Jonathan Stahler has conducted tours for high school students interested in attending Syracuse University for the past two years. In those two years, he’s seen the effects of his tours firsthand.

‘I’ve had a lot of kids come up to me when they’re freshmen, thanking me and telling me how I influenced their decision,’ said Stahler, a senior sport management major. ‘One of them is even in the sport management program. Having that much of an impact means a lot.’

Toward the end of the academic year, more and more tour groups are seen around campus, with prospective students toting orange canvas bags full of SU literature and asking probing questions about the university.

The campus tours are condensed into one-hour run-throughs of SU — buildings, student life and academics. In the minds of high school students, tour guides and admission officials, there are a few pros and cons associated with the visits. 

 

Pros

 

Personalization

This aspect goes two ways: Tour guides can share their own experiences at the university and personalize the walkthroughs to meet the interests of the high school students and their families.

With tour guides coming from various backgrounds and pursuing different majors, their perspectives can humanize the tour of a school with an undergraduate population of about 13,000, said Charlotte Tefft, associate director of undergraduate admissions.

‘People relate to that,’ Tefft said. ‘The tour guides make it memorable. They may show a certain place, but it’s their special place on campus.’

Some guides open their tours by asking students what majors they might be interested in at SU. Amanda St. Hilaire said this can influence how the tour goes and what she talks about.

‘I have everyone go around so I can keep a mental inventory,’ said St. Hilaire, a junior broadcast journalism and international relations major. ‘I won’t say much about (the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications) if no one wants to hear about it.’

 

Student information sessions

Before some of the tours, students and parents meet with an admissions counselor to discuss what will happen on the tour and the general overview of the university. After that, the parents and students are separated, and the students are led to another room by one or several guides. In this smaller group, high school students can be more candid with current SU students.

This is a unique part of the tour, said Max Solomon, a junior at Randolph (N.J.) High School. Other colleges he had been to, including the University of Florida, Cornell University and Lehigh University, had not prepared these kinds of information sessions.

‘A lot of kids asked questions, and they weren’t embarrassed because their parents weren’t around,’ he said. ‘That was definitely the best part of the tour so far.’

Stahler, the senior sport management major, said high school students usually ask about the social and academic aspects of the university when they’re separate from their families.

 

General overview of the university

In a university with 14 schools and colleges, 20 residence halls, several campus landmarks and a nearby State University of New York campus, the tours have a lot of ground to cover. Keeping the visits to a general overview can ensure that most students will have their interests addressed.

‘The point of the tour is not to show every building but highlight the colleges and give people a warm sense of what it’s like to be a student here,’ Tefft said.

Going to each and every building on campus might be a bit overwhelming for the groups involved in the tour, said Adam Davidson, a tour guide and senior finance major.

‘If you went to every building, it’d be too much,’ he said. ‘The way the tours are now, they give a nice overview.’

 

Cons

 

Syracuseweather

The weather comes with the territory once a student decides to study at SU. High school students and their families on the tours might expect an occasional flurry but are put off by snow squalls.

A family from Toronto, Canada, visiting the university went on a tour Saturday afternoon. The mother said she was surprised and slightly annoyed by the heavy winds and frigid snow that welcomed them to the campus.

One of the only cons of an SU tour can be the unpredictable weather, Stahler said.

‘I’m definitely not looking forward to a tour when the weather is bad,’ he said. ‘Everyone is miserable. Snowing isn’t bad, but it’s worse when it rains.’

When the weather takes a bad turn, tour guides usually give their tours inside, through the windows of some of the buildings, including the glass-covered Newhouse III or Huntington Beard Crouse Hall.

 

Lack of student activity

Tours of the campus usually occur at three times during the day: 9 a.m., noon and 3 p.m. The amount of student activity on campus can vary depending on the day of the week and the time of that specific tour. Some tour guides say families look forward to seeing some student interactions on campus, but this can be hard to come by on a Saturday morning.

‘If they come at 9 o’clock in the morning, they’re not in for much in terms of seeing students. I usually give the morning tours, and it’s hard to see anyone up then on the weekends,’ Davidson said.

The weather can also restrict the amount of activity on the campus, Stahler said.

 

Not seeing dorms in the fall

Both tour guides and admission officials agree that families coming to see the university are usually very intent on seeing a dorm room — the place where their children may be living for the next few years. Unfortunately, during the fall and winter, this might not happen.

‘We’re full to capacity in the dorms,’ said Emily Moloney, a tour guide and junior advertising major. ‘We don’t have an open dorm room that we can just show people.’

This is because of a mix between SU students’ privacy and safety, said St. Hilaire, the senior broadcast journalism and international relations major.

Tefft said that on the Prospective Student days, during which already-accepted students are offered tours of SU, guides bring groups through a residence hall. Room tours are also more frequent during the summer because there are fewer students on campus.

smtracey@syr.edu

Published on February 22, 2011 at 12:00 pm