Make Your College Tour Guide Think
Important Questions to Ask on Your Next Campus Visit
Jun 29, 2008
Ask the Student for His Opinions
Why did you choose this school? This is a basic, all-important question. Chances are your guide will love to answer this question, since he or she signed up to tell people all about how wonderful the college is. Hearing a current student’s first impressions of the school will give you a clearer idea of what the place is all about.
What’s your least favorite thing about (insert name of school here)? The tour guide will try to take something semi-negative and spin it into a positive, because that’s what admissions guides are supposed to do. For example, if a student doesn’t like the cold weather, he might say that sledding, ice skating, and skiing are parts of winter social life.
What do you think the college needs to improve? This sounds a lot like the previous question, but it refers more to the college itself than the student guide’s personal dislikes. What can the college (read: the administration) do to make campus life better, raise the quality of academics, improve facilities, et cetera?
Find Out Specifics: Academics, Students, and Social Life
Are professors helpful/accessible? Do they interact with students, or just stand at the front of a room and lecture? Do they respond to emails/phone calls and hold office hours? Are they more concerned about students…or promoting their own research?
What classes are you taking this semester? Ask this question rather than just “What are your classes like?” to get a more specific answer. The guide will probably tell you if her classes are large lectures, small discussions, or a mixture of both.
How would you describe the students? Here’s where you’ll get a few anecdotes, if you have a good tour guide. The best answer is specific to individual experiences, for example, “They’re really approachable; people smile and say hi even if they don’t really know each other, and I’m comfortable starting a conversation with my next-door neighbors or students who sit next to me in bio class.”
What do you do on a typical weekend? This is what is called a “loaded” question. Why? Because the questions you’re really asking are, “Am I going to be bored here?” “Do students stick around on the weekends?” and “Is partying the only option?” The “weekend” question is absolutely vital to ask at rural schools, where social life most often centers on campus, not on the town.
Some Extra Tips for the Tour
- Avoid pestering the tour guide for statistics about the school (e.g. “What percentage of students…” or “How much money…”). Sure, sometimes the students have a few numbers memorized, but their job is to show you the school and give you a better idea of what it’s like to study and live there, not spit back percentages. You can learn statistics on the school’s website, in the catalog, or during the Admissions and Financial Aid information session, which usually takes place right before or right after the tour.
- Don’t be afraid to broach potentially touchy, more technical subjects, such as alcohol policy, campus security, and the dominance of fraternities/sororities (if the school has them). It’s the tour guide’s job to know about all of these things.
- Stand toward the front of the group, if possible. Tour guides may be experts at projecting their voices and walking backwards, but that doesn’t mean you’ll hear everything he or she has to say. It’s also much easier to ask questions if you’re at the front, and reading the guide’s facial expressions and gestures when he is speaking about certain topics is also helpful when it comes to getting the most out of the tour.
Asking even one of the questions and following these tips will help you learn as much as possible about each college you visit, and give you a more solid foundation on which to build the difficult decision of choosing a school.
