<p>If you could design your own college tour, what would be on it? What wouldn’t?</p>
<p>And, two, did you sit in on classes? Do you wish you had/hadn’t?</p>
<p>Good question! I hope some adcoms are reading, because we sure suffered through some wretched tours.</p>
<p>I would want to hear about the history of the college and special stories about it’s traditions. I would skip the part about the drinking traditions :-)</p>
<p>I would want to see the library, the cafeteria, the student union, the major building in each college or school, some classrooms (big and small) and a freshman dorm room. We actually took a tour at a top ten college that included almost none of these things. I think this is very important so a student can picture themselves there when they are trying to make a decision.</p>
<p>I would want a tour guide who knew not to say “random” or “totally” every other word.</p>
<p>I would want the tour guide to walk moderately slowly, talking to the group as they went. In one tour we took, there were like 6 or 8 guides to about 20 “tourists”. The students all walked up in a clump and talked among themselves. Did I say walked? Should have said ran! As they left us old fogies panting half a block behind them.</p>
<p>I would <em>not</em> tell the story of how a major building was poorly designed and sinking into the ground at a college famous for its design school. This actually happened to us twice at different colleges, if you can believe it! Oops, we forgot that libraries had books!</p>
<p>How’s that for a start?</p>
<p>[Urban</a> Legends Reference Pages: Sinking Library](<a href=“http://www.snopes.com/college/halls/sinking.asp]Urban”>The Sinking Library | Snopes.com)</p>
<p>Speaking as a structural engineer, it’s a good story, but untrue. =) I’m sure that the tour guides passionately believe the story, though. Forgetting to factor in the weight of the books would be like forgetting to wear pants. Actually, engineers are far more likely to forget to wear pants. ;)</p>
<p>I would definitely visit a class… That’s how I knew for certain that Rice was the place for me. I wanted a place where people were fascinated by learning, and when the professor of the differential equations class I visited was doing an example in Matlab and said excitedly, “And then look at the graph it produces when I do <em>this</em>!” and he pressed a button and a really cool graph was displayed and everyone went, “Wooooaaaahhhh!!”… well, that was it. I applied early decision.</p>
<p>That’s right, aibarr! But, even if it were true, it’s an incredibly stupid story to tell to people about to drop $100-200k for their child to be taught design <lol></lol></p>