my bad! sorry With the end of the school year approaching, high school students are beginning to tour college campuses. Organized tours are one of the best ways to get a feel for the place a future student will call home for four years. Potential students will be able to have their questions answered by the guides, as well as see where they will take classes, where they will eat and what the general vibe of the campus is.
As great as tours are, they don’t always tell a truthful story about campus. Tour guides put the college’s best foot forward by taking you to the most photogenic areas of campus, and answer every question in the most positive way possible. The guides often skim over the ‘bad’, and while in a PR sense this is logical, it’s important for a potential student to know what a college is actually like.
Here are 10 things your tour guide won’t tell you.
1. All dorms are not equal.
On a tour, you might see dorms with giant closets, massive floor space and bathrooms cleaner than the one back home. While there will be a lucky few students who will be blessed with these mansions for housing, chances are you won’t be. You and your roommate will be crammed into a cinder block room roughly the size of a prisoner's cell. The walls will be so thin that when your neighbor goes through a rap phase you’ll be able to hear every one of Lil’ Dicky’s lyrics. And the bathrooms? You don’t want to know. Invest in shower shoes.
2. Neither are dining halls.
While the options for food might seem overwhelming at first — Chinese, pizza Mexican, burgers, a salad bar, even Chick-Fil-A, after a week on campus you’ll quickly learn the quality varies as much the flavors. Campuses often play favorite with dining halls, putting all of their time and money into one location, while leaving the others to fight over the scraps (literally). There’s going to be one dining hall you trust and go to every day, while others you eat at only if everything else is closed.
3. What clubs are actually like.
Clubs often make and break your college life. They can add invaluable experience and access to contacts that could greatly benefit your career. Tour guides will often provide you lists of the dozens and dozens of clubs that your university offers. Do you like some obscure sport like Quidditch? They have it. Are you really passionate about stem-cell research? There is an advocacy club for it.
Unfortunately, not all clubs are genuinely out to save the world or even trying to win the state championship. Some student orgs act like another class, piling on hours of work, while others are little more than a name to put on your resume. While neither option is necessarily bad, sometimes the clubs will be misleading on which side of the spectrum they fall. Make sure to question your tour guide on what actually happens in the clubs you’re interested in, because there’s a good chance you’ll be underwhelmed or in over your head.
4. Class registration isn't fair
You come to college to take classes. Often tour guides will brag about the array classes offered within each major, You will be so amazed by the options ahead of you. Unlike high school, there are hundreds of interesting classes that will help you have a head start in your career, but the other thousands of students are thinking the same thing.
By the time you go to register for classes, the only courses available will be dull and hard. Your tour guide won’t mention the fact you’ll likely spend your first semester in microbiology instead of geology. Thankfully, the farther along you get into college, the easier it is to get classes you need, so don’t worry too much if a wanted course is filled up. This happens to everyone and is rarely avoidable, so it’s best to be prepared.
5. Professors are human too.
While high school teachers might seem friendly and relatable, college professors are often aloof and haughty. This is rightfully so; college professors are some of the most highly educated and respected members of their fields. On a tour, you might learn some of your future educators have done award-winning work and could offer you a position on your team.
Despite their esteem, these professors are still people. Some of them will be amazing, but a majority are simply mediocre. Swiftly you’ll realize all of that education went to waste on them, and they’ll pass on hardly enough information to allow you to pass. Ask questions about who your tour guide took, and if there are any professors they really liked. While RateMyProfessors can be unreliable, it’s often worth checking up to see what previous students have said about what a professor is like.
6. Parking? You won’t know her.
Often as a freshman on campus will walk everywhere you go. If you are lucky enough to have your car, get ready to fight. Parking is the most infamous issue distressing students across the country. Tours will undoubtedly forget to mention the anarchic, "Mad Max"-esque hellscape campus parking lots can be.
You likely witnessed this while arriving on campus. And trust me, it’s not going to get any better. Ask your tour guide for the best walking shortcuts, because you’ll need them.
7. Either you’ll live and die in the library or never step foot in the building.
A cornerstone of your tour will often be the library.Your tour guide will point out all of the amazing features the library offered. The library might have extensive research labs, private study rooms, and even a Starbucks. This sounds amazing, especially to your parents. Despite all of the glamour, there’s a strict binary on library usage. Either you’ll live and die there, or return to its halls twice in your entire collegiate career.
Don’t put too much weight on what your guide promises the library can do for you because there’s a good chance you’ll never use them. Be aware of your own study habits and what you need from a university.
8. Where the parties are.
There’s no way your tour guide is allowed or willing to talk about the party scene, nor will they answer any questions concerning it. Regardless of if your university condones partying or not, it’s going to happen. Popular culture would like for you think all colleges have menacing hoards of seersucker-wearing frat boys, Animal House style. In reality, the types of party cultures vary dramatically across campuses, and this will influence how, when, and where the good times happen.
At some universities, frats will host all of the parties, while at some schools its individual house parties, and at even other colleges are based on the bar scene. While you won’t get much help here from your tour guide, everyone wants to know where the best place to have a good time.
9. How much Greek life matters.
At some schools, only a minority of students rush sororities and fraternities, but at some colleges, especially in the South, it seems like every student is part of a greek organization. At some colleges not being greek can greatly limit your opportunities to get involved and to make friends. While it’s perfectly ok not to rush, it’s important to know the influence greek life has on a campus, because you’ll definitely feel it. Try to find out what events are sponsored by greek life, and even what percentage of the student population is Greek.
10. There will be constant construction.
If there’s a new building on campus, its guaranteed your tour guide will mention it. They’ll go on and on about how wonderful the new additions to campus are. They’ll point out the shiny new buildings but will try to hide the obnoxiously loud construction behind the newness. Like your homework, the construction never ends. Fixing up the campus is nice, but often what is selected to be rebuilt seems pointless, when there are buildings with no A/C or a women’s bathroom.
Your tour guide will absolutely not show you those buildings, either. Be prepared to take a detour through campus for three out of the four years of your college education, only for a new project to start. Like with parking issue, your tour guide will know the best ways around construction. Try to find the best detour before you actually need it.
Tour groups are a good way to discover basic information about a campus, but if you are really interested in attending a university, you should dive deeper into the experiences expected there. By knowing the day-to-day life on campus a student will have a realistic view of what they can expect there. When you are about to spend tens of thousands of dollars and dedicated four years of your life to a college, you want to know as much as you can about a university.
By asking the right questions, and discovering the truth of the ones left unanswered, a future college student will be better prepared to decide on a college to attend.