Knock your socks off campus tour?
 

Would like to get impressions of various campus tours you've been on with your teens. We've just started and I'm not sure if we need to attend each and every admissions presentation, dorm tour and walking tour of campus. Saw Purdue - ho hum; Indiana - WOW; Minnesota - bleak and cold. Thanks!

The campus tour is important for getting the "feel" of the school, but if you picked schools based on the tour, you are missing the point of college. Of the three schools you mentioned, Purdue is probably the best school academically so the "ho hum" tour may not be the best indication.

The Naval Academy was really good and what a beautiful campus!!!!

NYU is a cool campus and a great school.

My daughter and I loved the Florida State tour--very comprehensive. They conduct a 1 1/2 hour walking tour of the beautiful campus which includes stops at dorms, the library, stadium etc. They also give you the option of attending admissions and financial aid seminars before or after the tour. The college admissions process is so different and so much more competitive than it was for my generation that I would recommend that you start looking into it no later than the end of the sophomore year of HS.

Unless you and kid have lots of time and money on your hands, I think much of your work could be done ahead of time to eliminate many choices. (My son is now HS senior, on his way in September).

First, most kids have some sort of idea about size, type of community, climate, etc. even if they don't know what they want to study. That eliminates a large slice, as does academic level/ranking. For example (not to pick on your visits), you would have known Minnesota was freeezing even without visiting it. For some kids, that won't matter (for my son it did - so off he goes to Georgia)

After you have seen some representative schools (for example, one rural, one city), much can then be done by looking at school websites - most of them are incredibly comprehensive. Then visit a very limited number of schools - we did not even visit all the schools to which our son applied - did visit the local ones (Massachusetts) and his top 2 choices (Florida and Georgia). Figured we could make return visits or see second and third choices later, if necessary.

Good luck - it's an adventure.

Agree with how competative it is getting. We looked at schools with my stepdaughter when she was in ninth grade and she's been jockying for position ever since. She's now finishing her junior year of high school.

I had my heart set on attending Florida in Gainesville but a visit to Tulane changed my mind. I happened to visit when azaleas were in bloom and Mardi Gras was fast approaching! I loved all four years there and will now start law school at UF in the fall!

Hi Dan--my DH is a Gator law grad! It stung when our daughter decided FSU is the ONLY college she wants to consider! Speaking of competitive--these days UF undergrad is only taking 1 out of 4 applicants and very few out of state students.

I agree that the college websites are very comprehensive. Once you've narrowed down your choices, IMO, a personal visit is a must; and an overnight visit for your child if available. The websites won't tell you if the food plan is awful, which dorms are party-central or how safe the campus is. The students are more than happy to share this info.

Syracuse!

My daughter is a tour guide, but hurry up, she graduates in 2 weeks!

I'm not sure whether this thread is about *tours* per se, or about the colleges themselves.

I agree with gail -- you should make an effort to narrow down your choices as much as possible before making the huge time and $$ investment in college tours.

If your kid doesn't know yet whether they want a big or small school, or urban vs rural, just take them to visit a few local campuses so they get some feel for what they like. My younger daughter *thought* she wanted an urban campus, then *hated* places we visited that had that office-building-on-city-streets feel; she realized she wanted a "real," pretty campus with lawns etc. Imagine our delight when she found a school that had a lovely campus with a Metro stop right at the edge, plus all the academic stuff that was important. And imagine my delight when I found that the various stats indicated she was sure to get in -- whew!

I will confess that we ruled out one school based on a terrible impression that the tour guide made; at a school where 20% of the kids are in fraternities or sororities, he made a big deal out of looking down on kids who weren't and went on to insult various ethnic groups, foreign students, etc. Unbelieveable!

Anyway, I feel very strongly that no campus visit is complete without a few unofficial chats with students and a visit to something that particularly interests your student, whether that's a sports or extracurricular activity or perhaps their potential major department.

Just to try to keep this travel-related -- be sure to bid for Pricline hotels wherever you go, and if there is public transit in the area, use it as much as possible to give the student an even better grasp of what it would be like to live there.

We've narrowed it down somewhat - he wants a large school, midwest based preferably. Was gung-ho on engineering until the tour at purdue - the student spoke very little english and could not answer any questions including who else we could talk to! We ended up on our own going to the dept office and seeing who was in. He's now very focused on computer science and informantics. I think Minnesota was a little too urban for his tastes; the cold wasn't as big a turnoff as the view of industrial stacks across the river. Its not like the twin cities are huge (we live in a much larger city.

Yikes, I can't imagine a school using a tour guide who wasn't fluent! Did you let the admissions office know about your problem? You'd be doing a lot of future visitors a favor.

We had a great tour at the University of Illinois. If the degree focus is on engineering, several of their programs are in the top ten.

Related to travel--I also think it's important to learn about the area the college is in by staying for a day or two and spending time in the city/town as well as on campus. I loved the quaint community Stetson is in--daughter thought it was too small. Although we liked the city of Jacksonville and what it offered, the campus we visited there just didn't feel secure. Gainesville didn't appeal to her at all--the tour was like a cattle call. We've been to Tallahassee many times over the years and the town feels like a good fit with lots of opportunities off campus. She grew up near the beach which is something she enjoys so we considered that as well. One thing we've explored is how easy it would be to get there or home in case of an emergency. Tallahassee would not be an easy drive but there is a direct flight available.

So far we've visited Skidmore, Bucknell, College of the Holy Cross, University of Rochester, and Boston College.

Holy Cross wasn't offering tours when we were there (why do they NOT offer tours when high school kids are on break?!) and so we just walked around. That was very uninformative. The schools that we actually did the whole information meeting and tour thing we got a much better feel for. I would avoid just wandering around a campus again, unless we were in the neighborhood or just couldn't do a tour.

Of course you have to realize that the tours don't really give a completely accurate view of the schools. For instance, they are not going to show you the worst dorms or the tripled up rooms. But if you ask a lot of questions ("How many kids did you know that were tripled in a double room?") you can learn things that probably aren't on the official tour.

My son is "looking" for specific things in addition to his major - for instance, he wants to play in the jazz ensemble and the musicals orchestra pit, he likes a small school, he goes to a Jesuit HS now and feels comfortable in that environment, but doesn't like a really politically conservative environment, etc. Those are things that are surprisingly easy to get a sense of on tour.

I have an issue with schools that are Greek oriented. So I ask the questions about that. Tour guides generally REALLY play that one down to parents though, so it takes a little extra research.

Unfortunately, touring the city or towns that these schools are in are telling too. Some (Worcester for instance) were so bad I just couldn't see it.

I like the following web sites (although - warning - they are a little depressing!):

studentsreview.com
collegeconfidential.com

We are enjoying the college search, although we are pretty low key about it. I just want my kid to be happy someplace!

Let me say up front that I don't have a teen evaluating colleges--so you're free to discount my opinion. But I have to say, you seem to be placing undue emphasis on the college tour! That your son gave up on engineering after a bad tour at Purdue strikes me as hasty. I know, my comment isn't travel-related, and maybe the fact that this is a trvael board is the reason for your focus on the tour--if I've misunderstood, I apologize.

He hasn't given up on Purdue but the tour certainly left a less than stellar impression on him. It seems a lot of the folks on this board have a broad base of experience with different cities, states, regions,etc and many seem to also have older children (maybe I'm imaginging that) - I've also talked with a number of parents who spend an entire spring break driving to campuses and would like to avoid doing that if possible!!!

Have you checked out Washington Univ. in St. Louis? Amazing engineering/computer depts., great diversity of student population (probably a mid-sized school) with ivy covered buildings. Gorgeous campus. It's in a suburb of St. Louis so it's near a city, but not right in one. Not great on sports but very active in intramural teams.

Wash is on our list - he's partial to Big Ten for family reasons but they have an excellent program and have been actively interested in him for a couple of years now.