Value of the official campus tour?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If nothing else, it gives you a chance to see inside dorms and sometimes other buildings that are not open to the public.

Not in our experience. *Once* we saw a sample dorm room (Michigan IIRC) -- which seemed to be sponsored by Bed, Bath, and Beyond! Every other school we visited said either that there were privacy issues or that there were such a range of dorm options that no one room would be representative so go look at our website.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:About to make our first round of college visits over spring break and curious to hear from experienced parents if you and your child felt that the official guided tours were a valuable experience or not? In my personal travels I'm not one for guided or packaged experiences, preferring to discover things on my own just by exploring and talking to people. But perhaps the tours provide access to places and insights I can't get to on my own.

What would you recommend as the best way to experience a campus on a short visit?

How short is short? DC attended classes, went to cafes where students hung out, visited bookstores.

Tours were useful for giving you a lay of the land. Info sessions quickly got boring and repetitious. That said, a couple that didn't fall in this category really stood out. One became DD's second choice.

[Anonymous]

It helps your student figure out what ype of school they like (eg large small, urban/rural...) and which things are similar between many colleges. If they go to one, they may think either that everything is the same at other colleges or that that college is unique about things that they are not. It also helps them start to think about the future and where they may (or may not) see themselves. After the first round is one and your stuent has narrowed the list, my DC found the best help talking with a friend, friend of a friend, or relative who is currently at the school and having them show him around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We found the tours to be very helpful, but we also enjoyed exploring the campus on our own. In addition to the official tour, try to have lunch in the cafeteria,and stop by the student center and the library on your own. Take a walk through the college town. That was very helpful to get the 'vibe' of the students, the overall environment and the school. In some cases, it helped my DC to add/cross off those schools from the list. For the schools that remained, it showed 'demonstrated interest' - even if the school says that they do not consider it, it was helpful to mention the tour in an essay or in the interview.

+1 - Another reason not to visit a school when the school is out of session.

[Anonymous]

My DC is a big fan of tours, much to my surprise. The guides will often take you to places you don't have access to as a non-student, give you insight into the social atmosphere of school and give your DC a sense of what kind of students they school attracts.
One info session is all you need to attend. They are all largely the same and 100% of information is available on-line.
some schools allow you to sit in on classes, which is also useful.

[Anonymous]

My kids found the campus tours very helpful, and appreciated hearing things from a student's perspective. Most of the tour guides we had were very good, and all would answer the questions that the kid's had -- sometimes providing valuable insight that the information session didn't (for example, the tour guides were forthcoming about how hard it is to get the classes one needs, and how many courses are taught by TA's). Some schools will take you in the dining hall, a classroom, and a dorm room; it all varies by college. And we visited several schools during special open houses, which is what I recommend the most; there, you can usually go to a presentation by the individual academic departments, and there are a lot of informational sessions and activities to get the prospective students excited about the school.

[Anonymous]

Our college counsellor told us which schools on my kids list cared and kept track of whether you "displayed interest" by taking a tour. It was mostly the smaller schools.

[Anonymous]

Tours are generally good to see stuff from the POV of a student.

I will say quality of tour guides vary greatly. We had one awful tour that we just couldn't listen anymore. The tour guide was a jerk and was factually wrong on several topics. We left in the middle of the tour. We had much better luck talking to the professional staff in the admissions office. We told them about this horrendous tour and DS still got accepted.

[Anonymous]

I always do the info session and the tour giving DC the option of skipping the info session. I want admissions info, stats, FA, testing, etc, from the admissions office, but if a student guide wants to throw in some info too, great. However, I want the info from those who make the rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:About to make our first round of college visits over spring break and curious to hear from experienced parents if you and your child felt that the official guided tours were a valuable experience or not? In my personal travels I'm not one for guided or packaged experiences, preferring to discover things on my own just by exploring and talking to people. But perhaps the tours provide access to places and insights I can't get to on my own.

What would you recommend as the best way to experience a campus on a short visit?

Didn't read the thread. Just responding to initial question.

Yes, yes, yes. Go on the official tour for a number of reasons:

1) Your kid is registered. They know you showed up, went on the tour. Your kid gets points for showing up. This matters a lot more than you think. I know this direct from several admissions counselors who came to our kids' school.
2) You'll hear the "official" spiel from a kid trained to tour visiting potential applicants. This has some value. Ask questions, and see how the kids respond. We took one school off our list because the kids ducked some of our questions. We were suspicious, and later questioning confirmed our suspicions that the school had a weakness in an area DD was interested in.
3) If you don't have time to spend schmoozing with kids (and they are busy!), you at least get to meet one or two actual students, which is better than not meeting any. They can give you a sense of what the school cares about. We went on two tours at one school, and the kids all said they belonged to greek life, which DD had zero interest in. We crossed that school off our list because greek life seemed extremely important socially at that particular school.
4) The tour take you places you can't see otherwise, like inside a dorm and a dorm room, inside labs, the cafeteria, inside other places that you can't get in as a casual visitor, especially at urban schools where you can't even walk through the library without an ID. You can also request certain places, and at small schools, they will honor those requests (my kid wanted to see certain labs, and they brought us over to that building at one school.)

Best of luck to you and your DC!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always do the info session and the tour giving DC the option of skipping the info session. I want admissions info, stats, FA, testing, etc, from the admissions office, but if a student guide wants to throw in some info too, great. However, I want the info from those who make the rules.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Every college my kids visited had an official sign up for the tour. I'm convinced the visit, tour and follow up with the regional admissions contact tipped the admissions for my DD at a private college of about 12,000 undergrads.

[Anonymous]

And agree that your kids absolutely must check out things on their own: go to the dining hall, sit on the college square or wherever, walk down the Main Street.

[Anonymous]

What should we expect from the info sessions? Do they just tend to be a regurgitation of information you can find for yourself on the website? In your experience, what was the difference between a useful and useless info session?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What should we expect from the info sessions? Do they just tend to be a regurgitation of information you can find for yourself on the website? In your experience, what was the difference between a useful and useless info session?

It may be useless to you since you can get your information online, but apparently others find it useful as information sessions are always packed.