<p>OK, a question from a really insecure mom about to take her D on her first college visit: does it make any difference what we wear to take the cook’s tour?</p>
<p>For greatest comfort: look at the website. Check out what other students are wearing and try to wear something similar.</p>
<p>Reasons I’m glad my son is a math/engineering/science nerd #44: He would rather die than wear something other than his trademark clothing. If the school doesn’t like sneakers, jeans, and Hawaiian shirts he wouldn’t want to go there anyway.</p>
<p>To go on the tour? wear anything comfortable. The vast majority of males we saw at the schools we visited were wearing tee shirts, cargo shorts and athletic shoes.</p>
<p>For his interviews, we recommended DS substitute a collared shirt for the tee shirt. Which he did. For the interview only, of course. He changed into the tee shirt for the tour (after all, he would be seen in PUBLIC :eek:). FWIW, the Harvard interviewer who came to our hs to talk to the kids about college interviews told them to wear whatever was comfortable - tee shirts being okay. (I will never know how it was that DS listened to our opinion on this subject seeing as we were a bit more conservative 
).</p>
<p>Girls on these tours were dressed similary casually. Girls I remember in the interview waiting room were wearing something like a fashionable knit top (somewhat more stylish than a tee, but not a cami) and a cotton floral skirt and sandals.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone who responded. It is supposed to be 50-degrees and raining, and it’s hard to be stylish (at least for me!) in such conditions, especially when comfortable walking shoes are required. (I am in my 40s and Doc Martens are my footwear of choice in the fall and winter … flip flops in the summer.) However, I work on a college campus myself and am surprised at how stylish many of the girls are, and I work at a school known for its excellence in science/engineering, etc. I am amazed to see girls tripping along in high heels.</p>
<p>I agree boys have it easier in terms of dressing. My S refused to wear anything but cargo shorts & casual t-shirts & athletic shoes for anything relating to college (including an interview with the associate dean). I’m pretty sure that’s how he’s still dressing now in college, tho he may eventually start wearing long pants when it’s cold enough.
He did have me send up a suit for an engineering interview, so I guess he’s learned there IS a dress code for some ocassions. 
The folks at the campus tours I attended varied in their outfits–some wore khakis, some wore jeans, some wore shorts & a few wore dresses or skirts. It didn’t really seem to matter, so long as the individuals were comfortable & could walk for extended tours (key).</p>
<p>I don’t think it matters what you wear – with one important exception: </p>
<p>It is really, really tacky to show up at at a college wearing a sweatshirt that proclaims the name of another college (the one you visited yesterday). Yet I can’t believe how many times I have seen this: Princeton shirts at Penn, North Carolina shirts at UVA, Delaware shirts at Maryland, etc. You would think people would know better.</p>
<p>P.S. It is also really tacky if the accompanying parent is wearing another college’s shirt.</p>
<p>the key to touring is comfort…shoes especially.And be prepared for inclement weather…an umbrella, a hooded jacket.Tours dont stop for rain.
If D is adding an individual interview to the tour,bring along a fresh ,nicer shirt and nicer shoes in a backpack and change in a bathroom.D did this for all her music audition/touring days…no way she was trapsing around in heels,skirt,etc.
No need to dress up for run of the mill info sessions that are added to the tours.</p>
<p>What a relief to read this thread.</p>
<p>When I read the headline, I thought it might be about clothing optional beaches or some such thing, and I was going to reply “of course clothes matter. You ever been to one of those places?”</p>
<p>Marian, you ever spend much time on a campus these days? Brand alliegance? Hardly.</p>
<p>The short answer is no, it really doesn’t, but you want to be comfortable, and you may get a chance to speak to one of the admission reps so I did encourage S to be somewhat presentable. The kids we saw on the tours were either casual, or a tiny step above that, ie carge khakis rather than jeans and a polo shirt or casual sweater rather than sweatshirt/Tshirt with sneakers, for example. </p>
<p>For this time of year I used to wear something like a nicer-casual pair of dark pants, a pair of dark velcro type fashion sneakers/ walking shoes for walking comfort, a turtleneck sweater (I get cold!) and a short wool jacket and felt not too dressy or too casual.</p>
<p>when I read this heading I thought * well of course clothes matter, sometimes it seems they are the only thing that does!*
but in this context no- they dont matter- wear what is appropriate for the weather and your comfort</p>
<p>We always wore our uniform of jeans- gortex & fleece- what else * would * you wear to tromp around a damp campus?</p>
<p>Gosh -we went to an info/tour session at Penn a couple of weeks ago that had a huge number of attendees (>100) and 99% of them looked like they just rolled out of bed wearing yesterday’s clothes (mine included)! In fact, I remarked to my H that they looked more like college students already rather than HS hopefuls!</p>
<p>NMR, nice to see you venturing over to this forum :D. </p>
<p>When we went on college visits, my kids, who are girls as you know, dressed no differently than the regular clothes they wear to school. Students are not being judged on these tours and sessions. My girls often met with faculty or observed a class but again, were dressed in their usual everyday garb. The times when they DID dress nicer were when they had interviews or auditions. Then they would wear nice pants or a skirt and nicer shoes but not super dressy, just a step up from everyday school clothes. So, I don’t think it matters what they wear just to visit. Sneakers are fine too because these visits involve a great deal of walking. I didn’t see other visitors dressed up at all. Again, my thoughts on an official interview are different. But for tours, info. sessions, appointments with students, faculty, coaches, class observations, I think school clothes are fine. Now, I guess what some define as school clothes varies. A ratty tee shirt or a bare midriff, etc. would draw attention.</p>
<p>Consider an otherwise sane female high school student (and exceptional student) that attempted to wear a mini-skirt to an interview at a certain famous women’s college - once described (in a movie at least) as the “most conservative women’s college” in the United States </p>
<p>It might be either a teen brain thing or maybe minis are a big hit at interviews these days, we are not sure</p>
<p>Have to agree with newmassdad on the side issue of brand loyalty wrt tee and sweatshirts: this is a non-issue at colleges. Courtesy of Katrina, my S has now been to 3 schools in as many semesters. He not only wears (and has worn at all three) branded shirts from those schools but from at least 10 others, and those are ALL he wears. No athletic team t-shirts, no un-logo’d t-shirts. Just all-college logo-t-shirts-all-the-time. Equal opportunity small/large geographic diversity big sports/unknown re sports.</p>
<p>In fact, it seems to me that he pretty much prefers to wear the shirts from other schools more than the shirts from his own school when he’s on campus.</p>