Oberlin. At the start the guide wouldnt stop talking about how great it was to be near Cleveland. We had just left Cleveland and D thought that it would be great to be far from Cleveland. Then ,half way through, the tour guide spent an un godly amount of time explaining the virtues of a “green” building. (Apparently it was made of wheat grass and soy?) D just took off and we followed. After that she insisted we leave before her audition.
@redpoodles, the only tour we left early was at the school my D now happily attends. It was a stop along the way to a fun weekend trip in the city and we were all anxious to get back on the road.
@musicamusica, LOL. My daughter and I toured Oberlin last summer and to me, proximity to Cleveland is the least attractive aspect of that school. Unfortunately.
It was too too bad. I am from the mid west and had always dreamed of going to Oberlin (but we could not afford it!) I thought that D would love it. But no. Not at all.
The Michigan faithful will be unhappy but we weren’t that impressed. Got the pretentious, self important and anxiety inducing there. And we thought the campus was dirty. Yea I know it’s blasphemy
Terrible tour guide at Lafayette. Later we met Laf grads, they all agreed that the tour guides and tour was the worst.
Dang auto correct. Saw this the other day. Auto correct can go to he’ll.
We’re sitting in a campus info session now. It’s killing me.
I took my younger D to visit the University of Michigan (my alma mater). I suggested she should look at a few schools in the Midwest (H and I grew up in the midwest–our kids grew up in MA). Once we got to Ann Arbor and the U of M campus, it was clear she didn’t like anything about it. We left during the walking tour. From Ann Arbor we went to Kenyon College (OH). D liked the campus, but hated the town. Worst tiger parents we encountered were at Vassar. I don’t think any kids asked questions.
The info sessions that annoy me the most are the ones that regurgitate almost verbatim stuff that you easily find on the web site.
I have to give UF credit. We toured after being accepted and they let the accepted students skip the “how to apply” talk. Good form.
Yeah, but people don’t read the website. Haven’t you listened to the questions that are asked? So much is also easily found on the website.
The tour we left early was USC. My D didn’t like the location (neither did we) and we were worried about hitting traffic going home, so we left part way through the tour.
Some of you mention Oberlin and it reminded me of our Oberlin visit where the young woman giving the tour was extremely nervous and she also skipped instead of walked through the entire tour - big, giant, bouncy skips. I felt like we were touring with Tigger. We wound up staying because so many other people left the group that the group became really small and it would have seemed to obvious and rude at that point.
Some schools really need to do a better job of managing their college visit process.
^^ I felt like we were touring with Tigger." Thanks I needed that laugh!
We desperately wanted to cut out of the Lafayette tour because our guide was spending waaaay too much time at each stop. We spent 20 minutes on the lawn of some fraternity. At one point we were 45 minutes in to our 60 minute tour and had only seen 25% of the school. Q&A during the tour is nice, but it really slows down the process and most people ask questions that could be easily answered on the website.
HOWEVER, at the conclusion we asked our guide if we could “self-tour” the engineering facilities, because we didn’t have time during the regular tour. She was so kind and generous that she took us there herself and spent almost an hour showing us around the building. That really made the difference.
Although we didn’t skip the rest of the tour, we could have at a small, elite liberal arts school. The tour guide was bringing us to her dorm room, but then said the parents needed to wait in the lobby because it was a Saturday morning. I sat down and didn’t think twice about it. My daughter was shell shocked when she came back downstairs-- the tour guide went on and on about how her boyfriend slept over, could be in her bed naked, wasn’t answering her texts, etc.-- welcome to college!
Still drives me crazy . . . I have no patience.
D got into the car after meeting with a department member at Miami U and said “let’s get out of here”…very little diversity observed after over an hour on campus and a campus that was “too” picture perfect and flat out in the middle of nowhere => NOT a good match. We left and didn’t look back!
Brown University…our guide did not have a clue and after 20 minutes of standing in hard rain merely yards from shelter (in several different spots and despite other parents asking to move under) we went right when they went left lol. It didn’t hurt that I saw my car a few blocks down the street at that point. At Hampshire, we didn’t even make the tour, we were driving onto campus and just never stopped. My daughter described the parts of campus that we did see via car “hideous”.
Conn College. My kid attended a class, then did an interview, then we were partway through the tour. She whispered, “Mom, reminds of a summer camp for bored rich kids – no way am I going here – can we leave?” (Sorry to any Conn College fans, but that was really her impression). It was the only time we left early. Although we skipped a planned visit at Yale because it poured rain, and it was not a realistic school for that kid at all – but since it was only planned in our minds, there was no way to register, it didn’t matter to anyone.
Duke-- we toured the engineering program with a great student tour guide… but when he described f his social life as centered aroung hackathons- she decided it wasn’t her tribe. Skipped the university tour that we had scheduled later that day.
Case Western - everything on paper
seemed like a great fit but the unhappy admitted students day hosted by a seemingly pissed off Admission person, topped by a weird dorm visit and more glum student tour guides…wow. It was depressing.
Bucknell - looked good on paper but literally in the middle of nowhere! Snuck out of info session and headed back towards Philly.
Princeton - I didn’t go, but DD was on a group tour over Spring Break with classmates and everyone in the group said info session was the most boring they’ve ever been to and not one kid wanted to stick around for the tour.