Juniors! As we go through the spring and the summer, you are likely starting your college search process with visiting colleges and universities! While you are visiting schools, you’ll hear tour guides talk about their experiences, which will help you visualize what your life there as a student might be like. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask tour guides questions about their experiences, so here is a little advice on which questions to ask, from myself and also from some of our Tufts Tour Guides!
From an Admissions Officers perspective, I think there are two categories of questions you can ask:
- General questions that can help you compare different colleges to each other.
- What is your favorite tradition that takes place on campus?
- How would you describe the student body here?
- School specific questions, asking about a major, program, or tradition that is specific to that college/university.
- Could you tell me more about your Cognitive and Brain Sciences major?
- Which would you say is truly your favorite dining hall, Carmichael or Dewick?
Asking a combination of these two types of questions can allow for you to learn what makes a school unique, and be able to compare colleges to each other.
My favorite question for prospective students to ask is “If you could describe the community here in 3 words, what would that be?” This question allows you to learn more about the whole community at a college/university, students, faculty, and staff. To learn more about building your own community here at Tufts, our tour guide Morgan ’24 suggests asking “How did you meet your first friends at Tufts?” Learning more about how students started building their community at Tufts allows for you to envision yourself as a first year student and what opportunities there might be on campus.
Besides the community at Tufts, asking students about their personal feelings about the school can allow you to hear about the experiences students have had. Our tour guide Tolulope ’25 enjoys when students ask “What is your favorite and least favorite thing about Tufts?” and “If you could change one thing about Tufts, what would it be?” These questions allow students to hear a realistic perspective on the university and they give tour guides the chance to talk about how Tufts is working to be the best school that it can be.
While these questions are a great place to start, just remember when you are on a college tour there are no wrong questions. Student tour guides love to discuss their student experiences with you and help you picture yourself on their campus!