Reply to No tours = no interest?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "No tours = no interest?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]OP here. Thank you to those who have offered considerate suggestions!

I do recognize that touring a college campus is a luxury. I did not take any college tours myself, as neither of my parents went to college (in fact, neither finished high school), and neither they nor I had any idea about how the whole college application game worked. I had no idea that there WAS such a thing as a college tour. I had visited an older friend once at a local private college that I fell in love with, but which my family could not afford. I was given a choice between two local public colleges, site unseen, and went to the one closest to my home for financial reasons. While I was thankful to be able to go at all, of course I wanted to give my own children more of a choice.

We have since driven to walk around one of the local universities that DD was accepted to but which are not offering tours, and she has watched their videos online. I will say that I do get her point - there is a big difference in walking around a campus with a group of other potential students (even socially distanced and masked) and being able to speak one on one with a student tour guide who is currently attending, versus walking around an empty campus by yourself. Of course, we understand the need for safety, given the pandemic. But seeing school A, where you are personally welcomed, can hear remarks from the current tour guides and get their perspectives, and get a sense of what the student body is like, does give you more of a picture than perhaps at School B, just looking at their website or watching online videos. Some schools are definitely making more effort with their outreach than others, and some are doing it better than others.

I have an older DS who felt that visiting definitely made a difference in his college selection. One school looked great on paper and had a strong reputation, but being there at Accepted Students Day in person gave him a clearer picture of the student body, the faculty, and the interactions and insight of that day moved him to drop that school from first place to third. While being able to tour is not the be all and end all, I do think there is value in it. I'm encouraging DD to keep an open mind and try to get a sense of the non-tourable schools from some of their live online presentations.

I've also reiterated that there are many good schools, and that she would likely be happy at most of them. I was not crazy about the university I went to at first, but grew to love it over four years. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics