Are you planning on going to college? Once your junior year arrives, you will experience something called, “the college tour” and meet a variety of college tour guides. Not all tour guides are alike.
You’ll love some right off the bat, others will turn you right from going to that college. The important thing is to remind yourself that the tour guide is not a real person. He/she was created in a lab by cutting edge scientists and is the sole property of the admissions office.
They come in four variations:
THE PERKY TOUR GUIDE
• Seizes any opportunity to squeeze the word “awesome” into a sentence
• Over-excitement for the school has caused eyes to permanently bug out
• Invents nicknames for every campus gargoyle
THE “I NEED TO MAKE A FEW BUCKS SO I’M DOING THIS” GUIDE
• Condenses the tour into five minutes
• Half-heartedly relays anecdotes while referring to the school’s founder as “some dead guy”
• Answers every question with, “it’s in the brochure”
THE SNOOTY TOUR GUIDE
• Demands that everyone save their questions for the end
• Manages to use obscure college facts as an excuse for bringing up high SAT score
• Makes everyone feel inferior by handing out early rejection letters
THE HOT TOUR GUIDE
• Looks like he just walked out of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue
• Points as much as possible to show off well-developed arm muscles
• Laughs rather than actually narrates tour
• Poses for pictures for several hours after tour is over
Risa Lewak, author of Don’t Stalk the Admissions Officer: How to Survive the College Admissions Process Without Losing Your Mind, worked as a pre-admissions counselor and recruiter for Hunter College before turning to humor to help students going to college with the admissions process.