“Another vote for Ohio State.”
It’s not remarkable to go to any school and get a great tour. It’s remarkable for a school to run a consistent operation, especially a giant one. Think about the turnover in the student staff. OSU clearly recruited outstanding people and trained them well – without coming across as a bunch of overpolished corporate salespeople, as I’ve seen elsewhere. Great office.
Duquesne was the worst for us. Daughter asked where classes in her major were held, and the guide said “that’s a major? Well, I guess the classes would be in one of those buildings over there.” She then proceeded to talk about the “good” majors available.
I think we toured Ohio State 4 times, twice for each kid. More tours and admission sessions there than any other school as it was the only school that overlapped for both of my kids. Equally impressive every time and the student guides were great. Also I think I did the engineering tour 3 times.
Most schools do a good job. We had lots of good tours and very few not so great. Ohio State was the best, hands down.
@mamaduck In general, our best experiences were when we were specifically on tours or programs for my D’s major. If the tour guide didn’t know anything about the major, then the school just faded into the background. We had a wonderful experience at Purdue, not because of the admissions tour (which was abbreviated because it was orientation week) or the info session (which was the same powerpoint we saw at a local admissions event) but because senior faculty in the costume and theatre department spent time with my D to give her a personal tour and tell her about the program.
Just remembered another campus visit we ducked out of. Portland State. We parked in a dirty, urban garage, and got a little lost finding the admissions office. There were a number of students smoking outside the buildings. My D was only a HS freshman at the time, and she refused to even stay for the info session. (The only reason we bothered was because we have family ties to Portland and I didn’t know if we’d be able to afford to go back before her junior year, which would have been a more appropriate time.)
Drexel was absolutely horrible. The woman in the information session was a little too condescending, and she kept mocking the mistakes of people who have never been through the college process before. She would outright laugh at some questions she received, which is just kind of rude when you’re trying to sell your school.
The tour was even worse. They split 150+ visitors up among 3 tour guides. (Is this standard? I only visited ~6 schools which has small tour groups, so I’m not sure. If this is normal, then I guess it doesn’t add to the horrible aspects of the tour.) They made all of us stand in a circle and introduce ourselves to the rest of the tour group–a bit childish (IMO) and a huge waste of time when there were about 50 of us.
The tour guide kept insisting on bringing us down the narrowest of hallways, where the back of the group had to wait on the stairs because it was too small for everyone to fit. The tour guide also didn’t project and was extremely monotone. She just wasn’t the ride person for the job, that’s all.
Besides her, the facilities they showed us all seemed…dirty and extremely empty despite being the middle of the day? It was just a very strange vibe that was not experienced on any other tour I had.
I can’t be the only one who felt this way because there were less than 10 people left by the end of the tour!
It’s funny, we did an 8-campus in one week visit during spring break of my daughter’s junior year. Her least favorite were 2 of the last 3 (USC and UCI) and at the time I wondered if she had just reached her limit. Now in retrospect given where she ended up (Willamette) I see that she just wasn’t into the really big schools (although she kind of liked Cal Poly and later, Davis). But anyway, as far as bad tours go, my 2 nods are to Lewis and Clark (excellent presentation by the staff in the info session, but our tour guide was a freshman who was way more into her own experiences than into generalizing anything) and then USC (which falls under the 'way impressed with themselves" umbrella in the admit session we went to). But it was kind of cool to see OJ Simpson’s Heisman trophy ;-).
Oh, and under ‘doing something right’ I nominate Cal Poly SLO. They put 10 or so tour guides on the stage and had each of them introduce themselves by major and special interests, and then you choose which one works best for you. (I know other places do something similar, but we were really able to chose someone that we could ask more detailed questions of there).
All three of my girls applied to BU , we went to one info session and tour , plus an open house. My oldest hated the Q&A session because the guy running it was all about business and hockey and couldn’t answer anything about her intended major and had a condescending attitude towards the arts…great school , but she just didn’t feel it based on that one guy
Our Tufts tour with daughter disbanded about 3/4 through when our guide got sick and vanished into the rest room. She came out looking green, apologized and set us loose. It was an unusually hot day (95 degrees) and there might have been some, um, dehydration from activities the night before.
Our Penn tour with son was one of the best. I expected to not like it (Philadelphia area upbringing and went to summer school at Penn), but everyone was so nice and our guide was excellent and took us in buildings. Son applied ED and graduated in 2010. Our Princeton guide that same year was a dingbat. She had switched majors 3 times, which is OK, but she didn’t have much in depth knowledge of anything.
I remember in the stone ages when I toured Penn as an admitted student, after the tour, my mom said, “Well, if you aren’t going here then I will!”
LaSalle We initially didn’t love the surrounding area and then the tour guide said that she doesn’t walk off campus without a security guard. Our son went to Fordham (Bronx) and we were comfortable with that area.
Penn. Oy. The tour was fine but at the info session the admin talked a good deal about, I kid you not, God and how He had saved her to be with us. She apparently had been ill at one time. Certainly we wished good health but it was so bizarre and our daughter was just flabbergasted by the whole thing (the people next to us kept saying “Did that just happen?”
Duke. Tour guide had the voice of a mouse. We were getting nothing out of it, so went off and wandered around on our own.
@fishgill , Your experience was the opposite of ours for Drexel. In fact, if they had come through with a better fin aid packet my son probably would have gone there! We visited twice - first time was an information session for people in his intended major of Information Systems, second was for an accepted students day. I remember being really impressed by the building where they had the general information session: http://drexel.edu/admissions/overview/
I am so glad that it didn’t work out though because the college that our son ended up at- Champlain College, in Burlington VT - was absolutely the best place for him. And he was able to start in his major of cyber security five years ago, that Drexel created sometime within that time period.
I think you can only expect so much from a college age tour guide. They are learning too…I remember an excellent toru at one of our “directional” state colleges. We just walked in, no advance notice and they had a student on duty and sent us off with her. The girl knew a lot, was super polite, enthusiastic, told us about every building, took us inside, etc. At the end we asked her how she decided to go to this school. She said, well, my boyfriend was going here. I ended up breaking up with him but I really love the school so I stayed! Total honesty and it was really cute. I hate to say that if we had asked before the tour, we as parents might have judged her…
I think all of us know intellectually that a tour guide may not be an accurate reflection of a school, but the whole process of choosing and training tour guides DOES say a lot about a school. A small private can do as good a job as a huge public. One of the best tours I went on was at Penn State main campus and sounds similar to the ones done at Ohio State. Tour guides were personable, walked backwards, talked clearly, answered questions with a smile and kept the group moving. At my youngest son’s college we had a totally different tour, but just as good. His college set up prospective families with students in the actual intended major and we were able to follow up with a meeting with the chair of the department.
If a college takes so little thought as to hire just anyone to do the tours, don’t train them (or give them minimal training) then they can expect people to cut out of the tour and the students to look elsewhere. OTOH, if you’ve been on a few tours than you can overlook a bad tour guide and still sell yourself on a college, but it’s frustrating. I remember touring (for the third time, with the third child) Millersville University of Pennsylvania. The tour guide had asked the handful of students their potential majors but did not address that aspect at all and instead focused on her major and EC’s. She had no clue about the buildings where our son would attend classes. However, we had arranged to meet up with a current student at lunchtime (friend of an older sibling) who hooked us up with another student in my son’s major. They had an enthusiastic talk and I think my son ended up applying. Had we left after the tour, it would probably have been crossed off right away.
Our St. Mary’s College of Maryland tour was ridiculously long. Over an hour and a half. We were the only ones who stuck with the poor tour guide. D2 actually did like the school, but we toured before she had test scores, and it would have been an uber safety for her in the end, so it came off the list. It would have been a great fit for D1, actually, but we found it too late. But the tour was just eternal…
I never felt the need to sneak away but after a week of tours S definitely did. We heard a lot of the same stuff over and over and over again.
Best tour for me was Bates where they separate the parents from kids and do separate tours. I felt it was the first school that treated the students like adults.
One thing I liked about tours at Wesleyan was that the tour guides don’t walk backwards. They walk you to a spot and then stop and talk, then directly walk you to another spot and stop and talk etc. I think it makes a lot more sense.
@doschicos we liked that about Wesleyan too! However, we had a really bad tour there. We went on a school holiday, so there were literally 200+ people in the info session (which they moved to the theater with horrible acoustics), then split those people into 4 groups for the tour. 50 people for a single tour guide was way too many, and allowed us to only see the outside of all of the buildings. We’re going to go back in the hope that we were just there on an off day.
Definitely go back! We always like the info session and tours there. One of our best ever tour guides was at Wesleyan. He and my son really clicked and had a great conversation. It was a very small group.