By Gabrielle. Remember this photo? It’s Ben Blair and I on the day we graduated from college. I was very pregnant and Ralph was born a week or so later.
Okay, Friends. I need some advice. It’s our Spring Break this week and as I mentioned, we are heading out on a California campus tour tomorrow morning. The whole family is going, and we imagine the younger kids will get tired of campus visits pretty quickly, so we’re calling it a campus tour/ice cream tour. We’re hoping to visit 7 universities, and we’ll seek out the 7 best ice cream shops we can find. : ) We’ve also promised to work in lots of visits to the beach!
But back to the advice. The whole campus tour concept isn’t exactly new-to-me — I remember moving back East and realizing it was almost a rite of passage for many families. But it’s something I’ve never done before and I don’t know a single person from my hometown that went on campus visits or college tours. When I graduated from high school, it seems like 99% of my fellow university bound students went to the local college. And then there were a few of us who went north to Brigham Young University or University or Utah. Virtually no one left the state for school and I don’t remember anyone thinking very hard about where they would go to college.
I imagine that has changed now, but still, I’m left with very little personal experience in this area. The good news is that we’ve always liked exploring campuses with the kids and have done so wherever we’ve lived or visited, so we’re not complete novices. Usually, we walk around campus, and maybe visit the museum or the library. We check out the student center and peek in a classroom. We eat something at a university café or cafeteria. But that’s about it. We generally don’t have a specific goal other than hoping our kids will feel at home in a campus environment.
But this trip seems different. There’s more of a definite purpose to these visits. They feel weightier and less touristy. The whole thing is very exciting to us and we want to make the most of it! So I’ve got questions for you. First of all, did you get the chance to go to college? If yes, what was choosing a school like for you? Did most people in your area stick close to home? Did your parents take you on a college tour? Did you think long and hard about where you wanted to go?
Second, if you’ve done a multi-campus tour with your own kids, what did you find most helpful? Did you take an official guided tour at each stop, or wander on your own? How much time did you spend on campus? Did your kids’ area of study affect what they wanted to see on each campus? What if your child was undecided as far as a major goes? In addition to cost, what were the biggest factors that determined college choices for your kids: area of study? geography? dorms? social life? something else entirely? Is the visit mostly about getting a feel for the campus and helping your kids imagine themselves there? Did your kids end up picking a school from the tour, or did the choose a campus they hadn’t visited before?
If you were going again, what would you hope to get out of it? What other advice do you have for us? What questions should we be asking?
I’d love to hear your thoughts! I know some of you have kids that have just gone through similar experiences, and I know other readers are still in college and can remember their campus tours like it was yesterday (because it practically was!). I can’t wait to learn from all of you.
Happy Spring Break!
P.S. — Both of our oldest kids have been getting mailings from universities for years now. So many different schools! And more than half of them I haven’t even heard of. It’s no surprise to me that people often use geography to narrow the list of choices. It’s overwhelming!
Hubby and I took each one of our kids on a college tour. It was a great one on one time for each of them, and let us give them undivided attention. Our youngest graduated from college almost 2 years ago, so tours are still fresh in my mind. My advice:
1. Don’t make decisions based on the initial tour, but if it seems worthwhile to apply, do so, and then go back for Accepted Students Day. Much less crowded and you will hopefully have more access to professors in the field.
2. TALK TO PROFESSORS IN YOUR CHOSEN MAJOR! SO, so important. With our youngest, she was ready to dismiss one particular college (which I thought would be a perfect fit) because of the lack of diversity on campus. That was definitely a negative, however, once she found out that the neighboring community was a local refugee area, and she would be student teaching children from all over the world, she saw the school differently. She also was recommended by this same professor to visit the campus outreach volunteer group’s booth, where she found kindred spirits. She ultimately decided on this particular school for those very reasons, and despite the lack of diversity on campus, she had the most amazing opportunities to travel the country, volunteering in so many areas. She studied abroad in a Peruvian village where she taught 5th graders for 5 months, and learned to speak Spanish fluently. (She majored in Education and Spanish). Because of her experience as an undergrad, she was offered two jobs immediately after graduating, and chose her “dream job” teaching children of immigrants in a dream city. She was the ONLY new teacher hired that year who hadn’t had formal teaching experience, and they said it was because of her varied volunteer, student teaching, and studying abroad experience through her college of choice.
So yes, take the tour, but talk to someone about what is important to you…and make a careful decision, not based on initial impressions.
I just commented below with the same thought – but yes, TALK TO PROFESSORS. If you are choosing a research-heavy school, they may focus on graduates instead of undergraduates, with too-large classes and not enough office time. You can tell from meeting with the faculty whether they care about new freshman!!!!
We found it helpful to do an initial round of tours spread out over time before my daughter applied anywhere. Then the spring break after she received acceptance letters we more seriously toured the couple she was deciding between. We did these close together so she could more easily make a comparison. She knew the minute we stepped onto the second campus that she was going to the first one and then she spent the drive home texting everyone about which college she was going to!
I haven’t had a lot of experience with campus tours, but based on the ones that I have done, don’t base your choice on the student-led tours. Try to get permission for your student to visit a class and to meet with a professor in their field. At BYU, for instance, the golf cart tour can turn an academic-based student off completely; meeting with a professor, visiting a class or lab, seeing student work – all of this gives them a whole different picture.
I have boy-girl twins and an older child that are 18 months apart, so…we visited almost 60 colleges in the span of 2 years. We looked coast to coast as one was pre-med (almost every school has a program) one in Geology (somewhere near good rock outcrops) and one is a competitive Dressage Horse rider (read business school while training for olympics so had to be near top trainers).
My best advice is to use a coach.
We used a College coach which was invaluable for this mix of Disciplines, aptitudes and personalities. He made sure the essays were good, the college choices to apply to were academically appropriate and suited their other wants in a campus for each, and suggested some options that we would haven’t otherwise considered. He helped them manage the application process, look and apply for scholarships and fielded all those questions that you wanted them to ask, but they wouldn’t ask a parent. They met with him privately each time so they were working with him, not mom and dad working with him. They had to meet his expectations and deadlines. We were fully updated and considered…just not with the kids in tow, so it was a very great process.
He also made sure they had things done and submitted early…this was critical in being accepted and for getting scholarships to many schools. We had all the testing completed and applications submitted by August 1 of their senior year. ( Something that I don’t have the organizational skills to do, nor did I even know how to start.) We had great college counsellors at their high schools, but they handled hundreds of kids each, so having our own coach put us way ahead of the other 900 kids that were using the same counsellors.) While their friends were still taking tours and trips, filing apps and taking tests, my kids enjoyed their senior year. Each of them knew where they were going by the end of September, each with scholarships. (And by the way, my kids are smart enough, but not all top students or athletes…ok, the rider is a top athlete, but there aren’t any colleges giving scholarships for Olympic level horseback riders!, trust me…soccer would have generated many more $) (Her school actually ended up allowing her to have free courses long distance while she was competing in Florida each January through March, which was wonderful.
I recall one bit of wisdom from Coach that really helped my children decide between their many choices on college visits….he told them to really look around on the tours to see if the kids “looked” like them, “talked like them” and “dressed” like them. I know this seems silly, but it was critical in making that final choice. It meant that they would fit in right away, which was important for long term happiness and success.
So, I know this seems a bit out of the ordinary as advice, but we got to enjoy the campus visits with them, enjoy the process and get complimented by College Admissions on how prepared my kids were. Yes, and I just smiled and said thank you…especially to Coach as I have 3 kids who loved their choice, excelled at their major and made great friends. It was a great experience for all.
Best of luck!
I had a most untraditional and awesome path myself cause my number one school finances didn’t pan out. There are opportunities wherever you go if you look for them. My husband couldn’t go to his top school for undergrad due to finances and so he got paid to get a Ph’d there. His niece is currently in the same boat getting a Ph’d. She went to BYU for undergrad. My oldest is only in 8th grade, but was raised at colleges and she currently plans on attending a college we don’t approve of. I tell her that she’d better get a scholarship there then. Best of Luck.
I had a very similar experience where we did a mother daughter college tour over 2 states in a week. I was in HS overseas so my siblings or dad couldn’t come. They blurred together after about 3 and I ended up picking not my 1st, 2nd, or 3rd original choices!
It was mentioned in a comment thread above, but bears repeating. Ask about proportions of tenured/tenure track vs. contingent faculty. Contingent = adjuncts, 1- or 2-year contract appointments, and other non-tenure track arrangements. Many adjuncts are very poorly paid, have no job security, no campus office, and no benefits. Because of the precarity of their employment and the low pay, many have to cobble together full-time employment by adjuncting on more than one campus. This is a VERY serious issue and any tuition-paying parent or student deserves to know exactly how your prospective college or uni treats its instructors.
I would also suggest asking your tour guide about student protests and how they are handled. For example, I would hesitate to send my child to UC-Davis where campus police pepper-sprayed peaceful protestors. Regardless of whether or not your child is the protesting type, how college admins and campus police handle tricky student situations is a barometer of how they respect their student body.
Also mentioned above: does the campus have a dedicated Title IX officer? GREAT question.
If parents, who foot most of the bills, started asking these questions on campus visits, things would change, and fast!!