Anonymous wrote:Liked the Maryland campus- College Park, not so much.

Same. Beautiful campus. Wish it could be elsewhere though.

My daughter was pretty much convinced she was going to go to ED to Williams…until the tour.

The horrible weather that day and a very stressed out tour guide talking about how intense the school was did a double whammy on her. I know that both of those factors were random fate, and who knows, if she would’ve had a beautiful spring day and an upbeat tour guide, maybe she would have applied.

A week later, we found ourselves touring. Davidson on a warm day with a lovely guide, and that’s where she is now.

We've been all over the place for tours with our kids. These are the ones that stand out.

Hated: Duke, Tulane, SC, MD, and Princeton

Loved: LSU (a well oiled machine), Chapel Hill, UVA

Anonymous wrote:UPenn needs to overhaul its presentation and tours. I went to grad school there, so know the school well enough to present it to my kid. The admissions office had about 15 tour guides there and they all looked like they were from the land of misfit toys. Further, the tour guides are instructed to relay personal stories at each stop. So boring and unnecessary.

Isn't this true almost everywhere? I really encouraged my kids not to judge a school based on the tour guides. I'd say 70% of our tour guides would fit this description. Tour guides are generally not reflective of a school's population. The tour guide at the school where my kid ended up was "queen of the land of misfit toys." Yet, my son loves it there and says the tour guide is not at all a good indicator of what students at his school are like. Glad he ignored the annoying tour guide...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UPenn needs to overhaul its presentation and tours. I went to grad school there, so know the school well enough to present it to my kid. The admissions office had about 15 tour guides there and they all looked like they were from the land of misfit toys. Further, the tour guides are instructed to relay personal stories at each stop. So boring and unnecessary.

I like hearing personal stories on tours. I can read the website myself -- the point of the tours is to get more personal, what it's like on the ground information.

Trust me, no useful info of any type was imparted, and the tour covered six stops (and no housing) in 90 painful minutes. I really didn’t care that this kid got lost his first week on campus or that one of his teachers once brought cupcakes to class. YMMV

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UPenn needs to overhaul its presentation and tours. I went to grad school there, so know the school well enough to present it to my kid. The admissions office had about 15 tour guides there and they all looked like they were from the land of misfit toys. Further, the tour guides are instructed to relay personal stories at each stop. So boring and unnecessary.

I like hearing personal stories on tours. I can read the website myself -- the point of the tours is to get more personal, what it's like on the ground information.

I agree. Of course, if the tour guide is misfit toy then their stories might be outside the common experience of most kids on the tour.

Anonymous wrote:UPenn needs to overhaul its presentation and tours. I went to grad school there, so know the school well enough to present it to my kid. The admissions office had about 15 tour guides there and they all looked like they were from the land of misfit toys. Further, the tour guides are instructed to relay personal stories at each stop. So boring and unnecessary.

I like hearing personal stories on tours. I can read the website myself -- the point of the tours is to get more personal, what it's like on the ground information.

Loved Holy Cross, Northeastern, UVA, Amherst for much different reasons. Hated Villanova, Williams and Lehigh.

Tours are interesting. A good tour experience can seal the deal and a bad tour experience can be so off putting.

Columbia. great tour
Princeton. ok tour but in August the place felt sleepy, slow and suburban. Don't visit Princeton in August.
Harvard. Obnoxious info session and tour. Turn off.
MIT. Excellent tour. Holy intimidating.
Tufts. Excellent tour.
Wellesley. Gorgeous but women only was deal breaker in our case.
Brown. Excellent tour
Yale. excellent tour
Penn. Excellent tour
Carnegie mellon. Excellent tour. Seems difficult to navigate an undecided student as there are several different schools.

Really wanted DC to like Holy Cross but your and city were subpar at best. Both DC loved BC.

Loved everything about Auburn.

UPenn needs to overhaul its presentation and tours. I went to grad school there, so know the school well enough to present it to my kid. The admissions office had about 15 tour guides there and they all looked like they were from the land of misfit toys. Further, the tour guides are instructed to relay personal stories at each stop. So boring and unnecessary.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Were any of you put off by the guide versus the campus?

The opposite for us at UMass Amherst. The campus is not the selling point but our guide was so good, I don’t think you could finish the tour and not want to go there.

We had the same experience. Our guide and the other one we talked with were enthusiastic about the school and friendly.

Anonymous wrote:Daughter wants to go out west. Visited Arizona and ASU first. She had thought she wanted ASU, but hated how spread out the campus was. She loved Arizona because it was a small and very pretty campus. I was surprised at how much I liked it, too.

In Cali, for the colleges she could get into, none made her jump for joy. So overall, we were very surprised that she left with Arizona as her favorite (and where we expect her to enroll).

This is exactly my DS. We are planning similar visits over spring break. Can you share which SoCal schools you looked at? And by Arizona, I assume you mean U of AZ? Good luck to your DD!

Anonymous wrote:Were any of you put off by the guide versus the campus?

The opposite for us at UMass Amherst. The campus is not the selling point but our guide was so good, I don’t think you could finish the tour and not want to go there.