r/ApplyingToCollege • u/Agitated-Cup-7109 • Jul 10 '26
Fluff Can parents stop asking obvious questions on tours
Ive been on a couple tours recently, and it felt like on every single one there was a parent who at every opportunity would ask the most google able question ever. I understand asking a bunch of questions about student life or more subjective stuff. But do we really need to stop the tour guide to ask about ap credit policy? Do we need to hold this up to ask about whether or not you need to submit tests? Please stop
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u/KickIt77 Parent Jul 10 '26
As a parent, I can't believe a parent would trust a student just giving a tour for complete or accurate answers on something like this. You are not likely to get a really straight answer until you have a major and an advisor to plug stuff in and see where you are at. Different schools have different policies on applying credits to gen ed vs. required major classes.
If you are going to ask a tour student guide anything, it should be about their own student experience. What's you major? What is your favorite thing to do on campus? What dorm do you live in? What clubs do you participate in? Best cafeteria on campus? I wouldn't assume a student employee is going to have insight into admissions or advising.
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u/Agitated-Cup-7109 Jul 10 '26
Exactly! These are questions for the people in the department or the college website. I feel like the most interesting answers ive found is the more subjective stuff. You didn't travel all the way to this school just to learn about specific policies, its to see the school
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u/Reasonable_Sorbet_18 Jul 11 '26
If you look at OP’s profile, the schools in question are Cornell, Yale, Princeton, etc. They are all legal adults and were likely the top of their classes and took lots of AP courses. Why wouldn’t they be able to answer factual questions for a job that they hold and are trained for correctly?
All of these parents are making a massive investment whether it’s with their time, money, or the sacrifices that it took to get the student to this point. Some of these parents didn’t get to go to college themselves. What is a stupid question to you might not seem so stupid to them. Let people ask questions, it doesn’t need to impact you. Just look around at the campus while the guide answers. Kindness and empathy go a long way here.
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u/KickIt77 Parent Jul 11 '26
The average wrk study job is probably 8-12 hours a week and they are full time students. They are trained to give tours and answer questions on student life and campus maps. It’s actually kind and empathetic not to pressure a student to answer a question that they don’t have experience or background with. Asking about how THEY did transferring in their own credits might be a decent question but again can vary by major and credits. That’s a question for an advisor.
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u/AFlyingGideon Parent Jul 11 '26
Why wouldn’t they be able to answer factual questions for a job that they hold and are trained for correctly?
There's a nice layer of assumption in that statement. We experienced numerous tours where misinformation was stated; better were the cases where students were honest about their ignorance.
At MIT, the tour guide was a theater major. That left questions about [life in] more STEMy majors answered. Similarly, UPenn's was some sort of poli-science major who, when asked, had no idea what was in the Hayden building and thought Towne might house some kind of engineering.
I believe the best tour was given by an RPI student who could answer any question while walking backwards. She even answered that, yes, they practice that.
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u/stanyuls College Junior Jul 12 '26
Hey, im a student tour guide and it seems like the tours you were on the students were just trained incorrectly 🤷 I’m an art major at a stem focused school and I made sure to learn about the stem programs and buildings in depth to give accurate info. When it comes to pre admission / answering questions we are all required to know certain answers and get evaluated on it as well. 90% of the time if you call our pre admission phone you will speak to a student ambassador and we only really transfer people to pre admission counselors 10% if the time. Me and my coworkers really pride ourselves on our knowledge of the school. And it sounds shameful the kind of tours you were on.
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u/AFlyingGideon Parent Jul 12 '26
it seems like the tours you were on the students were just trained incorrectly
I'd opine that that is a given.
Me and my coworkers really pride ourselves on our knowledge of the school.
Grammar aside, it seems that your school does a better job at this than others. I did note that RPI also appears to do this well.
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u/Traditional_Yam9806 Jul 11 '26
They're college students, not LLMs. They don't know every policy, and parents do ask silly questions that can be googled. A few of my friends do that for a job at my college (CMU; they asked me to talk to prospective students on admitted students day), and they don't know the answers to all these questions. If parents cared so much, they'd research it beforehand; it's not that hard to do so; I'd take the same amount of time to google it, too. Also, the parents shouldn't be asking these questions; the kids should.
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u/BlaqOptic Old Jul 11 '26
The irony being that the overwhelming majority of respondents offering help on this sub are students accepted to those universities.
Getting accepted and answering questions on Reddit is okay, but getting accepted and answering questions as a tour guide isn’t somehow….
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u/KickIt77 Parent Jul 11 '26
As a parent that does some college advising I regularly advise that any advice from a student should be taken with a grain of salt and not generalized. No one said asking questions isn't ok. This is just a discussion about what kind of information might actually be interesting and useful from a campus tour guide. Your odds of get accurate generalized inside advising and admissions and department specific info is very low from a student IRL or on reddit.
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u/BlaqOptic Old Jul 11 '26
I absolutely agree. I’m just pointing out that it feels disconnected to treat this sub as some amazing place for doing exactly what OP is complaining about, just through a different means/medium.
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u/Traditional_Yam9806 Jul 12 '26
I mean, on this sub, it's mostly high school students, it seems. I'm only a year out of it (in college, though), and there are hardly any college-going kids from the language I've seen. Also, this sub is half awful if you want real advice. A Google search would be better since most kids here LARP heavily.
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u/EdmundLee1988 Jul 10 '26
“Can you explain the difference between Early Decision and Early Action?”
“Are there any sports at this school?”
“Are we allowed to submit the application before the due date?”
“My kid had appendicitis in the spring semester of her sophomore year and she couldn’t take the final but then took the makeup a couple of weeks later, is that still ok?”
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u/MollBoll Parent Jul 10 '26
“Can we submit more letters of recommendation than the school’s clearly-articulated maximum?”
“If my son/daughter is a student here and they don’t reply right away when I text them, can I call their RA to go find them or should I go straight to the dean of students?”
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u/jjgg37 Jul 10 '26
The worst are the very specific/individualized questions. Come on, take that offline
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u/excel958 Master's Jul 11 '26
Lmao “I got a 4 in AP chem how does that affect my first semester schedule?”
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u/ThinManufacturer8679 Jul 10 '26
The best thing we ever did on college tours is make a bingo game out of it. Some boxes were always saved for stupid questions.
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u/ski3600 Jul 10 '26
What really sets XXX College apart is our community.
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u/EarlSpreadsheet Jul 11 '26
One thing that sets us apart is the squirrels. We have the fattest squirrels, and even have a squirrel watching student club!
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u/Grouchy-Butterfly804 Jul 12 '26
One tour we went on had a squirrel watchers watching group (people who would watch the people watching the squirrels). 😑
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u/Mysterious_Mango_737 Jul 11 '26
Hah all I remember from the Sarah Lawrence tour are the black squirrels.
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u/ThinManufacturer8679 Jul 10 '26
Blue phones, meal swipes, weird clubs, different floors in library for different noise levels, A/C in dorms, obscure intramural sports
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u/anyalastnerve Jul 11 '26
I’ve been on multiple college tours where I was told the school was so unique for having a cheese club.
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u/TopReplacement530 Jul 11 '26
Omg
My kids are rising juniors have only visited three schools but all 3 mentioned their “unique cheese club”!
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u/HappyCava Moderator | Parent Jul 11 '26
William & Mary (a school I love, by the way)?
But one thing to note is that the club name may not represent the club participants’ actual aim or idea of fun. One of my kids went to a university that had a mycology club. But the focus wasn’t really on finding, studying, or ingesting wild mushrooms or yeasts. A quick check on Instagram basically showed it was just a bunch of quirky students who used finding fungi as a reason to pack a lunch and hang out with likeminded friends while hiking up a mountain trail or walking along a river. And, yep, they occasionally took some rather colorful fungi pictures to secure their bona fides.
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u/ThinManufacturer8679 Jul 11 '26
We loved W&M too, but I think they were one of several schools that said--if you don't find the club you want, you can make one. All it takes is two people and a faculty sponsor.
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u/HappyCava Moderator | Parent Jul 11 '26
That is true! But even W&M, a mid-size school, offers around 450 clubs. UVA had hit the 900-club mark the last time I had reason to check, and very large schools like Penn State and Ohio State have more than 1200 clubs and student organizations. So there’s rarely a reason to start your own club — as you can imagine, getting the word out and finding traction is tough. Rather, it tends to make sense to find your friend groups and fun in established clubs and then inherit a position on the executive board if becoming even more involved in the club’s direction and management has appeal. My older kids graduated from their college several years ago and they are still great friends with their favorite club associates.
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u/damargemirad Verified Admissions Staff Jul 11 '26
Lmao I’ve worked at 3+ colleges: community, name not a number, debt-to-income ratio. What else?
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u/phenomenalbrandi Jul 11 '26
My daughter is a rising senior and we do this on her tours also! She is "casting a wide net" so we have done a ton of tours. Today was actually #15. I'd love to hear some of your "Squares". Some of ours include "Holistic Review", "Core Curriculum", "Parent obviously more interested than student", "Therapy Dogs De Stress event mentioned" and "Picture of a STEM student Pipetting".
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u/Petal170816 Jul 11 '26
I felt like some of it was humble bragging about their kids, or showing off their own amount of knowledge/research. Annoying!
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u/BornDevelopment974 Jul 10 '26
What’s really annoying to my family is when the tour guides repeat everything we just heard in the info session.
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u/RioRancher Jul 10 '26
Pro tip for the tour guide: answer the most common stupid questions ahead of time, unprompted, then laugh at how stupid they’d be for asking.
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u/Cute-Asparagus-305 Jul 11 '26
Isn't this just life? People ask dumb questions and do stupid things.
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u/Odd_String1181 Jul 10 '26
This is a good set up for real life. You will not believe the shit people ask constantly in work meetings
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u/vector_f College Freshman | International Jul 10 '26
yeah. This is not limited to tours honestly. You keep seeing people asking googleable questions in literally every aspect of life.
That said, I agree with you. They definitely should stop doing so.
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u/averagemarsupial College Sophomore Jul 10 '26
As a tour guide you would not believe the kinds of questions. However, I’d prefer a stupid question over a silent tour!
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u/Ok_Experience_5151 Old Jul 10 '26
Make you a deal- when HS students stop asking easily googleable questions on A2C I’ll get with the rest of the parents and have them stop asking dumb questions on tours.
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u/Agitated-Cup-7109 Jul 10 '26
okay but i cant scroll past their comments like you can with the dumb posts
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u/henare Jul 10 '26
that's kinda how some profs feel about students who have not read the syllabus. /s
seriously, though... unless you're paying your own way you should quit griping about parents asking questions (even if they're obvious).
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u/Burner_Account_2002 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
there should not be a /s after the first sentence
In the immortal words of Robbie Burns
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!"Are both midterms mandatory? Are the labs mandatory? Can we do make-ups if we have to miss an assignment? Will attendance be taken? If we're sick do we need a note? Will there be review sessions? Can we attend the other section on weeks when it works better? What is the final worth?"
I hope this thread's students remember these parents' aggravating behavior next year when they are tempted to raise their hand and ask the above lazy questions. Profs aren't asking you to google. The syllabus contains every answer, and students who take the time to read it, and the prof who took the time to write it, will be just as frustrated as the OP if their time is wasted like this.
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u/timwest780 Jul 11 '26
I'm surprised that kids allow their parents to tag along at these tours. When I was eighteen, I was so fiercely independent that I would rather have died than have my parents tagging along :-)
Yes, the parents can blackmail their way onto the tours by bringing up finances, but that seems a bit inconsiderate to me. (I had a full ride so it wasn't an issue.) Of course, the kids who don't ask their parents could also be accused of being inconsiderate, but kids are supposed to be that way!
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u/Traditional_Yam9806 Jul 11 '26
Yeah. My foster parents let me drive down there myself. It's super weird when parents come since half the time they're clueless, and the other half, they're taking over, and their kid is clueless. I saw some kids ask if they could bring air fryers and multiple refrigerators into their dorms, along with a bunch of other junk on admitted students day. Crazy.
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u/truthofmasks Jul 11 '26
Of course, the kids who don't ask their parents could also be accused of being inconsiderate, but kids are supposed to be that way!
Kids are not supposed to be inconsiderate.
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u/jjflight Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
When I did prospective undergrad tours a long time ago as a grad student at Caltech, I used to just lay a ground rule that the students should be the ones asking the questions - not everyone loved or followed that, but it seems how it should be as this is the part of life you really need to start making and owning your decisions. And the types of questions students had vs parents had were very different - parents were way over focused on academics and process, students cared more about life and culture (which almost certainly is a better fit for tour questions, and probably also best for making the decisions overall at schools where the academics are all just fine anyways).
And for any parents or students reading, that’s my strong suggestion for how you go about it no matter what the tour guides allow or not. Have the student lead.
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u/gaussx Jul 10 '26
When I did prospective undergrad tours a long time ago as a grad student at Caltech, I used to just lay a ground rule that the students should be the ones asking the questions - not everyone loved or followed that, but it seems how it should be as this is the part of life you really need to start making and owning your decisions.
I'd buy more into this if financial aid didn't require parent financial information. If you want to make it about the kid, then make it about the kid. I'm less a fan of "it's about the kid when its convenient for us, but its about the parents when its time to maximize how much money is paid to us".
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u/jjflight Jul 10 '26
It’s just basic judgment like being context aware. A tour isn’t the right place to talk about financial aid, they don’t even have the right people who are experts in that there. Lots of tours are lead by undergrad or graduate students or recent grads, and the whole point is you’re walking around the campus - what good is coming of peppering them with financial aid discussions? Ask them what they actually know about.
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u/Reasonable_Sorbet_18 Jul 10 '26
Pro tip- if people asking you dumb questions bothers you this much, good luck with your career post college.
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u/Agitated-Cup-7109 Jul 10 '26
ive worked retail but its less of a deal when people are annoying because im being paid to deal with the annoyance
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u/Reasonable_Sorbet_18 Jul 10 '26
And those parents asking the questions are paying sometimes over $300k. Let them ask their questions and chill with the entitlement. Just be grateful that you have the opportunity to even be there.
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u/Newnessmail Jul 10 '26
Went on one recently. Woman had multiple pages of questions. Not an issue- but ask the questions that relate to THAT part of the tour.
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u/Ordinary_Corner_4291 Jul 10 '26
People like to hear themselves talk. You will see this basically everywhere when you get a group together. But yes the people asking how much the school costs or when the application deadline is are beyond annoying. The ones asking super niche question (does my application to performing arts need to be in person or is a video ok) are almost as bad.
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u/Positive_Value_6766 Jul 11 '26
Not a tour, but for orientation this year a parent actually asked about how her kid is horrible at taking her laundry out of the washer/dryer, and what would happen in college…lol.
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u/Agitated-Cup-7109 Jul 11 '26
if you can graduate high school you surely can learn to use the laundry
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u/BUowo Old Jul 11 '26
When I was a student I used to sneak into tours and pretend to be a nervous high schooler then ask very pointed questions to the guides ie what is advising in the chem department like (I am evil 😈)
10/10 recommend when you become a student :)
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u/Jealous-Brief7792 Jul 11 '26
I think some parents literally think their "engagement" during a tour will reflect positively on their kid and give them an admissions boost.
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u/LiteraryEnthusiast College Junior Jul 11 '26
As a tour guide, a lot of times we might not even be officially allowed to answer questions about admissions requirements like those mentioned above, so those should be directed to admissions counselors. However, questions in general are welcome because I’ve said the same thing from the script 300 times and it’s nice to break it up. I honestly wish more people would ask questions
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u/Silly-Nefariousness8 Jul 11 '26
bro my friend was a tour guide and would regularly make shit up when asked questions he didn't know the answer to...
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u/Ok-Membership5141 Jul 13 '26
went to a tour at penn once with an eighth grader and dad who was alr acting weirdly creepy (im a girl) came up to me, made me walk with him, and started talking to me and told me that his daughter will either go to Yale or to where he went, BYU. with all seriousness.
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u/the_elephant_sack Jul 16 '26
As a parent I always ask about dating on campus. It used to embarrass my kids. It sometimes embarrasses the tour guides. I prefer to do before the tour when you sometimes have multiple current undergrads in the room. Dating is such an important part of college and nobody wants to discuss it. I think it is especially important at smaller schools. Like how do you meet people, do people avoid dating in their major, and if you break up with your partner then what happens.
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u/Conscious-Secret-775 Jul 10 '26
Remember who is paying for all this.
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u/Agitated-Cup-7109 Jul 10 '26
If they can pay for college they can pay for a phone to google these things
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u/Burner_Account_2002 Jul 11 '26
Yeah, and if parents are paying for college, the least students could do is read the syllabus. But do they? Mostly, no. Parents do not have a corner on the lazy, dumb question market.
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u/Potential_Drive7999 Jul 10 '26
Answer: parents are paying. Get over it!
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u/Agitated-Cup-7109 Jul 10 '26
i have no beef with the vast majority of parents who ask normal quesions
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u/MollBoll Parent Jul 10 '26
I’m a parent paying for it who ALSO found this incredibly annoying 😅 If you’re gonna be involved, be ACTUALLY involved by doing some damn basic research about the schools you’re touring.
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u/Downtown_Blacksmith Jul 10 '26
It’s not a business and students and parents aren’t customers. 🤦🏼♀️
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u/Alaaa88 Jul 11 '26
They kind of are tho….
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u/Downtown_Blacksmith Jul 11 '26
Nope. It’s not a business. It’s a public good. They don’t exist to make a profit. They exist to provide people to the opportunity to get an education.
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u/Alaaa88 Jul 11 '26
Be so fr. If that were the case college would be free and they wouldn’t be favoring (as they do to some extent) students that are willing to pay a full 100k/year
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u/Downtown_Blacksmith Jul 11 '26
It used to be almost free until the government drastically reduced funding. And tuition is now free in a few states.
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u/JasonMckin Jul 11 '26
It’s a great observation and it’s genuinely confounding. We live in an age when you can find information easier than ever and yet you see these behaviors.
The only explanation I can come up with is that it’s a certain kind of narcissistic stupidity. The parent probably knows they could google the info. But there is something about stopping the tour and putting the tour guide on the spot. It’s a kind of power play almost to say, hey, I am in a position to stop you and make you respond exclusively to me. That’s the narcissism part.
The stupidity part is that maybe some parents actually don’t realize the universities have already published everything and they just haven’t read it.
I know a lot of folks are saying it’s the same behavior in the workforce and other social events, but I think the OP is on to something. There is something awkward about the power dynamic between a touring parent and a student tour guide that makes this even worse than the common forms of narcissistic stupidity.
I had a family friend take his kid to visit colleges. He weirdly told me that “they applied for a tour and got in.” 🤨. I was like, you know they give tours to everyone and being in a tour doesn’t mean they’re going to admit you right….it kinda reveals the weird sense of entitlement or association that going on a simple tour seems to have.
I never gave tours, but have a ton of respect for those who do. You know that 90%+ of the people you are giving tours to and fielding questions from will never be back on campus. It’s not the most pleasant or rewarding job in the world.
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u/DD-Megadoodoo Jul 11 '26
Literally every campus visit I went on: “is it better to take the honors or AP class and get a B or take the regular class and get an A?” “We find that in general our students took the advanced class and got an A”
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u/Used_Return9095 College Graduate Jul 10 '26
my parents are immigrant parents and they definitely do that. Some people are just not tech savvy like that tbh lol.
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u/Conscious-Secret-775 Jul 10 '26
Or sometimes you want to have a conversation and not just stand there in silence which can feel rude.
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u/MollBoll Parent Jul 10 '26
Okay, I just said I found this behavior annoying but I do cut slack for parents who sound like they have English as a second language 😅
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u/CabbageSass Jul 10 '26
You really are there to look see what campus looks like in person. Any question can be googled.
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u/ditchdiggergirl Jul 10 '26
No, no they cannot. Any more than the tour guide can stop pointing out the blue light emergency call boxes. That’s just the way this song goes, so learn to love it.
Meanwhile enjoy this honest college tour. “As you can see, every college is pretty much the same. How about a couple of boring facts you could easily look up on Wikipedia?”
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u/Empty-Village-4445 Jul 11 '26
If it makes you feel better then tours/Q&A sessions at highly ranked B schools suffer the same problem. Like these applicants are supposed to be some of the best and brightest in their respective fields.
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u/tellypmoon Jul 11 '26
I guess it depends on if anyone is asking 'better' questions. I think sometimes parents or students ask obvious questions to fill the awkward silences that can emerge. And if this is bothersome be the parent that asks a few less obvious more interesting questions (but let them be genuine of course).
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u/Big_Wave9732 Jul 11 '26
You see Reddit and Social Media, right? People are lazy asses and reask the same bullshit over and over again. So why wouldn't they do it in real life too?
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u/tizzyborden Jul 11 '26
The AP credit policy is you get nothing meaningful for APs. Done.
Also: don’t ask admissions policy questions to student tour guides.
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u/Exotic_Eagle_2739 Jul 11 '26
As a student, I think my parents are allergic to google. My apologies
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u/Own_Car_358 Jul 12 '26
BRO THE AP CREDIT POLICY IS SO REAL I SWEAR WE WERE ON THE SAME TOUR LMAO
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u/Agitated-Cup-7109 Jul 12 '26
What tour lol
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u/Own_Car_358 Jul 12 '26
i don’t think i actually was - it just proves that there are lots of dumb parents out there lmao. that said, the tour was at princeton in the 2nd week of june
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u/Agitated-Cup-7109 Jul 12 '26
this one was at cornell second week of june, even if we werent connected physically we were spiritually going through the same thing
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u/Amassivegrowth Jul 12 '26
Seriously. It was just ridiculous when our kid toured. They should not even let parents on the same tour with students.
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u/JellyfishFlaky5634 Jul 12 '26
When my kids were touring schools, I would ask questions…good ones…and this would embarrass them.
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u/gpat1097 Jul 12 '26
Most questions are googable because they have been asked by hundreds of other students/parents before. So if we use that criteria, there will be no question left to ask.
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u/Euphoric-Feedback810 Jul 13 '26
bro my dad just likes to take pictures of different things when we go on tours. So we legitimately just lag behind the rest of the group, and it's actually so annoying.
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u/BuildingBubbly2100 Jul 17 '26
I haven’t toured a college in 11 years but to this day my parents don’t really use the internet and I was so embarrassed by some of their questions but we knew absolutely nothing about college so some questions were helpful, but I cringed when my stepdad asked the tour guide about my financial aid package…
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u/lumberjackname Jul 11 '26
Parents shouldn’t be asking any questions on tours. If the prospective student has questions, they should ask. Signed, a parent who has been on too many tours with other parents who are crippling their kids with over involvement.
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u/rbt_13 Jul 11 '26
why are we asking how many students the school has. the genuine only thing that commonly comes up when you look up ANY schools name.
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u/birdman9990 Jul 11 '26
They’re obvious to us since we spend so much time online but let’s be patient with our parents :)
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u/Street_Philosophy629 HS Junior Jul 10 '26
One time I was at an online webinar for a top college's admissions, and the people running it were STRESSING that admissions are holistic and nothing is guaranteed to make or break you. Guess what the first question was? 'wHaT iS tHe mInImUm SAT sCoRe tO gEt iN?'