<p>Sue22, I agree - those things do color the visit no matter how you slice it. We tried to keep an open mind, given it was just the volunteers, but DS chose not to apply to one of the schools I mentioned, and applied only half heartedly to the other. I wonder how things would have played out, had we been greeted by different people at each school.</p>
<p>@honoraryamom & Sue22: I know that some say not to judge a school by one guide, but IMO, they should be a school’s best and brightest (and I don’t necessarily mean in a purely academic sense). For us, if a guide was “meh”, we generally were “meh” on the school.</p>
<p>Our guide at SAS four autumns ago? None other than current senior Megan Hasse, who Charger78 rightly singled out in a recent post on the SAS thread.</p>
<p>In defense of boarding schools and their tour guides and hoping for a good fit between tour guide and prospective student, I know an effort is made to ideally match interests, but it can be exceedingly difficult at times. During the busiest periods of the application season, a school can easily have 30 families or more touring in a given day, 6 days per week. Students are volunteering to give up their one free block during the day to give a tour - time when they could be doing school work, visiting with friends, or even catching a quick nap. So, please have patience with your student tour guide. - Parent of a student who has given tours for 4 years 
</p>
<p>I have not had a tour guide that was bad. Most of them talked to my mom and not to me so I made an effort to kind of push past her to get conversation going. A few of my guides talked to me, which made it so much easier to hear them and ask questions. </p>
<p>We only had one student guide that was bothersome. She said “like” way too many times. She was also wearing a flip-flop type of shoe and dragged her feet the entire tour. Minor annoyances to be sure, however, the feelings of irritation they generated by the end of the tour were major.</p>
<p>We actually enjoyed our tour. The kids and the parents get separate tours - kids with a student guide and parents with an Admissions officer. It was great. We each saw things semi-tailored to what we needed to find out. Questions (and answers) were equal as we (the family) didn’t compete for specific information. There appeared to be some forethought on the student guide choice as she played one of the sports my kid loves.</p>
<p>Based on some of the stories above, I am beginning to feel like I missed out! :)</p>
<p>The only school that did not match us up with a good tour guide was one of her favorite schools to visit. Everything else was amazing. Admissions did an incredible job at presenting the school to prospective students. We saw an assembly, we interviewed in groups with students and privately, she sat in on a class, we never felt rushed although there were many visitors that day. But the tour guide… she was so lovely and so awful…at one point I actually thought to look for hidden cameras to see if we were being pranked. She couldn’t remember what classes were taught in which building and she forgot which dorm would be the freshman dorm next year. And she giggled the whole way. The kicker was when we finally made it back to admissions, they were quick to let us know how lucky we were to have their best tour guide… I still scratch my head over that one. Great school, though. If my daughter is lucky enough to be accepted, she will have to go for a revisit day, and another tour…</p>
<p>At one school, K2 was paired up with an adorable young lady for his tour guide. At all the schools we toured, he was paired up with male rowers so it was very funny when she announced she played field hockey. When she apologized for the error and asked if she should find someone else, he told her ( as music started to play in his head) it was totally fine. I thought he was going to go out for field hockey for a moment there… Take me to your leader. I honestly don’t think he heard a word she said the entire tour. </p>
<p>A tour where all they talked bout was football and partying. Then the business school was unavailable to tour because of a function on an open house day! When asked specific questions on safety, dorms, the guide ALWAyS came back to where the players lived, and partying tips. Obviously, this guide was not screened! Needless to say, we were unimpressed, and even after another visit felt academics were not taken seriously. Disappointing.</p>
<p>^^ @Momom77 Are you talking about boarding school or college? This thread is about boarding school.</p>
<p>That’s so funny, PhotographerMom, about the “adorable young lady” tour guide! We attended an open house at one prep school when my son was a 7th grader, just so he could see what these schools are like. The tour guide was a beautiful and engaging girl, and I could see my son falling for her. After that, he was wild about that school. But the following year when we when we returned for his interview, the tour guide was a reserved boy. My son lost interest in that school!</p>
<p>It’s amazing how powerful the visits are in the decision making process, and all the tiny (and sometimes not so tiny) moments that can turn the tide. Something the guide did or said, maybe a grouchy AO who ate something bad for breakfast, or even a cold and rainy day. The list is endless. I suppose it’s a good reminder of the importance and vagaries of first impressions (and their frequent unreliability).</p>
<p>First impressions are clearly important, but they shouldn’t solely determine whether you apply to a particular school or not. A lot of things can go wrong during a relatively brief visit. Just as schools shouldn’t form an opinion of you based on a single factor, you shouldn’t form an opinion of a school based on a single visit. You need to do lots of independent research. That’s why CC is such a valuable resource. Even if a school doesn’t thoroughly impress you on a short visit, you may still want to apply. To cast a wider net is one of the most valuable pieces of advice I got from reading CC. The odds of being accepted by one of schools you apply is dramatically increased if you apply to multiple schools. For example, if the probability of acceptance at any one of the schools you applied is 15% and you applied to five such schools, your overall probability of acceptance, assuming all events are independent, increases to 1 - (1 - 15%)^5 or 55.6%!</p>
<p>It’s not a probability, it’s an overall admit rate. </p>
<p>The probabilty of admission of a very poorly qualified, un-hooked applicant will be 0% no matter how many schools applied to. Whereas, the probabilty for Malia Obama will always be 100%. If you average these two candidates together, the overall admit rate is 50%.</p>
<p>One thing that I didn’t like at Choate, despite it being still one of our favorites, was class photos hung on the wall across from the office of dean of students. Basically, for each graduating class, they had one for 4-year seniors and another for all seniors. I’m not sure if this is the case at other schools as well, but why the unnecessary division? </p>
<p>I think whether applying to more schools of similar selectivity would increase one’s odds of being admitted by at least one of them first depends on whether the applicant is <em>well qualified</em> for all these schools. If one is below or barely meets “the average” without hooks, applying more may not help that much (well, there’s always the lottery effect of course). OTOH, a “well qualified” applicant can be turned down by a school just because the school has more than enough of candidates with similar strengths. In that case, by applying to more schools one gains the opportunities to be considered by multiple schools that may have different agenda for the year and need different types of talents for the incoming class, and therefore their chance of getting admitted by one of them increases. Another factor is FA need, which makes things more complicated and just makes it harder in general. </p>
<p>SharingGift: I know of at least several prep schools that takes separate photos for the group of four-year seniors. I guess there’s just something about having all journeyed together as a group from Day One?? I don’t think its meant to be divisive, but I can see how it might offend some. </p>
<p>Die Hard/ Four Year Status is a big deal to some people. I remember asking a friend why she held her daughter back in 9th and she said her daughter wanted four year status. I suspect mom wanted it, too. </p>
<p>Yes, probability is different from admit rate and you have to estimate you own probability of acceptance at each of the schools you applied to. The admit rate would be a good starting point to estimate this probability. Are you an average (or below or above average) applicant? FA, hooks, etc. will all affect this probability. Let’s say your estimated probability of acceptance at school 1 is p1, at school 2 is p2, … then your overall probability is, assuming each school makes independent decision based its own set of criteria, 1 - (1-p1)(1-p2)…</p>
<p>Here’s an example how FA affects your admit rate and therefore your probability of acceptance, using Exeter’s FA process (based on information from one of Exeter FA threads here on CC):</p>
<p>FAapply = % of FA applicants (about 63% for Exeter)
FAtarget = % of applicants that are awarded FA (about 45% for Exeter)
AdmitR = overall admit rate
FAadmitR = admit rate for FA applicants
FPadmitR = admit rate for FP applicants</p>
<p>FAadmitR = AdmitR * FAtarget / FAapply
FPadmitR = AdmitR * (1 - FAtarget) / (1 - FAapply)</p>
<p>Using Exeter’s numbers, then
FAadmitR = AdmitR * 71.43%
FPadmitR = AdmitR * 148.65%</p>
<p>Or FPadmitR is more than twice as high as FAadmitR! You can substitute other schools’ numbers to compute their effective admit rates. Again you will need to make adjustments to calculate your own probability (but don’t include the FA factor anymore if your starting point is FAadmitR or FPadmitR).</p>
<p>^^ @GMTplus7 @SharingGift @Benley are in Heaven right now ^^ That’s a compliment @1NJParent!</p>