<p>We visited MIT on Monday and while we expected the group tour to be large due to the school holiday, we were surprised when a group of 50 international students who arrived for the tour without any visible parent or adult supervision. They apparently had been to Harvard in the morning because several were wearing Harvard clothing on the MIT tour. Many of them slept through the presentation. Very few raised their hands when the presenter asked who had applied and who was a junior thinking about applying.</p>
<p>On Tuesday morning, we took the T to Harvard just to walk around campus and saw the same types of groups all over campus. </p>
<p>I can see where an international family would not be able to afford for parents to accompany their child, but I was curious as to how prevalent this is and what other areas of the country these groups visit if they are the norm. And do they only visit top tier schools?</p>
<p>Northeast: February 13 - 20
Boston University, Emerson College, or MIT; Harvard University, Boston College, or Northeastern University; Tufts University, Wellesley College, or Babson College; Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, Johnson & Wales University, or Providence College; Columbia University, Fordham University, or Barnard College; New York University, Parsons School of Design, or Sarah Lawrence College; University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, or Swarthmore College; Haverford College, Bryn Mawr College, or Villanova University; Johns Hopkins University, Goucher College or Loyola College; Georgetown University or George Washington University; American University or University of Maryland</p>
<p>We spent a week at Harvard last summer and saw the same phenomenon.
Language issues may explain why the kids aren’t asking questions or don’t seem very interested in the English-language presentations.
Looking at the schedule above, they may be exhausted from too many schools in too few days. Our family’s two-school-per-day schedule wore us out!</p>
<p>It would be nice if colleges offered several language options for tours, especially for a large group able to book in advance. There must be undergrads available who speak every major language and the tours would be much more meaningful.</p>
<p>I go to MIT and there are almost always internationals visiting the school. I’m pretty sure that for them, MIT and Harvard are more like a tourist attraction, similar to touring the White House or something, and that they aren’t visiting MIT to help decide whether or not to apply/attend. Not sure if this describes the people you were with, but definitely a possibility.</p>
<p>But what is the presentation about? If it’s an admission presentation, they’re touring colleges where ENGLISH is spoken–not Chinese, Spanish, Japanese or whatever. If they can’t follow a presentation, why should they even consider applying?
Colleges are not tourist sights- As far as I know, they don’t charge for tours. If groups want to have tour guides in their own language, they’re welcome to hire them.</p>
<p>A group college tour is a GREAT way for international students to look at U.S. Colleges and Univs. They get to see a TON of places in one visit, travel with friends, taste some independence, be transported/fed in one giant bundle deal.</p>
<p>To be honest, I’m a bit disturbed by the stigma against international students…</p>
<p>Right. And why should colleges pay for them to have a tour guide in their own language? Again–colleges are places where people come to learn. They are not tourist sights.</p>
<p>If they are prospective applicants, they ought to know enough English to follow a presentation. What will they want next? If admitted, supply them with a translator?</p>
<p>marite, the ignorant former international student.</p>
<p>Many cities with rather well known colleges/universities include information about their local colleges/universities simply because they are an international tourist attraction. This is not just the case in the US. Other favorites are Oxford and Cambridge. If I remember well some colleges/universities even offer special tours for tourists (especially during the summer). And yes, the top tier schools with their magic names attract more tourists than local community colleges. The Notre Dame in Paris gets far more visitors than the local church in a remote village in the ‘campagne’ of France and not necessarily because the Notre Dame is more interesting. It is simply more well known and that’s why people include it in their itinerary. Probably most students in the groups that olderwisermom is talking about are not considering MIT at all, but some of them may be interested (and actually some of them may be interesting applicants).</p>
<p>And that’s fine. Speaking as someone who lives a stone’s throw from one of the major college tourist attractions and whose student had to factor in getting around groups of tourists on his way to class.</p>
<p>I myself have taken visitors to see Harvard and MIT.</p>
<p>But that is no reason for colleges to supply free of charge, gratis and at no cost translators in all sorts of possible languages for people who probably are not interested in applying. If an organization can put together a group, then it can certainly line up its own translator to go with the group from campus to campus. </p>
<p>By the way, Notre Dame de Paris is more interesting than most “campagne” churches. The one church I think might rival it is Notre Dame de Chartres.</p>
<p>Much to my suprise, I find myself kind of liking the whole concept of these high-school group tours as linked earlier in the thread. I believe there’s merit in families visiting colleges together and the discussions that follow. I believe there is also merit in high school kids visiting some colleges without mom and dad, to better visualize themselves as an independent young adult in college. I especially recommend the later to any parents who see potential admissions value in convincing a reluctant student to apply as a legacy at mom’s or dad’s college. The last thing they want to do is walk around listening to their parents point out all the places they used to spent time back in the dark ages.</p>
<p>The high school tour groups are fine, in fact, a great idea. It’s the idea of colleges providing foreign students with interpreters that bothers me.</p>
<p>Katliamom: Thank you! We live and learn every day!</p>
<p>I could see where offering Spanish language tours to families of first generation immigrant applicants could be valid. There are college students who don’t speak English at home.</p>
<p>Granted, that’s a bit different scenario than providing translators for busloads of foreign tourists!</p>
<p>How could that be valid? Do 8th graders go on college tours? If a high school junior has so limited a grasp of English that an interpreter is needed, what reason is there to suppose that the same student would be able to handle college assignments?</p>
<p>I nearly bombed my first semester of college because of poor English. One prof told me: “Miss, I just can’t give exams in French to accommodate you!” Still, my English was good enough not to need interpreters on tours.</p>
<p>For the families, not the students. I’m pretty sure that there are families at colleges whose kids speak fine English, but whose parents or grandparents do not. I can see a school making an effort to include those parents and grandparents in recruiting tours and so forth. I’m fairly sure that many schools have bilingual admissions officers going out on info session visits, certainly in places like South Florida and Southern California.</p>
<p>interesteddad, that’s a valid point - except that for these tour groups, there didn’t seem to be many parents in attendance. It sounds like they came in a group with a few chaperones. I would assume that anyone willing to take responsibility for a large group of teens in a foreign country could speak the local language.</p>
<p>It does seem like it would make sense to have multi-lingual tour guides for family tours, though.</p>
<p>(Spoken as someone who just came back from touring a foreign city where my knowledge of the language was extremely limited).</p>