bsat blog

For those of you who've read this blog for a little while, you know that we have a feature called "What to Watch for On College Tours." Well, the folks over at the Chicago Tribune seem to have been paying attention and have released their own primer, called "getting the most out of college visits."

Their notes:

Nope, it's not a spring-break vacation to Disney World or to a beach. This is much bigger, a road trip with your high school junior, stopping at six colleges in four days.

Let's not Hollywood this up too much, alright. You're making it sound like "National Lampoon's Vacation". Which, honestly it kind of is. Can't you just picture Clark Griswold giving Rusty his first beer in the basement of Ball State's Sig Ep house rather than Monument Valley? 

Don't overschedule: Two campus walking tours in one day is plenty. As it is, you'll be on information overload.

It's a good point. Another reason you'll be on information overload: all the schools are saying essentially the same thing. Here's the Olin library (ever school has one!), here are our academic buildings, here's the campus bar, and you know, it does seem abnormally crowded for 3 pm on a Tuesday. Weird...

The reading material: Pick up the student newspaper and any alternative papers. Scan the campus bulletin boards. Make note of the posters promoting guest speakers, concerts and other activities. Eye the chalk art on the sidewalks. All can provide clues about the academic and social scene, as well as the latest on campus issues and crime. 

Well yeah, but why instruct the kids to take note of the sidewalk chalk, when you're forgetting the best source of all: the writing on the bathroom walls? Hey! There you'll find a truly democratized form of communication as both undergrads and Yale and Youngstown State will think they're the first budding Longfellow to pen the rhyme: "Here I sit, broken hearted / Came to shit but only farted."