College tours you snuck away from

Parent Cafe
181

Mom23–I understand that vibe of “We’re great, come join us if you love hard work. We love great people!”
That’s wonderful and inspiring.
But that is different from a very definite " you aren’t good enough even though we don’t know squat about you and we don’t have room anyways so “WE DON’T CARE”.
Gotta know your audience.

I was looking at this UVa person (knowing already that UVa is a great school) saying “Man, she had a BAD afternoon! I hate days like that! I can relate! She needs to have a chance to chill! Not such a good choice to send her here. Maybe go for a drink after the tour?”
Meanwhile: My kid was thinking “I’m not going to this school. No way, no how.”

182

This is my current favorite thread! We’ve had no bad tours, but we sure as heck got a bad response to an effort to GET a tour at one place.

Everyone else at the school was very nice, and the “official tour” and its cheerful pair of guides gave a fine if rather cursory introduction, including the showcase super-neat “dorm room.” But for various reasons S wasn’t able to sit in on a class, even though it was supposed to happen; we were disappointed but understood that yeah, okay, exams were coming and we’d only made the arrangements about 2 weeks before so it sorta fell through … but still, we didn’t feel we were getting a good read on what students were really like. So we asked at a dorm in the part of campus where he’d almost certainly live if there was any chance we could be shown a room. (Actually an admissions counselor suggested we ask at that dorm.) We thought that might be the next best thing to an overnight, which doesn’t seem to be offered there.

The student at the desk said, very nicely, “oh gosh, the student ambassador isn’t here … I’ll ask the RD!” Who turned out to be Nurse Ratched: College Version. She crossed her arms, glared at us and said, “We value our students’ privacy. We only allow guests into the halls on Friday by arrangement.”

We smiled nicely, pointed out that we’d actually come halfway around the world for the visit (ahem, diversity points?), and that of course it might not be possible, but if someone from the dorm just happened to be around and was okay with maybe showing us their room, that’d be great.

Nurse Ratched repeats the bit about “we value our students’ privacy.” She must have said this four or five times. By this time we’re wondering what she’s hiding. Uh, does everything smell like pot, and they have to spray the Ozium before visitors come?

We didn’t have a problem with not being able to see the dorm – we knew it was a spur-of-the-moment request and wasn’t necessarily going to be possible. But there are nice ways to say “no” and nasty ways to say “no.” As we left, my son commented, “Doesn’t she WANT people to come to her school?”

It was too bad, because everyone else was pleasant. Not a deal-breaker, but it wasn’t exactly a great last impression.

FWIW @dfbdfb a messy dorm room wouldn’t have been a turn-off … S has just decided to commit to a college where he did an (enjoyable) overnight, saw some reeeallly messy rooms (even for him, LOL), and thought that was just fine because it’s reality and it made him realize that he actually wants to learn to be rather cleaner himself, ha ha.

In the end, Nurse Ratched’s school was a finalist but didn’t win because S felt he just didn’t have enough of a feel for it. Moral: Warts and all is better than “don’t look behind the curtain!”

183

I wonder if they were a theatre major since there are so many there… glad to hear Muhlenberg is still winning people over nine years after we toured and D decided to go there (honestly, I think it was her sitting in on an acting class and a musical rehearsal that sold her, though). D has not been back since graduating in 2011, but is going this weekend for an a cappella group reunion weekend and is excited about being back with a lot of people who became her second family while she was there.

184

@teriwtt Muhlenberg: The only college with a memorable (in a positive way) info session. It was amazing—hilarious, and yet still informative and a good sales job. Seriously, the guy who does them should do standup.

This reminds me of our info session at Lafayette, but in our case the guys routine didn’t work. He clearly was a frustrated actor wannabe. Spent most of the time parading around the stage talking about himself. It was so bad, my H actually drafted a letter to send the to college president, telling him how awful and uninformative it was (he didn’t send it). Tour was also blah, with a low energy guide who couldn’t answer basic questions. The whole thing was a big turn off for my D and she crossed it off the list immediately. That being said, I don’t think you can always judge a school by the adcom/tour guide. I do think Lafayette has a lot to offer and think if we had seen it on a different day we could have had a different impression.
Contrast that with American, where the adcom was delightful and gave great tips about the process and the tour guide was fun, funny and articulate, yet we found little to like about the school

185

I have to tell a story about Muhlenberg. We visited for an interview during snowmaggedon16 and got stranded on campus with nowhere to stay and no way to leave. After an afternoon of problem solving, we told the student employees at the info desk in the student union that we were going to crash there that night. (We didn’t want to get thrown out). They escalated the situation through their contacts. That evening, the dean of admissions called my cell phone to offer us a place in the guest house on campus, and they had a public safety officer give us a ride to the building. He also had to shovel the walk so we could get in. They were SO concerned and welcoming. I couldn’t believe it.

The next morning we still couldn’t get the car out of the lot. We were rescued by a fraternity brother and two of his visiting friends. They had us out in no time, and while they were shoveling, he asked my D if he could answer any of her questions about the school.

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^^^ :: sigh ::

I really wish the Muhlenberg thread was more active so people would be more inclined to tell these stories (more readers) and more people would learn what a wonderful place it is.

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I had the same impression (and ptsd flashback to my 80s tour of UVA) but beware, that adcom (actually head of admissions i believe) jumped out on a thread like this and asked me how I could’ve interpreted her in that way. Eek!

188

Didn’t leave the Johns Hopkins tour but was mightily unimpressed. (First there was the info session in which everyone assembled in the auditorium we’d been directed to … only to have a rep come in and shoo us out and tell us they’d decided to switch rooms … and buildings … that day).

My techie DS did not relate at all to the preppy, perky social science major tour guide … who went on and on about lacrosse victories. We weren’t allowed to look inside engineering buildings that day, as engineering had its OWN special tour on a different day. DS sat in on two classes (from the published guide of classes that students were invited to visit) and found that one was a review session led by a TA and the other was a sparsely attended lecture by a grumpy professor who let them out early.

This was early on in our college-looking process, and we were baffled that such a world-class university would show itself so poorly. DS decided not to apply.

189

It always surprises me that some schools leave such an important job (selling the school) to an unprepared and ill-equipped current student. I can clearly remember being on an accepted student tour at Fairfield with five other families. Some quick math 40,000/year x 4 years x 6 students = almost 1 million potential dollars. We were shown a powerpoint presentation by the admissions office and handed off to a freshman tour guide. He took us to a dark, dimly lit dorm to start the tour. We followed that up with the beautiful chapel. On the way to the impressive library we were told we might have to run if the turkey vultures that hang out there started to get aggressive. He wasn’t kidding. Next was the cafeteria where our feet stuck to the tile floor. We cut out, as did most of the others on the tour.

190

We left the University of Maryland tour. The speaker and the tour guide were putting us to sleep. Worst tour ever!

191

My D and her roommate - both tour guides - have this AMAZING decorated and vibrant dorm room - the room itself is pretty nice but they decorate it monthly and seasonally for the holidays, seasons, etc. from “head to toe” - including their outer door and walls. It’s quite amazing and inviting! D got permission from the admissions office to can visiting the “standard university staged dorm room” and shows her tours her room instead - from her response, parents and especially prospective girl visitors are ready to sign on the dotted line after they see what a dorm room CAN look like!

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@abasket That sounds great. My sons room is horrible. Cerment block walls and soda cans and laundry all over the floor. :slight_smile:

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I know one college that pays kids willing to show their dorm room on tours. It has to be neat obviously, on the day of the tour. And the offer is only for certain frosh dorms (the newer ones).

One school I have toured 2x always shows a “model” dorm room that no one lives in. Kids i know at that school say their own dorms are not nearly as nice, it’s sort of a running joke there.

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@teriwtt I completely agree. I have been trying to make the board more active by attempting to answer questions. My daughter attends and just loves it. I wish Muhlenberg would have students actively monitor cc to answer questions about Muhlenberg. It is such a gem.

195

Back in the 80s I used to give admissions tours as a work-study job. We were allowed a lot of leeway, and by the time I graduated my favorite technique was to walk on to a freshman floor and say “Pick a door.” (It was an all-guys school, so not as scary as it could have been.) We’d knock and you never quite knew what you were going to get, but it was always honest: clean rooms impressed the moms, post-apocalyptic disasters with Heather Locklear posters got dads laughing and the kids in the room would just shrug and say “Welcome to college.”

196

In 2006 I took my oldest on a tour of our local Community College. Each stop went something like this:

This is Ryan Hall. There are classrooms there. Any questions?
This is the cafeteria. There’s food there any questions?
This is the library. There are a lot of books there. Any questions?

I’m not sure if we actually stepped inside any of these buildings. The tour probably lasted about 20 minutes…

197

As far as modern tour stories go, Carleton was terrible. My D16 and I were a couple minutes late for our appointment so we joined the tour on the front steps of the admissions house. We were surprised to see a classmate there who also used the day off from school to run down to Northfield. I think the guide was new to the role, but there was no chance experience was going to bridge the gulf between her and the group.

Describing the two hockey rinks in the middle of the quad “They play broomball there in the winter. Broomball is like, well, I guess you’d say quiddich.” Yes, two kids from St Paul and one from Boston and you need to explain broomball without a hockey analogy. Hmm.

Her shtick was to ask just about every kid walking past “What’s the best thing about Carleton?” And literally five or six said “The people. No wait, that’s not a very Carleton answer. I can do better.” And then each offered some other opinion. But they used those exact same words, and it happened all over the campus. (Except the gyms, which were not on the tour at all. This was a notable disappointment to my rather athletic daughter. We asked about it and went back later.)

Both the girls thought all the kids they talked to were way too impressed with being at Carleton. They credited being nice to one another and saying Hi as a Carleton thing rather than any kind of a broader midwest thing. They didn’t know anything about the town, and didn’t seem to leave campus much and were pretty self-absorbed. It’s been a common experience, I guess, since Naviance says it’s been almost ten years since her large private high school in the Twin Cities has sent anyone there.

198

Back in 1971, I borrowed the Radcliffe interviewer’s phone to call the MIT admission office to arrange an appointment… in the middle of the interview. While on the phone, asked the Radcliffe interviewer how long it would take to get to MIT by subway: “twenty minutes.” Made the appt for half an hour later. Left the interview without finishing it. Both my sisters went to Radcliffe, and when I asked the interviewer why she liked Radcliffe, she said “I don’t know, I just loved it.” So I decided to follow my sisters’ advice and interview with MIT instead. Loved MIT and went there instead.

In 2002, when DD and I were looking at colleges, she wrote “this place sucks” on her hand during the group session at Vassar. I stood up and said “oh my god, I left the car lights on” and we both walked out in the middle of the session.

199

^^Just wow

200

We visited Mudd in the summer and S1 spent half an hour talking to Art Benjamin. Awesome place. S went out there three times (including as part of family vacation) and had an excellent experience every time.