Had I had my way, we would have toured only a few schools but my D insisted that we tour AND sit for the info sesion at every school we visited (I’d guess 25). I think she kept hoping something would jump out at her and make the decision for her and yet nothing did lol. Even when she made her final decision, after months and months of soul-searching, visits, spreadsheets, etc. she still wasn’t completely satisfied that she made the right choice. Now, if this had been my son, he would have refused touring, got all his info from the websites, wouldn’t bother with comparisons or pro/con lists, and I would have been the one begging for the tours LOL
I should clarify my comments about USD. It’s situated on a bluff in San Diego and has beautiful views. DS17 is very focused on what he’s looking for and it was clear early on (to me anyway) that this was not his place. Even after speaking to a professor, we hung on hoping something would change our minds. It’s a financial and stat safety and we so wanted to like it. Just wasn’t to be.
@MotherOfDragons, for this one “bummer” tour I mentioned here, I have oodles of other tours we went on (between 3 kids) that were quite helpful. If I could I think I’d be a professional “college tour taker” - just loved them in general! It’s the sit down in the auditorium presentations I could do without!
Son went to visit UVM, and since we live in NY and were close to SUNY Plattsburgh across lake champlain, decided to take a ride over since we were there, and as we entered campus, my son just said “NO, turn this car around, lets go”, which we did. Going to see nearly any campus after spending the day in Burlington on a panoramic October Saturday is not fair.
A voice of dissension here…we loved the Case tour. It was around Halloween and the physics department was doing the annual pumpkin drop, kids were playing humans vs zombies, that son loved. He loved the city and the campus, even the dorms. I don’t remember the tour guide but he ended up applying, but not attending.
What worked for us was that parents did the admissions presentation and we’d try to do the walking tour together. We also planned time for each S to prowl around the departments they were interested in and talk to profs, sit in on a class, etc. It worked pretty well – we liked the idea of us dividing and conquering and then coming back together to chat about our experiences.
D and I wanted to ditch a tour of Ursinus but did not. Tour guide looked like she rolled out of bed 5 seconds before the tour–ripped T-shirt, sweat pants, flip-flops, and tousled hair. Didn’t take us into any buildings (campus is small, mind you) and only talked about how easy it was to get liquor and where the best parties were.
To rebut earlier posters, we had a great tour at UMass-Amherst. Guide was fantastic, made a large campus seem small, even took us through a dorm and the new Integrated Sciences Building.
Tours are made or broken by the tour guide.
I left one because I got sick. It was a million degrees out, so I went back to the admissions office, sucked down about 4 bottle of water and waited for my kids. I didn’t feel very welcomed at Smith. They kept saying the meetings with admissions were just for the students, not the parents. Okay, then my money couldn’t go there. The first one we went to was a group tour, although the group was small, then meeting with admissions although it was a substitute AO, then a meeting with the coach which we had to wait for because another student was meeting. It took forever but I didn’t want to be rude. After that, I learned to have an excuse to escape ready for the escape.
I generally like college tours and if I could I’d go on them just for fun!! However the UMass Amherst tour was awful - it was about 10 degrees with windchill and that did nothing to help the cold feel of the cement buildings that are everywhere. All in all the campus felt very unwelcoming and our tour guide, though very sweet, didn’t talk about opportunities for community service, research, or any ECs besides sports. My friend and I skipped the info session because we had both already applied, but if she wasn’t there I would have skipped the tour too :((
We skipped out of two tours when our youngest was in the process of searching …the first one was a smallish state school in Pa that offered her intended major ( Bloomsburg ) . Hands down , the least appealing school we ever toured with any of our kids.
It just went from bad to worse. The guide was an awkward girl who transferred from Pitt because her parents wanted her closer to home. She didn’t live on campus so really wasn’t as well versed as she should have been , but she did seem to have enthusiasm or the town having a Home Depot and a KFC 
Before entering the dorm , there was a girl outside having a loud, profanity laced fight on the phone.
We were meeting a young woman who was a current senior in the program our daughter was interested in, so we cut out at that point…she was from our town and daughter’s high school.
We had an appointment with the director of the department, but she seemed annoyed that we were there and none of us felt welcome , so that was the end of that…
The second one was actually her 1st choice school ( Northeastern University ) , but her sister was a recent grad and we were just making it known that she was there. We had already visited the campus many times. The tour guide did a very nice job…older sister was tagging along and although she didn’t know the guide, the young woman unknowingly used her as an example in a story she was telling about semesters abroad.
That was pretty funny 
Lje62,
My gym buddy and I were talking colleges (duh) while riding bikes today. Her son is at NE, and loves it. He had a 2 month gap this summer, and when his new co-op boss heard that, invited him to start a month early.
As I think about it, I don’t recall people talking about tours at NE, but I’ve only heard positives from all the students.
@bookworm , my older daughter had a fantastic experience there , but younger one was denied 
She has thought about applying as a transfer student , but it isn’t happening this year.
Do you mean the info sessions? I agree with you on that… but if you mean interview sessions, then I don’t agree. That IS for the kid, and they very specifically don’t want parents interfering with that process. And I understand that. Some schools will come and get the parents in the end to see if the parents have questions. But the point is for them to get to know your students, and your student to get to know the school. Parents are pretty invasive in that process. Most can’t keep their mouth’s shut, honestly. But maybe you just mean info sessions. 
The tough thing about tours for counselors is that we aren’t allowed to leave, no matter how badly the tour goes.
I’ve done about 85 campus visits since the start of 2014. Texas A&M did the worst job out of those 85+. Every single stage of our 3+ hour visit was mishandled. We heard from 5 different guides and speakers; all were bad. We met much better speakers in the student union and in a local restaurant after the tour. It was mystifying. I refused to let them convince me that it wasn’t a good school…if I’d been there alone, I might have left to prevent them from further poisoning my mind.
As a “professional tour taker”, @Hanna, do the colleges as you and other college counselors for feedback at all? It really seems like some colleges could manage the process better.
Any schools stand out to you as doing a wonderful job?
Our female tour guide at Caltech loved it. She seemed to know everyone on campus as well.
The only one we walked out on was our second tour at Tufts. We felt sorry that no one except a handful of international students chose to be in the tour with the Chinese student with a rather strong accent. She was fine, though you had to concentrate a bit to understand her, however she really didn’t show us anything or say anything that we hadn’t seen a year earlier. About 2/3 of the way through she took us to the cafeteria and said if anyone was hungry we could skip out. So we did.
We skipped out on Reed. Info session was interesting, with the AO talking about the kids experimenting with their sexuality. That didn’t bother us at all. We loved the campus – thought it was beautiful and the part about the nuclear reactor was fascinating. But at some point on the actual tour, my son said, “this isn’t me” and I thought, “he’s right” so we left.
I think I’ve only left one tour and I bet I toured a few dozen schools. We actually didn’t miss the whole thing because we ditched our tour guide and then hooked up with another one! The school was a small public (Bloomsburg) in PA and we were visiting on our way back from Penn State. The PSU tour guide, and the whole admissions day was excellent and a huge contrast to Bloomsburg. At Bloom, we went to an open house, so lots of people attended but since it was before noon on a weekend, the only students we saw were the tour guides. Our tour guide was one of the rolled out of bed types, complete with wrinkled clothes and flip flops. She pointed at buildings and seemed to guess what they were. About ten minutes in we had had it and realized we could slip out without being missed, so we did. Then we saw another tour with a more attentive looking guide and we just jumped in the back. We rated the food highly. Often, the meal and dining hall was the highlight of the trip - no way would we leave before that!
I was the driver for Happykid and two CC pals when they visited the in-state Us on their possible transfer lists. UM-CP didn’t even merit a drive-by. All of them thought it was too big and had too many of their HS classmates. Happykid and one friend really liked Towson, the third liked UM-BC. No one left any of the tours early, but none of them would have been shy about skipping out if they had been touring alone. It was instructive for me, to see how different their reactions were to the different universities. The two who liked Towson are now both proud Towson alums. The one who favored UM-BC ended up at Hood.
We started making a game of the info sessions: how many minutes before the words “study abroad” came up, The record is 42 min.