<p>Info sessions and tours over Easter break can be a nightmare. The same for other common HS holidays where college is actually in session. The best info/tour experiences we had were on random weekdays at schools that might be popular, but don’t induce the feeding frenzy of the ivies. </p>
<p>I NEVER want to go to an open house again. Too many people, moving slowly in a large mass, waiting to filter into/out of the sacrificial dorm room, can’t hear the tour guide, and the big info sessions feel too much like a “buy this car” spiel. I would often get the urge to “moo”. With twins heading to college next fall, it’s been a long couple of years of visiting. It’s not over yet either. </p>
<p>It’s always better to find one student or faculty member and get them to talk. Actual useful information!</p>
<p>Sybbie is right - get over it! And, having gone through this many times with my own kids and various other students, don’t believe that “expressing interest” by signing in has ANY impact on admission chances.</p>
<p>fogfog - I feel your pain … really I do. But when a parent is looking at spending $50K a year to send L’il Darlin’ to college, you can’t really blame them for acting a little scratchy (if you know what I mean). Try to not take it personally … it’s just the nature of the beast.</p>
<p>My daughter is a tour guide at her school. It is NOT a work study job (although students who qualify for WS can be paid with those funds). The tour guides job is one of the most sought after and highly competitive jobs on campus. These kids go through a rigorous application/interview/selection process and then hours of training. </p>
<p>That being said…my kid’s school recommends registering for tours. They always have an extra person they can call on so that the groups are kept to a reasonable size.</p>
<p>ff … I have to admit it seems to me your anger is a little misplaced (and your experience was quite different than my oldest and I had on 9 campuses). A couple thoughts …</p>
<p>Typically there were a hoard of folks waiting for the tour and a hoard of potential tour guides … and the schools made sure the groups weren’t too big (there usually were extra tour guides not too few) … if the groups were too big I’d think the main cause was they did not have enough guides and not that people did not register for a tour. (In additon, it should not be that hard to predict how big the tours might be even if no one registered … the schools have a ton of data on how many people show up and how much variablility there is).</p>
<p>Practically, I really HATE the idea that it be mandatory to pre-register to go on a tour … why … here’s a real life example. We’re 400 miles from home and drive onto a campus where we are registered for the tour well in advance … we have one of the experiences where my child says don’t bother stopping the car; I’m not going to this school … so instead we go to a different school we were not planning to go to. With a hard pre-registration rule this second school’s response would be … thanks for traveling 400 miles and deciding to visit our school but get away from our tour. Does that make any sense? </p>
<p>Bottom line the schools are in sell mode on the tours and should both be accommadating to everyone who shows up and also make sure everyone has a good experience on the tour.</p>
<p>As someone who “crashed” a tour this past weekend, I have a different take. We live 8 hours from the four colleges that we wanted to visit in North Carolina (none, btw, were Ivy schools) and only two of them had events we were able to register for. We had tried to sign up for one specific college but did not see any tours offered when we looked in January. </p>
<p>A poster on this forum mentioned that she had been able to get a tour time and when we looked at the site, she was right but the times were all filled. There was no other weekend while school was in session that we would be able to get down so we decided to pop in and see if there was availability. We went to the registration desk and told the admissions people our dilemma and they gave us a map for a self-guided walking tour but told us to wait and see if there would be space in the information session with the student-led tour immediately afterward. So we waited just a few minutes for the pre-registered people to take their seats and then we went in when the admissions people allowed us. That, to me, was the best way to accommodate everyone. </p>
<p>I don’t feel entitled, cannot afford anywhere near $50,000 a year for a college, but we are time crunched. Due to state testing, AP tests and college’s ending in less then a month, there is a very small window to look at colleges. This is especially important at small colleges where the feel of the student body is going to be a priority.</p>
<p>is the “problem” the “hostess” for not putting enough water in the soup
…or the “guests” for not RSVP-ing? </p>
<p>My vote is lack of guest’s etiquette…</p>
<p>The worst we saw were the Princeton engineering tour (and the pushy/rude parents)</p>
<p>and the Columbia tours (both general and engineering)</p>
<p>Sure there was ridiculous overcrowing at Yale and UPenn as well…
however Columbia takes the cake as worst handling of overcrowded tours and not turning away literally hundreds of unexpected “guests” swamping the Admissions offices. The engineering tour was completely ruined and a waste of time.</p>
<p>The family turned away from a registered tour (they put in their reservation in January) met that unfortunate circumstance at NYU…</p>
<p>The problem is with the hostess for throwing an open block party, advertising free beer all over town with the time and location and then supplying only 1 pony keg and 2 plastic cups. </p>
<p>If a school does not want to be inundated with uninvited guests, they need to register their tour guests privately without advertising the specific time and meeting place publically. </p>
<p>A couple of schools we toured advertised the hours when tours/info sessions were available (a broad range), but insisted upon registered appointments (even if they were a week beforehand) to allow for enough guides to be available.</p>
<p>Never had a bad experience with this arrangement. One school even moved our tour earlier than their advertised window for tours to accommodate our travel schedule.</p>
<p>Wow, I think I better show up early for our tours next week. I have reservations for a few schools. The others where I couldn’t get reservations I was planning on doing the self-guided tour.</p>
<p>“not turning away literally hundreds of unexpected “guests” swamping the Admissions offices.”</p>
<p>Speaking as a former student guide, I can’t even imagine turning people away. Yes, sometimes the summertime tours were way too big and crowded, and I had to shout to try and reach everyone. 15-20 people per guide was the norm, and they did get way bigger than that on occasion. But this way, people had a choice – if they thought the tour was too big, they could skip it. </p>
<p>I’m usually a big stickler for RSVPing, and I totally get where everyone is coming from. But I just don’t feel it’s a PR option for Harvard to tell anybody they can’t come on the free tour. We worked so hard to counter the impression of Harvard as a place where a bunch of snooty jerks won’t give you the time of day. We would have gotten awful press for restricting the tours, worse than some parents grumbling because the tour was too big.</p>
<p>Harvard also offers student-led history/architecture tours for people just interested in learning more about it, as opposed to applicants and their families. These tours leave from the Square rather than the admissions office. That helps keep the admissions tours more focused. (This is all in addition to private for-profit tour companies that use the campus and the “unofficial” student-guided tours.)</p>
<p>I just spent two weeks touring colleges with my daughter, at considerable expense I might add, 3300 miles of travel, 12 hotel nights, all meals out, as well as emergency clothing and she purchases. I registered in advance for all tours and info sessions that we could register for. For those that did not offer registration, we arrived at least 45 minutes ahead of time. I was appalled, and frankly embarrassed, by some of the behavior I saw. The parents seemed to have completely lost sight of the fact that it is about the kids! </p>
<p>Fog, we had similar experiences as you described during our visits, Harvard was particularly bad. There were plenty of parents (rude) who pushed their way to the front, leaving the prospective students way in the back where they could not hear a thing. There were also very large family groups, (mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncles, young siblings, cousins) who were right up front and monopolized the guide for the entire time! This happened at more than one school we visited and was quite frustrating! And at info sessions, several q & a’s were dominated by one or two people asking questions that were common knowledge or the answers could easily be found in the faqs on the website. It was very frustrating because so much time was taken up to answer these questions. I think the admissions office should instruct their guides to answer these types of very basic questions with something like, “the answer to your question is in the faq section of our website” and remind the group that the q and a is for answers not easily found on the school website. Another thing that I found frustrating were questions that were specific to a particular student. Obviously the info session/tour guides are not in a position to answer questions like that, a total waste of precious time for the rest of the group!</p>
<p>I am very thankful that I do not have to do this again!</p>
<p>I think that schools do a little better planning and strive to have more guides/info sessions during peak touring seasons (summer, winter and spring break). </p>
<p>Even then, remember students doing tour guides are fitting this in around their classes, so yes there are going to be times, where there are not a lot of guides available. Tours in april can get a bit sketchy because you have students woorking tours and getting ready for finals. </p>
<p>Even at schools that recommend that you sign up for a tour are not going to kill you fi you just shwo up. What happens if you sign up for a tour and don’t happen to make it? Should the application be flagged and the applicant be deem unreliable or non-commital?</p>
<p>We have to all remember that students and families coming on tours have different frames of references. While you may be peeved about something that you feel can be easily found in the FAQs I can tell you first hand, most of the websites that I have seen really don’t do a bang up job in answering basic questions and perhaps some clarification is needed.</p>
<p>To Hanna, I was typing when you posted and didn’t read your comment before I posted. I just wanted to add that the issue I had at Harvard was not with the tour guide. The guide was delightful and certainly presented Harvard in the most positive light! I was referring to the parents/family groups that acted in a very rude and entitled manner during the tour and info session. It left a pretty sour taste in my mouth and my daughter even commented on it, which is unlike her. It was too bad, because the poor students stuck in the back looked lost and confused and I know they did not get the best impression of Harvard, based on the comments I heard.</p>
<p>I had to shake my head and wonder how the adults could be so rude and push the kids aside–The kids need to see and hear what is what…it about their future.
I felt for a nice young lady at the Princeton engineering tour–she was a diminuative petite woman and some of the parents seemed top forget it wasn’t about them.</p>
<p>The Engineering dept said they cannot take large groups into labs because it disturbs other students trying to get work done…I asked the Administrator if perhaps the parents/families could then all hang back together and just let the prospective students do the tour–She said that unfortunately not all parents are thoughtful and they had tried it before…Its a shame because the kids lose. out.</p>
<p>fishymom, trust me, all the bad behavior you describe is driving the admissions staff and student guides crazy too. Everyone who works with the public deals with some people they want to strangle. At the same time, the most obnoxious parent might have have raised the most wonderful applicant. It’s a challenge to re-direct the conversation without offending the obnoxious people, and some staff members at each college will be much better at that than others.</p>
<p>In two summers of leading tours twice a day, I can count on one hand the number of high schoolers who made my job difficult. Some were clearly not interested, but they were almost never rude or intrusive. 100% of the challenge in that job came from a subset of the parents. The best was when they would demand my SAT scores (in front of everyone) and act put out when my answer was vague.</p>
<p>It’s mostly a blessing that Harvard is so visible and gets so much attention, but it sure has down sides, too.</p>
<p>Bates routinely separates the parents and students so they each have their own tour guide. I think more colleges should do this; it worked very well. On our tour last week, there were enough people for one large group of students and two large groups of parents. In the info sessions, Bates also invited questions from students first, and then they opened up to parent questions only when the students had no more questions. This was great. There were many, many more questions from students here than anywhere else we visited.</p>
<p>At Amherst, each of the three tour groups was especially large (about 50) so I suggested to the guide that he invite the students up front, but either he didn’t hear me or that’s against their policy. A few parents hung back, but most didn’t.</p>
<p>Just wait till you show up for your overnight with a student and find that the child of their parents’ friends has also showed up expecting to spend the night. This actually happened to us. My student had an overnight visit planned through the university admissions and then this other student showed up to spend the night, too. What did the student do - she left both of them in her room to spend the night! I later met the mom - for some reason she didn’t think the process of applying to spend the night applied to them as they knew the student.</p>
<p>And by the way - we had traveled over 3,000 miles to be there while the other student lived in town!</p>
<p>While large tour groups are unpleasant , your experience goes along with the territory at some busy times of the year, even among the best of them. To be honest, I kind of wish I knew that this was the case back when - while I wouldn’t have abused the privilege, there were times that we probably would have loved to change plans last minute. I do recall calling the admissions office once or twice when a free weekend came up and an online tour was listed as full - don’t think we were ever turned down in that situation. </p>
<p>Schools know that the logistics of these trips can be a challenge to even the most organized. First off, if it’s important to you (as it was to us) to visit only when students are on campus, you have to deal with the fact that each high school and college have varying break schedules. Certainly, weather and travel snafus can derail. Job and academic demands don’t always allow one to plan a trip weeks in advance. Most schools understand all this and keep registration open for a reasonable length of time. But it makes complete sense to me that while schools try their best to gauge numbers, and don’t exactly publicize that they’ll take walk-ins once a registration is full, they will always try to accomodate a visiting family.</p>
<p>Truth is, after attending many of these, there was not an information session we ever attended that gave us information we didn’t know or couldn’t have found elsewhere . The tours themselves were useful in allowing the kids to get a sense of the typical student on campus, the physical layout of the campus, a typical dorm room. Mostly these were good for a chance to get our bearings - but while they may have made an impression one way or another, we never considered a student guide, the tour or the information session to come close to being the most important part of our visit - the time we spent before and after the official tours, walking into town, hanging out at the student center, the academic buildings and the library, sitting in on a few classes and talking to many other students was always a lot more worthwhile.</p>
<p>I do think we need to put the blame SQUARELY on the college.</p>
<p>We had a similar experience with a fellowship interview($15,000 for four years) earlier this year. DD submitted her app, called to see when decisions would be made. Faculty sponsor invited her -on the phone- to interview. We bought plane tickets, missed school, etc. She arrived to find that there were easily 150 kids there- as part of a ‘panel interview’ for 3 fellowships. Come on. There was no time to really interview, and guess who made the decisions? The ‘student leaders’ on the committee. I told her it sounded more like sorority rush. She wasn’t chosen, and I feel like it was a wild goose chase.</p>
<p>She’s still gungho on the college, I’ve got a bad taste in my mouth- something like this should have been much better organized, much more transparent and really, more professional. It didn’t reflect well on the college.</p>