| #1. Tour guides, please know as much about the school as possible. What division is your sports team? Our tour guide's answer: "I think we might be division 3, I don't know about sports". Any sports. At all. Parent spoke up and said they were division 1 and had just won the big championship.
#2. If it is a big group, stop and wait for everybody and then talk - loudly.
#3. Praise your school. One tour guide kept saying: "We have to tell you this, but it is really stupid." Everything was "stupid".
#4. We saw on the school website that it is "famous" for a certain type of building, fountain, library, telescope, art, whatever, TELL us about it and show it off! Don't just pass it by and expect us to recognize it!
#5. Is there a prospective student or parent who doesn't want to see the housing? Don't tell us that they are ugly, small, dingy, boring, or just like any other school. Show us. One school had a "staged" dorm room set aside just for the tours. We got to see a room and I appreciated that.
#6. Toured one rather famous school and a crazy homeless person decide to take the tour with us (at a distance, but yelling obscenities along the way). This person was rather scary and many parents were upset. I kid you not, the tour guide acted like the person was not there!
Just address the situation. Say something like, oh, yes, we DO have colorful characters here, nothing to worry about. (Then get on your cell phone and call campus security.) |