The glass flower collection at the national history museum at Harvard is cool. Take your kids there if you want to visit Harvard. I would not do a formal college tour.

He's right. If you can't think of what to do with little kids, there are plenty of places DCUMs can suggest. Heck, my HS sophomore has zero interest in seeing colleges until the end of his junior year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I am hoping that if my early elementary kid likes boston or campus, it may give him more motivation word hard to achieve this dream.

Go to the Science Museum or the Children's museum instead. Your kids will get much more out of that than a tour around a college campus.

Boston has an amazing science museum, children’s museum and aquarium. I would do those and visit Harvard and MIT’s campuses. Definitely do not do the tour.

No to the tour. But…it is fun to walk around Harvard Square and I think kids of any age would like that.

I have an 8th grader and we have walked around or driven by a few campuses. Doing an actual college tour with kids that young seems pretty ridiculous. Lots of people walk around Harvard’s campus and take pictures.

Your pre kindly and kindly kid’s only concern is not eating paste! They are not going to push harder now because they visited some elite expensive paper mill colleges.

It will backfire and OP's child will go to state.

Stop feeding the troll

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I don't have connections to harvard or MIT, but I know a friend graduated from MIT decades ago. If we do tours, we will do guided paid tours for harvard & MIT. We will check out the museum at harvard, and to answer pp's question, only curious george's store is closed. I am not sure if kids can handle all of the walking. I am hoping that if my early elementary kid likes boston or campus, it may give him more motivation word hard to achieve this dream.

Official tours are always free. People will resent you for: A. taking the spot of a high schooler, and B: slowing down the walk. Some of these tours have a lot of ground to cover, and your kids' little legs won't like it. Peak tour times are in high demand and it's not right you should take up valuable spots playing the tourist.

If you're paying for a tour, then it's not an official college event, and yes, you can play the tourist. You're also being fleeced.

Finally, your ignorance on all levels of college admissions and childhood development is astounding.

Anonymous wrote:Better to focus on a niche sport.

Like fencing rowing or diving? You think the tigers haven’t figured this out? Plus you add in internationals it’s still tough

Better to focus on a niche sport.

I have a 17 year old son and a 12 year old daughter. Due to the age difference, my youngest child was exposed to college tours, college admissions strategizing, war movies, video games and various other things at a younger age than her brother. It did make her more aware of the world, so the sum total is positive so far, even though I wish she didn't like scary movies so much!

But you are HARMING YOUR CHILDREN if you raise them to dream of the Ivy League, or even the second tier below that. My son just went through college admissions. He has high stats. He got into his safeties and his targets. He was deferred or rejected from schools with a 10% acceptance rate or below (HYPSM is way below 10%). Kids we know with similar stats did not even get into their in-state flagship (UMD or UVA) and their parents are looking at paying way more for college as a result. UMD is 30K/yr in state. Private colleges can be as high as 90K this year, and likely 100K/yr by the time these kids finish undergrad in 4 years.

You have NO IDEA, none at all, how crazy competitive the game has become. And how EXPENSIVE.

Now there is a demographic cliff coming in 5 years, where the number of American seniors graduating every year will be significantly lower than it is now. It will be to no avail for the Ivy League and other selective institutions, since everyone in the world and their cousin wants to get in. The small private colleges will probably close or struggle, the in-state schools will be very popular. So don't count on less domestic competition to get into Harvard.

Your kids won't even remember these tours anyway. We're an international family and travel abroad to see relatives in Europe and Asia frequently. My kids have very spotty memories of anything that happened during trips taken before they were 10. Which in our case doesn't matter, since we were going it to see family. But in your case, it's a complete waste of time, and will only pressure your kids to revere colleges they very likely will never attend.

So no. Go to museums, national parks, zoos. Have fun. Make sure they're very very good at foundational skills like math, reading and writing.

Anonymous wrote:Why? On the 0.01% chance your kids will go? They won’t even remember this tour

+1
My preschooler is more concerned about Kinderg 5 months from now than college (the concept is too abstract!) 15 yrs from now .

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I don't have connections to harvard or MIT, but I know a friend graduated from MIT decades ago. If we do tours, we will do guided paid tours for harvard & MIT. We will check out the museum at harvard, and to answer pp's question, only curious george's store is closed. I am not sure if kids can handle all of the walking. I am hoping that if my early elementary kid likes boston or campus, it may give him more motivation word hard to achieve this dream.

Whose “dream” are you referring to? Are you saying that a first grader has their own dream to go to a prestigious college?

We have a big age gap in kids so our youngest has been on many college tours and campuses. Youngest is now a junior in high school. The ONLY memory he has of all those colleges is the ones where older siblings attended for 4 years. And for those, his strongest memory is move in/out day. The tours are pretty boring. So if you just want walk campus to buy t-shirts at the bookstore, sure, go. But it likely won’t incentivize your kids. Also, why start the college stress now? If you’re determined, consider touring Georgetown, UMD, American, George Mason, Loyola MD, etc etc.