Reply to Is the parent tour an interview (even if you have not officially applied)?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The only school we toured that it seemed to matter whether we had applied or not beforehand was GDS. The admissions director was clearly irritated that we hadn't submitted an application before we toured. It made no sense to us because how would we know if we wanted to apply if we'd never set foot in the school? The whole thing was so off-putting that we decided not to apply. This was for K. [/quote]

It's been several years since we interviewed and toured schools for our PreK child (so yes, irritable PP,*we* interviewed and toured, not DC at age 3 or 4)…. but for GDS, as I recall, the required parent interview was the same day as the tour and the director reads the app before doing the interview so I can see that they may have been frustrated but the frustration should have been with the staff for not catching that the application wasn't complete before scheduling the tour/interview - not with you and your family.

I get your point about the tour being a way to gain information, but quite honestly, given the high volume of apps and the wealth of information available online and in print before tours, it's also not unreasonable in DC to expect the app first.

Having said that:  we had such an ATROCIOUS tour from one school that we did not complete the application process for it.  Fast forward a year later, when we just were feeling so at sea about what to do (having decided to hold off on application process for independent schools entirely until DC would enter K, due to some family challenges).  We used a consultant who strongly urged us to reconsider above-mentioned school with atrocious tour….we took her counsel and have never looked back.  It was a major life lesson for us: don't let a tour or a tour guide be a sole factor.  (It was a parent tour guide, btw.)

One more note:  some schools in other areas do ask tour guides to provide feedback after the (individualized, rather than group) tours.  I have no idea whether any of the DC schools do this ….. [/quote]

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