Author: Kaitlyn Reeser
As the academic year comes to a close for current Occidental students, the future class of 2015 is still engrossed in the process of finalizing their college decisions for the upcoming year, and schools like Occidental are striving to put on their best faces.
Many prospective students have visited campus over the past several weeks for events such as Admitted Students Days on Fridays of this month.
The college touring process is in full swing as tours run daily to familiarize students and parents with Occidental.
Resident admissions intern Rachel Greenstein (junior) explained the current tour schedule.
“The office offers two regular tours every weekday, plus occasional tours for high school groups. During the fall semester and in April, the office also offers two tours every Saturday morning.”
Tours are approximately one hour long and are followed by an optional information session with an admissions officer,” she said.
According to Director of Admission Sally Stone Richmond, Occidental’s admissions rate dropped five percent this year, following the trend of increasing competition in colleges nationwide.
Accompanying this intensified competition is an expectation that colleges extravagantly market themselves to accepted students.
Showmanship consisting of colorful brochures, catered lunches and expensive decorations is fast becoming a common aspect of college visits, including those at Occidental.
But according to Greenstein, the main factor that distinguishes the touring process at Occidental from that of comparable schools is not the display of shiny pamphlets and bright balloons, but rather the unmatched level of personal investment and involvement from dedicated tour guides.
“Tours are an opportunity for prospective students to learn about Oxy from a current student’s perspective. The tour includes information on campus life, academics and student services,” she said.
Tour guides do not have a script; instead they discuss these important topics while speaking from their personal experiences of college life,” Greenstein said.
Assistant Dean of Admission Laura Tokuza gives a more traditional assessment of the tour’s purpose.
“The goal of the campus tour is to allow prospective students and their families the ability to understand Occidental beyond the facts that they can find on the website. Anyone can see our student enrollment, academic offerings, student-to-faculty ratio and other basic information, but what we want them to see on the tour is much more than that,” she said.
This year the Admitted Students Day program drew an especially large number of prospective students and their parents.
Attendees of this event were impressed by the high level of effort that Occidental puts into its receptions for prospective students. Most gave very positive feedback about the decorations, food and information sessions.
The college tour in particular was a common topic of discussion among student and parent groups.
One student echoed Greenstein’s claim that Occidental’s tour guides set the college apart.
“My tour guide was really high-energy and enthusiastic. At other schools I visited, I wasn’t even sure if the tour guides liked their school. Here, it was pretty clear that they did,” visiting Seattle high school senior Mariel Rowland said.
Another said that the portrayal of campus on brochures mailed to her quite accurately coincided with the on-campus experience she had.
“The tour was very pretty, and everything that has been sent to me by Oxy has been relevant to my own personal interests,” prospective student Alexa Van Demark said. “They did a really good job.”
Although the consensus on Admitted Students Days has been generally quite positive this year, some visitors expressed their skepticism about the authenticity of the information given out.
The most commonly voiced concern at both Admitted Students Days and the student-led tours was simply that these events might portray Occidental in too positive a light.
“They were so enthusiastic with their balloons. I hope it’s not like this all year,” Chelsea Gray, a prospective student from Colorado, said.
Visiting parents, however, tended to have more reservations about taking the information portrayed in the tours at face value.
“You never know what the reality is compared to what they happen to emphasize during a tour,” one worried parent said.
The admissions office is prepared to address this kind of skepticism. It is aware that students going through the process of applying to colleges are bombarded with a great deal of information and often have difficulty knowing what proportion of that information is accurate.
“Students and parents always ask about favorite and least favorite aspects of Oxy. We encourage our tour guides to be honest, because these families want to know the truth about the Oxy experience,” Tozuki said.
More and more, students are turning to online sources such as the popular online forum College Confidential to share impressions, voice their concerns and gather candid information from current students.
One College Confidential user wrote, “I just visited Oxy in this past week and I find that many people don’t want to say anything particularly bad about Oxy, especially to ‘prospies,’ which is understandable. But I need to know both the good and the bad to make a truly informed decision.”
Although colleges must promote themselves in a way that portrays them in the best possible light, both Greenstein and Tokuza agree that the touring process offers students a positive and accurate representation of real life as an Occidental student.
“I can’t think of any ways to improve tours. I think all the tour guides are outgoing, motivated students that represent our school well,” Greenstein said.
“Although there are certain facts we want tours to include in order to give families the hard facts that they crave, I also want them to tell them what families won’t find in a publication or on our website, which is the personal experience,” Tokuza said.
“Tour guides talk about their challenges but also their triumphs, and because of their honesty, visitors find them to be genuine and relatable.”
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