How does one “measure” the vibe of a college while taking a campus tour. By getting on property, the goal is to see if you can “see yourself” in that environment. In my eyes, this is one of the more important aspects of my college decision. I was wondering if anyone could offer any advice of how they determine the campus feel while on a tour?
Try not to overthink it and trust your own feelings. Other than that, the concrete advice I can think of is to take practice tours at colleges that don’t necessarily interest you (ideally there are a few such schools near where you live). The idea is to get used to the format and rhythms of college tours so that when you visit colleges in which you are truly interested, you aren’t distracted by the mechanics of the tour and can more easily take in the vibe.
Try to leave yourself time to wander around campus, separate from the tour & info session. Eat in the student dining hall, sit in the coffee shops, watch students as they walk between classes. Attend classes and observe how the students and prof interact. Look at the posters/flyers tacked up on bulletin boards. Pick up the school newspaper (or read it online).
As @Otterma said above, you will become better at discerning after you have visited a few colleges, so keep an open mind about the first ones.
Have fun!
It is hard to describe but you will get a feel for most of the schools. Eating in the dining hall was a great indicator, you see how people group themselves and overhear conversations. When we toured, we would see how many students wore shirts with the school name, how the student tour guides interacted with each other, how many other students greet the tour guide as you pass them, what student events are being advertised for the next weekend, etc.
As an example, on one campus where S got a little turned around, the student he asked for directions didn’t just point the way but walked him back to admissions office. This was after we had experienced very kind students going out of their way to be helpful on an earlier visit. These small interactions convinced S that students cared about each other and that this was the right campus for him.
At some level, it’s always going to be a bit random – you may ask a particularly helpful person for directions (and get a great impression ) or you may enter the dining hall with a team (and feel it’s really clique-y). If you were to visit within the first week or two and meet freshmen, that would be different than visiting the week before exams.
The advice above is good. If you can attend a class, watch how the students interact with each other as they come and go. If you can have a cup of coffee in the student union, do that. Eat in a dining hall. At some places, you may just not be able to see yourself there. Others may feel exciting.
We also left ourselves more time before and after the official tours. We tried to eat in the dining halls whenever possible, spend time in the library, and would often just try talking to students (not working for admissions). DD also sat in on some classes when she could.
Sometimes the differences were striking. One T20 we visited right before exam week and DD sat in on classes. The vibe was super laid back, very collaborative, and the prof went by her first name. Stark contrast to a different T20 where students seemed super stressed out, everyone was talking about competition, and kids in the library looked near tears.
Just be observant and attentive to what’s going on outside your official tour!
It’s funny, my oldest kid (now a college junior) liked the first 6 places we toured on a weeklong trip her junior year. She had seen a couple more places a couple of years earlier so these weren’t even the first 6 tours she’d been on. I started wondering if there was any point to the trip since she liked everything and no one place stood out more than the others. Then we got to the 7th place and she hated it, and she disliked #8 as well, although not as much as #7. We didn’t have time on this trip to hang around campus for lunch in most places so it really was just snap judgment based on the tour/info session itself. She did a repeat visit to her top 3 places for admitted student days a year later to spend more time.
Good point to go back to the top choices. My daughter went back to three schools as well - her top reach, top match, and top safety.
Does the atmosphere and general observable behavior of the students and staff make you feel welcome or separate. Are they upbeat or super focused. Friendly or a bit more aloof. Playing frisbee and football or hackysack and fortnite. Are the kids wearing baseball caps and sweats or a bit more polished for class. Can you see yourself fitting in, making friends and enjoying four years there. That’s what they mean by vibe.
Thinking about this a little more… you can get the demographics out of a book like the Princeton Review or from the schools’ websites, but things like - gee, almost everyone on campus A is white vs campus B has a diversity that’s much more in line with the US population. Campus C has a clear LGBT presence on campus and the tour guide mentioned where the LGBT resource center is vs at Campus D there was no mention or I saw a rainbow flag in one window but that was it. At Campus E I could see 10 restaurants in walking distance to campus and groups of kids heading out to lunch, while at F it’s more isolated and everyone eats at one of 2 dining halls on campus for most meals and at G there’s a Panda Express and Starbucks on campus as well as 5 other chain restaurants on top of the standard dining halls because campus is huge and spread out. At Campus H a lot of the tour is spent talking about the football team and the Greek system plus how everyone plays intramurals and btw here’s our brand new athletic facility and climbing wall and entire room of Heisman trophies 
and at Campus J they chuckle for a minute when they mention that their division 3 football team won one game last year but let’s talk about how we all borrow cafeteria trays and go sledding every time it snows more than an inch…
People can tell you what to look for to assess a college’s friendliness, school spirit, LGBT attitude, safety, or ease of movement around campus. But the vibe is exactly that which you don’t consciously TRY to measure or look for…it’s that undefinable, unexplainable X factor that finds you, rather than you finding it.
Years ago, when touring a school that had recently gone coed, a relative noted how her female tour guide interacted with the guys they encountered on campus and how the guys looked at them on the tour. She concluded that she did not have the right demeanor to be part of that "pioneering " group of women on that campus. At another school, “too many birkenstocks”. Off the list they came. There are so many schools out there that there’s no reason to twist yourself into liking one that feels wrong.
It’s also not unusual for a kid who has done a fair amount of research and picked schools that are similar (i.e., rural LAC) to like most of them.
Oversimplification but this was S’s experience comparing two schools:
William & Mary - beautiful day in the spring. Many kids sitting alone or in very small groups (2 or 3) reading , lying out, etc. on the Sunken Garden. Serene and calm / peaceful. Not a lot of talking going on. People in their own space.
Wake Forest - similar type day. Lots of people out in larger groups, more social, frisbee group, soccer group. Definitely livelier than W&M (that day)
Gave him the sense that Wake was more social. Hard to gauge by an afternoon but he spent a few hours after tours, walking around, taking pictures of both beautiful campuses, etc.
^ Fast forward to move in day sophomore year. Of course everyone excited to reconnect. Soccer home opener (we stayed around for that) and Wake set an attendance record of roughly 5k in stadium and another 1500 fans watching form the “hill” which includes tons of students and members of the community. Lot of chanting and cheering.
It’s that kind of place (which “could” be identified by his pre- admission trips)