Hi everyone! Welcome to the second installment of our “Path to Acceptance” series. Today we will be focusing on one of the most important first steps to choosing a college: the campus tour.
The first thing to do is to register for a campus visit. Many colleges offer online calendars where you can sign up for a specific tour time. Most admissions offices are open Monday-Friday for tours, and some even offer select Saturday visit days.
You can visit a campus at any time of the year, but there are few things that you might want to keep in mind. One, many high schools offer a certain number of excused absences for college visits during the week, so check with your school’s guidance office. Two, summer is a great time for most families to take college trips, but usually the campuses are empty of the majority of their students. If you DO schedule a summer visit, you might want to also plan to come back during the school year for a second look. Three, colleges usually have a different break schedule than most high schools, so if you want to visit the campus when it’s bustling, make sure to ask the admissions office if the students are on break or not!
Once you’ve scheduled your campus tour, we have a few recommendations to make it productive and fun!
1. Wear comfortable shoes and weather-appropriate clothing.
This seems so obvious, but we see students arrive for tours all of the time in inappropriate footwear or dress. At St. Mary’s, for example, our entire campus is connected by a brick path, so stiletto heels are not a safe or practical sartorial choice. Most campus tours last about an hour, and are completely on foot, so you want to be comfortable! They are also usually 50% outdoors, so weather-appropriate outerwear is a must. Many offices (ours included!) have umbrellas for emergencies, but it’s best to be prepared.
2. Map out the route to the campus on GPS the day before.
We cannot stress this enough. You do not want to start your campus tour in a bad mood because you just spend 2 hours in a car arguing with your mom about which turn you missed.
3. Plan to arrive about ten-fifteen minutes early.
Most admissions offices have some paperwork for you to check or fill out, and you might need a few minutes to chill out from the drive as well. Use the restroom, grab a coffee, read the student paper (a great way to see what the students really think about their school!) That being said…
4. Call ahead to the office if you will be late or have to cancel your visit.
This is especially important at a small campus like St. Mary’s. We created our tour schedule in order to keep the groups small and the tours personalized, and we rely on families to show up on time to keep the schedule running. We can’t, for example, hold the rest of the tour group fifteen minutes waiting for you to show up. On the other hand, if we have advance notice that you are running behind, we can plan accordingly. And please call if you cannot make it that day! Think of a campus tour like a doctor’s appointment: you would call and cancel one of those, right?
5. Ask lots of questions!
This is the most important tip! Student tour guides LOVE to answer questions.They’re also extremely knowledgeable: that’s why we hired them! No question is stupid, and could be beneficial to other families in the group. On the flipside, feel free to ask personal questions about your tour guide’s experience on campus, but stay away from questions about their high school GPA or SAT score, religious preferences, or other invasive topics.
6. Ask for your tour guide’s contact information at the end.
They can be a great resource for you throughout the college search process. They are usually more candid than admissions officers, and can connect you with other students and faculty that might share your interests.
7. Debrief on the car ride home.
After each campus tour it’s good to talk about what you liked and disliked about the college. Was it too big? Too small? Do you need a non-bricked campus path where you can rock stilettos to your heart’s content? Whatever your experience was, a candid talk about the vibe you got from the school can really help you narrow down your final choices. Had a really great or really bad campus tour? Let the admissions office know. We rely on feedback to train our tour guides and craft our campus visit programs.
The campus tour can be the most important part of your college search process. You can find hidden gems, realize that dream school that sounded good on paper isn’t for you, or find your future home, all from visiting
The Yellow Brick Path 