As Fort juniors approach the middle of the school year and college application season looms closer, they must begin to think more seriously about where they would like to apply and attend. College tours can be invaluable in helping students find the right school for them, and my recent trips to several different college campuses recalibrated my perspective on what a college can offer and what kind of campus community I wish to belong to.
College tours provide an experience completely different from those of the virtual tours offered on many schools’ websites. In the virtual tours, the campus intends to show off its absolute best, which in many cases can be biased and not an accurate representation of how the campus really is. When physically touring the campus, however, students can fully experience the campus with life bustling among them, which allows them to visualize themselves at the school.
An example of one of these tours is Fordham University’s Rose Hill Campus in the Bronx. There was a live demonstration of the development of medicinal amino acids used in medicine, such as Ozempic. Another enlightening college tour was at Northeastern University in Boston, which gave a stark realization of its distance with an excruciating four-hour drive there and back. There exists a juxtaposition between the website and the campus, as the campus seemed so much more lively, and the tour guides made the experience feel more personalized.
Furthermore, it can be enjoyable to encounter different parts of a college that may not have been apparent otherwise. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there was a giant crane lifting enormous machines of all different types. There is an opportunity to learn fun facts about the colleges, which can make the experience more unique. For example, pranks at MIT are called “hacks,” with the most famous hack in MIT history being the patrol car on the roof. Students moved the Chief of Police’s car, then reconstructed the entire car out of wood on the top of the dome at MIT, containing a huge parking ticket, donuts, a cop, glasses, and all.
College advisor Ms. Ferrara believes in the value of college tours and recommends that students start college tours in their junior year, reiterating how virtual tours are incomparable to college tours. Another point she made was how you have no idea how you will react when you reach college. You could find the climate intolerable or the local community boring. It’s better to know where not to go than where to go when making college decisions.
However, many people do not have the luxury of going on college tours. In this scenario, Ms. Ferrara recommended https://www.thecollegetour.com/ as a viable alternative. Students should seek out these experiences to make decisions on what college will be right for them.
