>
<p>They coordinated and allowed tours when convenient, but are in college to study, take classes, go to work study jobs, etc., so obviously weren’t available for tours of every prospective student.</p>
<p>The most memorable dorm room tour I remember happened on a tour at Amherst in 2008. It was a Saturday morning, and the guide knocked on the door of the room that had been previously arranged. “Come in,” said a sleepy voice. “It’s the tour,” warned our guide. “Mmmph,” said the voice. The guide turned to us and said “It’s ok - just walk really quietly: he’s asleep.” So all 25 of us poked our heads into the room and tiptoed away without disturbing the resident.</p>