@TheStig2 Funny, because we had the greatest tour guide at Bucknell; she was incredible, and we all loved it! I wanted to leave during our Duke tour because, not only was it about 103 degrees, but our tour guide was terrible. A very nice person, but not a good tour guide. However, D16 really liked it.
We left a tour at a large 35K+ students public OO school. It was so overwhelmingly big. Her college within the U. was so big and impersonal and DD just sat down and refused to continue. It was out of state; but we did randomly run into someone we knew. She’s ending up at a small LAC with 1200 kids with a very personalized department for her major.
UPenn. Raining, 1.5 hour tour where we couldn’t enter any buildings (dorm, library, dining hall etc.), homeless guy joined the tour for awhile. Guide was from Lebanon and loved his school but whenever he was asked his favorite things they circled back to Lebanon. Favorite things about the school = students so nice to people from Lebanon. Favorite activity = going out for Lebanese food. The kicker was when someone asked if Penn gives credit for AP classes and he said yes, if you get a 5 or 6 on the exam. Asked to repeat himself he reiterated that a 6 was a thing. In our house my daughter still refers to that score as “the elusive 6.”
Duquesne. We actually went on the whole tour, but as a part of every visit, the college student was scheduled for a private session with an admissions officer. D knew she didn’t want to go there, so no need to have the visit. We called to cancel during the tour.
We live in Texas and among 3 kids, we had a lot of visits in hot hot weather. Why oh why oh why do the tour guides stop to chat with the group in the full sun? Aren’t the tour guides smart enough to seek shade?
I have to admit, these are pretty fun to read.
My wife and I don’t have any kids, but speaking for myself, I cut 4 out of my 5 college tours short – USC, UCSD, Cal Poly, and UCD. There was just something that turned me off on every single one of them (UCD was the worst), usually it was the tour guides or just the overall vibe. Our last stop was at Embry-Riddle Prescott, and I ended up loving every second of it there. By the end of the tour I didn’t even want to go home!
for those of you that left Case Western’s tour early, you dodged a bullet. we loved the art and the buildings and it was a beautiful day, but after 1.5 hours straight and about ten miles covered… at the end of the tour our (very cute) guide informed us that he was on the track team…really??? guess what, none of the rest of us were superfit track stars. but we survived. the 17 year old didn’t like it but the 10 year old really did…
@porcupine98 Although our 1st tour was in dreadful weather, I thought the info session was probably one of the best ones we sat thru. Very thorough & told us exactly what they were looking for in a student.
We loved our Georgetown tour! I wrote in and complimented the tour guide, he was so good. Just goes to show …
We did not leave any tours even though D didn’t want to stay very long at Hendrix (and neither did I actually). I thought it would be rude to leave after they planned an entire day for her. We now know better and won’t waste time if she isn’t interested shortly after arriving.
I skipped out part way through the Columbia tour because it was pouring rain and one of those Upper West Side gales was blowing. We did the info session, and H and S finished the tour, and S went to a class. Our usual drill. He didn’t apply, though. Said it was just too urban for him. But he was ready for bright lights, big city by the time grad school rolled around and he went to the J school: loved everything about it.
That was the only tour any of us actually skipped out on, although when S and I toured Tufts it was so incredibly hot and humid that I whimpered when we had to leave an air-conditioned building. Luckily the tour guide was smart enough to make is stopping point indoors! 
The Stanford tour is like this, too. My D2 would have left early if I had let her.
We loved the Harvard tour! Maybe because we were one of those families taking the tour for the heck of it while on a summer vacation with a youngster only beginning high school, so there were no pressures or worries associated with it, but I came away wondering how anyone could NOT want to attend there! And we did the whole thing, the admissions session and the campus tour!
^^^ It’s designed for a tourist as much as a prospective applicant. I don’t really blame them. FWIW the tour guides were very nice and approachable and not snobby at all (none of it was snobby). They did the best they could with the masses of people who showed up for it (our day, at least). It’s more about the lore of the school than about what you would actually do there, and where you would actually do it (inside!) or who you would do it with (professors!). We came away feeling a bit shut out of the real stuff–but I do respect that they protect their students and staff from the constant masses.
@intparent wrote “Bryn Mawr used to have an awful secretary in admissions when D1 visited – older woman who was quite grim.”
I immediately got a picture in my head of Roz from Monsters, Inc. “Always watching you, Wazowski!”
FWIW, the minute either daughter said “I don’t like it here” we’d bounce from the tour.
UMASS Amherst was awful! The address given for the info session was about a half mile from where we were supposed to be, but we had parked and were running late, so we really booked it walking to the session ( plenty of parking right near there) My D didn’t really like it just driving through the campus, said she didn’t like it but wanted to do the tour anyhow.
The info session was horrid, so much really basic info from the website, a lot of time spent on the nursing program (there was a separate session for that), the outfit/costume of the admissions guy doing the info session was interesting. The campus was pretty grim, nothing like the other places we visited (Va Tech, UCONN, U of New Hampshire, App State), D kept saying how awful it was, I kept asking if she wanted to leave but she would’t. I so wish she had.
I think there is so much luck of the draw with the tour guide. We loved our Georgetown tour, best one we did. Our worst was actually at a small LAC where we had a private tour guide in the summer. He was a nice guy but despite it being just us (with a 2 prospective students) he never asked their interests of tailored the tour for them in any way. We even tried to help him out (it was our alma mater) with statements like “Isn’t the music department in that building D is interested in music” and he would say “Oh yeah, I don’t know anything about that”. When we got to the newly redone sports facility he asked us if we were interested in sports because he could do the extended tour of the facility or the quick tour. We said quick tour or skip it all together as we had no interest in that area. He looked really disappointed and said I’ll just do the quick tour then. 45 minutes later we were finally done with the sports facility.
Fast forward a year and a half, D has decided to attend the school (despite the tour guide) and we go to a local streamed basketball game alumni event. Turns out our tour guide is the star basketball player.
Amen. Such a simple thing to do, send 4 guides in 4 directions, or at least 2. And yet NO school we visited did that.
Another vote (sadly) for Case. Student tour guide was awful. Crisscrossed the campus and intersecting (busy) streets multiple times. I don’t like info sessions, but this one was duller than most. It was 90+ degrees and they ran out of water (this was one of those Preview Days when we were supposed to be there for 4 straight hours so this was actually not as petty a complaint as it seems now that I am typing it). Like @amandakayak said, the school looked great on paper–but in reality, not so much.
But after we skipped out, we had wonderful Margerita pizza and gelato in the Italian neighborhood nearby, so there’s that.
We skipped out halfway through the tour of the state flagship. It didn’t get off to a great start as the tour guide was late and introduced himself as a 5 year business major. He then proceeded to talk non-stop about football. Even our son who is an avid fan of this team was annoyed.
The info session at UCSB was large, unorganized and the questions and info were readily available on the website. The campus is beautiful but DD could not get out of there fast enough.
I wanted to leave USD about 5 minutes after we got on campus but we stuck it out, even eating at lovely restaurant on campus. DS and I both hoped it would get better but it didn’t. Wish now we had not wasted the time.
Between this thread and the other ones about tours, I"m seriously considering having the kids do NO guided tours and just meet with the dean of whatever department they are interested in, and walk around on their own…