If they care so little about their tour guides ...

[cromette]

ucbalumnus:

College campus visits were the deciding factor for my kids.

D2 had narrowed her list to two universities - equal in quality of education and both "suitable". So her campus visits were meant to look at:

1. Dorms - she didn't want community baths if it could be avoided
2. Facilities (concert halls, music building mainly, number of practice rooms, etc.)
3. Faculty - approachability, availability, overall "vibe"
4. Type of students - again, just the "vibe"
5. School spirit - feeling of belonging
6. Efficiency - Do the people in charge seem like they "have it together"?
7. Dining - Where is it, how many facilities, quality, range of choices?
8. Religious organizations/churches - What kind, proximity, what are the people like, what are the services like?
9. Town - What is there to do, and what is available off campus? What is the community like?

D3 was much the same. Our policy is to try to go on a Friday morning during the school year. Faculty is more available to talk to, but there is still a lot of campus activity - so you can get the feel of the campus. We would try to spend the night and check out the town the next day, check out the church scene and see if there was someone we could talk to, etc.

Both D2 & D3 made their choices BASED ON campus visit. But not the tour guide - what we actually observed for ourselves during the visit.

[mathmom]

Stevmom, you should start your own thread since most of your questions aren't related to this one.

There is no best time to visit a campus, but I think you are much better off visiting when classes are in session. That way your only impression is not the tour guide.

[Pizzagirl]

... a gum chewing, sorority-sweater-wearing, heavy-eye-lined girl who provided insights like "the foods not really that terrible". Brilliant.

Gum chewing seems inappropriate, but what's wrong with someone wearing a sorority sweater or eyeliner? Is there only one type of acceptable student?

[3girls3cats]

Between two girls and many college visits, we've seen a wide, wide range of tour guides. Some have been remarkable, some have been inarticulate and unfocused. At one school, we actually left one tour mid-tour and joined another because the first guide seemed so ditzy and clueless and the second seemed to be bright and engaged. We've also seen a wide range of quality among adults who run information sessions. One D was terribly affected by the tours and presentations, even to the point where she'd assume she'd never fit in based on a single person's demeanor or where she was offended by a presentation. Other D had a better sense of humor and was more tolerant. Even so, she ended up attending the college where she'd had the best introductory session and guide.

I believe that being a guide is a competitive position but I also think there is a tendency, at least at some schools, including my D's school, to prefer financial aid work/study kids for these positions. I'm not suggesting in any way that these kids are less able! I'm only suggesting that the school has more than one priority in choosing its guides.

[cromette]

We have had multiple tour guides on various campuses - and we usually get a kick out of the ones who we consider a little "different". LOL - they provide for amusing conversation over dinner.

We had one who kept referring to "Cameron".

We'd walk by a bike rack, and she would proceed to tell us about rules concerning bicycles on campus and where racks are located, and then she'd say, "This is where Cameron parks his bike."

And she kept doing that throughout the tour! We all kept looking at each other and saying, "Who the heck is Cameron?" We still joke about it. Sometimes someone in the family will just randomly say, "That's where Cameron likes to eat lunch". or similar - and everyone will bust out laughing.

[Pizzagirl]

To the point about the "heavy eyeliner, sorority girl" - our tour guide at Bryn Mawr was FABULOUS - and she had purple hair and was very theatrical / gothy-looking. My D isn't like that at all, she's much more preppy all-American, but so what? A great tour guide is a great tour guide.

[BeanTownGirl]

SteveMA - You make an excellent point about STEM students. At GWU, after the admission session the tour guides all introduced themselves. There must have been at least 12 of them - NO STEM majors, all were political science, history, international relations majors. Immediate conclusion - this is not where you want to study engineering!
To their credit - they do allow you to visit the engineering building where a nice student gave us a private tour of the facilities and labs (which turned out to be strikes 2 and 3).
And at Union College in NY (which my husband and I liked a lot) my son never got over the tour guide who: used the word AWESOME at least twice per sentence, was an engineering/dance double-major, couldn't get her keycard to open most of the buildings she tried to show us, and who was walking backwards in flip-flops. What engineer would wear flip-flops while walking backwards? Oh yeah, the one who fell over backwards when the laws of physics took hold, and, yes, she was wearing a skirt. I felt bad for her but my son just thought she was an idiot.

[cromette]

BeanTownGirl:

LOL - Awesome! Exactly the kind of experience that builds memories!

Glad they let you tour the engineering building with a separate tour - at least you found the definitive information you were looking for.

At Texas A&M, you have to sign up for campus tours online and schedule your sessions. They have a general welcome session, campus walking tour, dorm tour, and separate tours per major. The slots fill up fast too. Sometimes it's a challenge to get all of the sessions you're interested in for the same day.

[Bay]

Because I learned here on CC about the lasting effect tour guides can have on applicants, I specifically did not take my S on any organized tours on campuses where visiting/demonstrated interest is not considered in the app, like the state u's. We picked up maps and/or walking guides and did those tours ourselves.

[Hunt]

I had the experience of touring the same college twice with different kids--and in some cases, with radically different tour guides. The most extreme case was Columbia--both guides were friendly, informative, and polite--but the first was an extremely flamboyant gay guy, and the second was a sorority girl who looked like a junior Sarah Jessica Parker. I also recall that we had an "outlandish" guide at Amherst--a guy with a lot of piercings (including a paper clip) an weird clothing. In that case, it was a positive for my daughter, who had been worried that Amherst was too preppy for her.

So you can't take away too much from this, at least if the guides are friendly and knowledgeable.

[ucbalumnus]

Originally Posted by rushedmom

I wish the tour guide at the university my D is now attending would have been honest about the food... lol I would have picked the lower cost food plan.

Wouldn't having a meal in the dining hall while visiting be the best way to find out the quality of the food?

[cromette]

Our plan was ALWAYS to eat on campus for lunch and to have a decent dinner in the community somewhere.

That way, the kid gets the actual experience for him/herself.

[Agentninetynine]

We had a wonderful guide at Whitman. He was greeted by so many people across campus I started to wonder if they were plants So far Whitman is at the top of SpyKid1's list.

[blueiguana]

My S2 is in the e'school and we rarely experienced stem tour guides. We never expected his specific major related questions to be answered on a general tour. We always made it a point to visit the e'school department. These were the people he'd be dealing with for four years. Better he get a feel for how things work there then admissions. There were vast differences in how his questions were treated, as well as current students we observed being helped as he waited his turn. Talk about getting a vibe! You're either an irritation to someone's day, just a number, and you can tell you're getting a brush off answer, or you can tell a very organized, well run place were current students are treated respectfully (even when you can tell they've been given the information before), and answers are precise and you have a good feeling they are accurate.

[Agentninetynine]

We went to the state school's open house on Saturday and skipped the fal da ral and went right to the science department tour, giving DD a much more focused look at the college.

Mostly the day was without incident, but I was surprised and disappointed that there were only a very few fast food outlets open on the school's biggest day of the year, resulting in a slow moving and massive line of very hungry teens and their parents. DD and I walked off campus and ate in town.