College Tours

As the competition for the best students increases, colleges around the country are going the extra mile to attract the best and the brightest. Universities spend up to 4 percent of their annual budget on marketing and recruitment. Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas has a secret weapon: their campus tour.

For many students, a campus tour is often their first introduction to a college. Traditionally, the tours have been led by student guides, who walk backwards rattling off rehearsed facts and statistics to a couple dozen kids and their nervous parents.

The problem is that students care less about historical facts than about campus life. Most have never lived away from home before and want to know what it will be like. Is the gym any good? Where can I get pizza at 2 o’clock in the morning? This sort of information is rarely included in traditional campus tours.

The tour guides at Hendrix College walk facing forwards. Instead of talking at the students, they talk to them. There’s no rehearsed spiel. Parents and students ask questions, and the guides answer them. It’s a conversation, rather than a lecture.

These types of tours give students a better idea of what it’s like to study at the college and live on campus. Administrators hope that the tour will be memorable enough for the students to want to go to the college.

Hendrix isn’t the only college that has figured out what students and parents want from a campus tour. University of Texas at Austin, Trinity University, American University and SUNY Oswego all encourage their guides to walk facing forward. While it seems like an obvious move, these institutions are still in the minority as thousands of tour guides continue to do their best to avoid walking into trees while reciting exciting historical facts.