Campus Tours are a great idea if you have a campus to show off. A lot of parents and students want to get a feel of the campus before applying to the colleges in it. So, what do you do to ensure the best possible experience?
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Star Student: While staff may be an option, it is better to get the best of the students to give the tours. Remember some of the prospective students are from out of town and they may not know anyone from your college. You want them to look at the tour guide and identify with them or better yet, aspire to be like them. Now many students would apply to this job to get themselves out of the ‘broke’ books. But, even then see that the student who is the guide has great energy, enthusiasm and dresses neatly. Parents are put off by disheveled looking teenagers giving out important information.
So, while your star student may not be interested in walking up and down your 10 acre campus during her final exams, you can find students who are good academically, can retain information and are not involved in too many things. If they don’t care for the extra money, give them extra credit or killer recommendations.
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Don’t KISS: While keeping it short and sweet is definitely not the way to have a campus tour, keeping the audience detained for more than an hour and a half is suicide. Remember, not all the people in the tour are teeny boppers. Some may just want to sit and relax. Here is what to do: Break up the tour into 2 or 3 parts. First get everyone walking. That builds momentum and cover as much ground as you can in the first 45 minutes. Then use a lobby or a garden setting to help everyone relax and sit. You can even tie in a bathroom break if you want. In this time, answer questions. Talk about a totally different subject after the break. The physical tour can continue again after that. A lot of colleges transfer the prospects from one guide to another every 30 minutes. This does not help the bonding process that is so very essential. If it was meant to be impersonal, robots would have been able to do it with lesser practice.
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Shhh: How do you stop the moms from chatting up at the rear? Well, one cannot expect the student guide to discipline the parent. But what will help is raising the voice, making everyone gather around or change the formation or asking questions.
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Chop, chop: When you schedule tours one after another, inquisitive prospects can be an issue. They have to be encouraged to ask questions and the guide should definitely not give any hint of the fact that she is late for the next tour. So, when a guide gets detained, you should have a backup guide ready. Also, the guide should be equipped with contacts of people in admissions and individual departments, which she can hand out if the questions cannot be clarified by her. Sometimes guides can give their own contact details so that the bond can be strengthened.
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Involvement: Community involvement is always a big draw for education institutes. If there is a free event that is happening the following week on campus, make sure the guide is weaving that in to the speech. In the end of the tour, the guide can pass out flyers for the event or verbally invite everyone. They may not come due to the distance involved, but will sure think of you the day of the event. Mission accomplished. Keep them involved in the college.
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