Best Questions to Ask on a College Tour
Good questions to ask on a college tour, grouped in the order a visit tends to run. The 80 questions start with your tour guide's own experience, move through classes, dorms and food, and campus life, turn to the numbers and rules only the admissions office can confirm, go on to the professors, panels and aid staff you meet at a college open house, and end with a few to ask before you leave. For applicants and parents comparing two or three schools, whether the day is a guided tour or a college campus visit you planned yourselves. It is written with colleges in the United States in mind, so where a note leans on a policy, ask how it works at the school in front of you.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Your tour guide
What made you choose this school over the others you were accepted to?
Why ask it
Guides hear 'why here?' on nearly every tour, so the 'over the others' half is what earns a fresh answer. Listen for something they could not have had elsewhere: a program, a professor, a scholarship, the distance from home. If cost decided it, that is worth knowing too.
What do you like best about being a student here?
Why ask it
Every guide has an answer ready, and the ready answer is still worth having. Follow it with 'what did you do last week that shows that?' so that 'the people' turns into a dinner, a lab group or a team you can picture.
What is a typical weekday like for you, from when you wake up to when you go to bed?
Why ask it
Brochures describe the campus, but an hour-by-hour weekday describes the life. You learn how much walking, how much class time, and how much unstructured time a real week contains.
What do you wish you had known before your first semester here?
Why ask it
This is where you hear the practical friction: a required course that fills in an hour, a meal plan that runs out in March, a campus that empties on weekends. A guide who says nothing comes to mind is either very new or being careful.
What kind of student thrives here, and what kind of student ends up unhappy?
Why ask it
Asking for both halves gives people permission to be candid about fit. The unhappy profile is the more valuable one, because you can check whether it sounds like you.
What are you studying, and how did you settle on that major?
Why ask it
It tells you whose experience you are hearing. A biology major's account of class sizes and workload will not match a history major's, so weigh the rest of the tour with that in mind. If they switched along the way, ask what the switch involved.
What has been the best class you have taken here, and what made it good?
Why ask it
A guide who lights up about a professor or a project is describing the teaching better than a ranking can. If the best class they can name is the one that was easy, or it takes them a while to think of any, that is an answer too.
What costs surprised you that were not on the tuition and fees sheet?
Why ask it
Course fees, lab kits, printing, flights home, and club dues add up to real money that never appears in a financial aid letter. Students will name specifics that admissions staff round off.
How often do you go home, and how far away is home?
Why ask it
This calibrates everything else your guide says. A student who drives home most weekends is living a different college from one who is a flight away, so give more weight to the account that matches your own distance.
Do you have a job during the semester, and how did you find it?
Why ask it
Campus jobs run from a front desk where you can study to shifts that take your evenings, and students know which are which. If you are counting on earnings to cover part of the bill, ask how many hours a week people manage alongside a full course load.
What is your favorite place on campus?
Why ask it
A small question that works well between stops. The answer is often somewhere off the route, such as a practice room, a roof or a corner of the library, and why they like it tells you how they spend the hours no schedule covers.
Classes
How big were your first-year classes, and who taught them: professors or graduate students?
Why ask it
The published student-to-faculty ratio averages out a 400-seat lecture and a 6-person seminar. Asking about your guide's actual first-year schedule gets you a number closer to your own first two years, which is usually when the big lectures fall.
Which majors are the biggest here, and which departments do students say are the strongest?
Why ask it
A student knows things the catalog leaves out: which departments have the professors people rearrange a schedule for, and which are spoken of as an afterthought. If your own subject lands in the second group, visit the department office before you go home and ask how many majors graduate each year.
Are your classes mostly lectures or discussions, and how are you graded?
Why ask it
Format decides what the work feels like: three exams in a lecture hall is a different term from weekly papers and a seminar where staying silent costs you. Ask which of the two your guide's major leans toward, and whether that changed after first year.
How hard is it to get into the classes you need for your major?
Why ask it
A required course that is full is one of the plainest ways a four-year degree turns into five. If the answer involves waking up at 6am, waitlists or emailing professors to beg in, ask how often students have to delay a requirement by a semester.
How easy is it to change majors or add a minor here?
Why ask it
Plenty of students change their mind after a semester or two, and schools differ enormously: some let you declare freely, others require a separate internal application with a GPA cutoff. Ask specifically about the majors that tend to fill, often nursing, engineering, business and computer science.
How does advising work here, and how often do you actually see your advisor?
Why ask it
Every school says it has advising. What varies is whether it is a faculty member who knows your field, a professional advisor with 300 students, or a fifteen-minute registration signature each spring.
How reachable are professors outside class, and do students really go to office hours?
Why ask it
Every school lists office hours, so ask for an instance: the last time your guide went, and what came of it. A junior who has never been is telling you about the culture as much as about themselves.
How many hours a week do you spend on work outside class, and when is it worst?
Why ask it
One student's number is one data point, so ask their major and adjust for yours. The second half tells you whether deadlines are spread out or pile into the same two weeks each term.
Do students here work together on problem sets and study guides, or is it more each person for themselves?
Why ask it
Curved grades, capped majors and weed-out courses each push students to compete, and guides in those programs will usually say so. If you learn best in a group, ask whether study groups form on their own or you have to build one.
Where do people actually study, and is it hard to find a seat during finals?
Why ask it
Study space is one of the few things a tour cannot fake, and the answer tells you whether the library was built for the current enrollment. Ask to walk past it rather than taking the answer at face value.
What happens when a student starts falling behind: who notices, and who reaches out?
Why ask it
Some schools flag a failing midterm and have an advisor call within a week. Others let a student disappear until grades post. The difference shows up in retention numbers, and the answer here explains those numbers.
Is there free tutoring or a writing center, and do students actually use it?
Why ask it
The center will be on the campus map, so ask about the use. A guide who went for help with a chemistry sequence or a first college paper can tell you whether it was drop-in, how long they waited, and whether going is normal here or something people keep quiet.
How do undergraduates get involved in research, and when do students usually start?
Why ask it
The useful detail is the mechanism, not the existence: a posted list of open lab positions is very different from cold-emailing faculty. If research only starts junior year, that shapes your graduate school timeline.
Do many students study abroad, and can someone in my major fit it in?
Why ask it
A campus where plenty of people go can still have majors, often the lab sciences and engineering, where a term away is hard to schedule. Ask your guide who they know that went, in which year, and whether the courses counted toward the major or came back as electives.
What kinds of internships do students in my major end up doing, and how much help do they get finding them?
Why ask it
Named employers and a specific process mean a career office that works. A vague answer about a job board and an annual fair means you will be running your own search, which is worth knowing before you compare schools on price.
Which building would most of my classes be in, and can we walk through it?
Why ask it
Tours route past the newest facility on campus, which may belong to a department you never set foot in. Seeing the rooms and labs for your own subject, even through a doorway, shows you where the money has and has not gone.
Dorms and food
Which dorms do first-years usually get, and how are roommates assigned?
Why ask it
Matching runs from a questionnaire to a lottery to naming a friend, and the first-year halls can be the oldest buildings on campus or the best. Ask which hall most first-years land in and whether you get any say, then ask if you can see that one.
Is the room on this tour a typical first-year room, or the nicest one?
Why ask it
Show rooms are staged, often in the newest hall, and guides will usually admit it when asked directly. Follow up on the oldest first-year building: air conditioning, bathrooms shared by a hall or a suite, and how many people to a room.
What happens when roommates do not get along, and how hard is it to switch rooms?
Why ask it
Some schools freeze room changes for the first weeks and then make moves easy, and others have no empty beds to move anyone into, so ask how it works here. Your guide probably knows someone who went through it, and how long that took is the real answer.
How loud is a first-year hall at midnight on a weeknight, and does anyone enforce quiet hours?
Why ask it
Halls keep their reputations long after the students in them change: the social one, the quiet one, the one above the late-night food. If you need sleep before an early class, ask which hall light sleepers request and whether those requests are honored.
How long is the walk from the farthest first-year dorm to the main academic buildings, and what is that walk like in February?
Why ask it
Campus maps flatten hills and hide weather. A fifteen minute uphill walk in snow changes how often someone goes to an 8am class or the gym.
What is the housing process like after first year, and do most people stay on campus?
Why ask it
If sophomores get pushed off campus, your real cost of attendance includes a local lease, a deposit and probably a summer sublet you cannot use. Ask what a nearby one-bedroom rents for while you are in town.
Where do you eat most days, and how long was it before the dining hall got old?
Why ask it
'The food is good' tells you nothing, but where a student actually eats does. If the answer by October is mostly off campus or a microwave in the room, ask how much of the meal plan they paid for went unused.
Which meal plan do first-years have to buy, and which one do students choose once they can?
Why ask it
Colleges differ on whether new students must take the largest plan, so ask what is required here and what it costs per term. The plan your guide moved to in second year is the one students pick once they know the place, and the difference between the two is money.
How well does the dining hall cope with allergies, or a vegetarian, halal or kosher diet?
Why ask it
Your guide will know whether friends with a restricted diet eat well or eat the same plate every night. If this decides things for your family, ask the admissions desk who runs dining and whether you can speak to them today, since that is the person who makes the arrangements.
What is the food like on weekends and during breaks?
Why ask it
Tours tend to pass the dining hall at a weekday lunch. Sunday dinner and the week of spring break are when halls can close early or shut entirely, which matters most to students who cannot easily go home.
Campus life
How would you describe the students here, and is there a type?
Why ask it
Guides reach for 'friendly' and 'driven', so the second half does the work. If there is a type, whether outdoorsy, pre-professional, artsy or sporty, ask where the people who are not that type find each other.
What is there to do here on a Tuesday night?
Why ask it
Weekend answers are interchangeable across schools. A midweek answer separates a campus with its own gravity from one where most people go home or sit in their rooms, and it tells you whether social life depends on having a car or an ID over 21.
What do students do on a Friday or Saturday night if they are not into parties or drinking?
Why ask it
It asks about the range of the social life without making anyone defend the party scene. A long pause suggests most of the weekend runs through one thing, and you can ask what that thing is and who is left out of it.
Does campus empty out on weekends, or do most people stay?
Why ask it
Where many students live within driving distance, a campus can go quiet from Friday afternoon. That matters little if you will be going home too and a great deal if you are the one left on the floor, so ask what your guide's own hall looks like on a Saturday.
How big is Greek life here, and what is it like for students who do not join?
Why ask it
Ask it as two halves, because the second is the one a membership figure cannot answer: whether non-members go to the same parties, and whether people who joined still eat with their first-year hall. If there are no fraternities or sororities here, ask which teams or clubs play that part.
How did you meet your closest friends here, and how long did it take?
Why ask it
The honest timeline is often a semester or more, which is worth hearing before a lonely September. Listen for the mechanism: a hall, a team, a first-year seminar, an orientation trip. That is what the school built, or did not build, to help strangers meet.
What are you involved in outside class, and how many hours a week does it take?
Why ask it
The club list is on the website. What is not there is how much of a real week one activity takes and how hard it was to get in. Ask whether your guide joined in the first month or later, which tells you if the door stays open after the activities fair.
What traditions does this school have, and which is your favorite?
Why ask it
Traditions are part of the script, so the list comes easily. The favorite is the personal half: a guide describing the night they did it with their hall is showing you what belonging looks like here. If they have skipped every one, note that as well.
Do people actually turn up for games, concerts and campus events?
Why ask it
School spirit photographs well and is easy to overstate. Ask for the last event your guide went to and roughly how full it was. If big-time sports are part of why you are looking here, ask how students get tickets and what they cost.
How diverse is the campus, and where would a student from my background find community?
Why ask it
Use the tour for what the enrollment tables cannot show: which cultural centers and student groups are busy, and whether your guide's own friends come from different places. A guide who does not know can often point you to someone who does.
What is the town like, and what do students go into it for?
Why ask it
Walk or drive the nearest few blocks before you leave and compare them with the answer. A guide who lists a coffee shop, a cinema and a part-time job is describing a town students use. One who names only the big store out by the highway is telling you most of life happens inside the gates.
Do students need a car, and how do you get off campus without one?
Why ask it
Shuttle frequency, whether it runs at night, and how far the nearest grocery store is add up to a real weekly cost. Parking permit prices and first-year parking bans are worth asking about in the same breath.
How safe do you feel walking across campus late at night, and what does the school provide for getting home?
Why ask it
Published crime statistics are required disclosures and worth reading, but they do not tell you whether the escort service actually shows up or whether a particular route is one students avoid. Ask a student, not an administrator.
Admissions and open house
What does this college look for in an application, and what makes one stand out?
Why ask it
The first answer will be that every part of the file is read. Push for an order: whether course difficulty outweighs grade average, how much an essay can move a borderline file, and whether your intended major changes the standard. An officer who gives you a ranking has told you where to spend the autumn.
What does a typical financial aid package look like, and are merit scholarships automatic or a separate application?
Why ask it
Grants, loans and campus jobs all get called aid, so ask how a typical package divides between them. Scholarship deadlines can fall earlier than the application deadline, and the date for this college is worth writing down before you leave the office.
Does the financial aid award usually stay the same for all four years?
Why ask it
First-year packages can include one-time grants or larger institutional discounts that do not repeat, so the offer you compare may not be the price you pay as a junior. Ask whether merit awards are renewable and what GPA keeps them.
Which of my AP, IB or dual-enrollment credits would you accept, and what would they replace?
Why ask it
The answer can differ by department inside one college, and a score that earns credit at one school earns only placement at the next. Bring your list of courses and scores, ask which requirements each would clear, and ask for the policy in writing.
What share of students graduate in four years, and what usually slows people down?
Why ask it
Four-year rates matter more than six-year rates because the fifth year is a year of tuition nobody budgeted. The follow-up about causes is the useful part: co-ops and double majors are chosen delays, closed classes are not.
What percentage of first-years come back for sophomore year, and what usually makes someone leave?
Why ask it
Retention rate is a hard number the admissions office knows, and the reasons behind it are more useful than the number. Cost, homesickness and a major that did not work out are the kinds of honest answers to listen for.
What do graduates do in the first year after they leave, and how do you know?
Why ask it
'How do you know' is the half that matters: a placement figure built on a survey that few graduates answered tells you little. Ask for the employers and graduate programs for your own major, and whether the list covers the whole class or only those who replied.
What mental health support is on campus, and how long is the wait for an appointment?
Why ask it
Counseling centers exist almost everywhere, so the number that matters is the wait for a first appointment and whether there is a session cap per year. If the honest answer is several weeks, ask what students do in the meantime.
What can the campus health center treat, and where do students go at night or on weekends?
Why ask it
Some health centers keep weekday office hours only, which leaves evenings and weekends to an urgent care or emergency room in town. Ask how far that is and how a student without a car gets there. Whether the college's own insurance plan is required or can be waived is a question for the same desk.
Can I talk to a professor or a current student in my intended major while I am here today?
Why ask it
Admissions offices can often arrange this with one phone call and seldom offer it unprompted. Ten minutes inside the department answers what a general tour cannot: who teaches the first-year courses and what the students two years ahead of you are working on.
Is it possible to sit in on a class during a visit, and how do I set that up?
Why ask it
Some colleges publish a list of classes open to visitors and others ask you to email the professor first, so the admissions desk is the place to ask. Pick an introductory course in your subject over a showpiece seminar, since that is the room you would be sitting in next year.
Does today's visit count as demonstrated interest, and is there anything I should do to make sure it is on record?
Why ask it
Some colleges log visits and event sign-ins and weigh them when they read an application, and others ignore all of it, so ask how it works here. If visits are counted, check that you signed in with the name and email you will apply under.
Who reads applications from my high school, and can I contact them with questions?
Why ask it
Many admissions offices divide applicants by region, which can make one officer the first reader for your whole school; ask whether that is the case here. A name gives you somebody to send a real question to in the autumn, and it is fine to ask for a card.
Are test scores required or optional for the year I apply, and are interviews offered?
Why ask it
Testing and interview rules have changed often in recent years and can differ by program within one college, so a printed brochure may be out of date. Ask the admissions desk for the rules for your own cycle and write them down next to the deadline.
Does the date I pay my deposit affect my place in line for housing or for registering for classes?
Why ask it
At some colleges the date of the enrollment deposit or housing form sets your order for dorms and orientation sessions, and at others it changes nothing. Ask how it works here, because where it counts, a few weeks can decide which hall you live in and how full your first classes are when you register.
Which of today's sessions happen only at the open house, and which could I come back for on an ordinary visit day?
Why ask it
An open house schedule stacks talks, panels and department tables into a few hours, and several of them overlap. The walking tour tends to run most weeks of the year, so the registration desk can tell you what to put first and what will still be here next month.
Which offices have someone here today that I could not normally walk in and see?
Why ask it
Disability services, the honors program, study abroad and the career office may each have a table for the day. If one of them could decide this school for you, go there before the main presentation lets out and the room fills.
What does a student in this major take in the first semester, and which of those courses do you teach?
Why ask it
This one is for the professor at the department table, who can sketch a first-year schedule from memory. The second half tells you whether the person selling the major is someone a new student would meet in a classroom.
What do students in this department do in their final year: a thesis, a capstone project, a placement?
Why ask it
The last requirement shows what a department thinks its degree is for. A professor who can describe one recent project in detail has probably supervised it, so ask how students are matched with a supervisor and when that happens.
How different does an ordinary week look for each of you on the panel?
Why ask it
A student panel puts several people in front of one question, which a single guide cannot do. If their weeks sound nothing alike, there is room here for more than one kind of student. If every answer matches, ask who is not on the panel.
Can someone in financial aid go through an estimate with us today, or does that only happen after an application is in?
Why ask it
Aid staff are easier to reach at an open house than by phone in March, and some will sit down with a family and the college's own cost calculator. Whether they do depends on the school, so ask what to bring and what an estimate does and does not commit them to.
Is there a separate session for parents, and what does it cover that the student sessions leave out?
Why ask it
Where the day splits families up, billing dates and payment plans tend to land in the parents' room and course registration in the students'. Go to different sessions and trade notes over lunch, since each of you will have heard half of it.
Does coming today bring an application fee waiver, a priority date or anything else I should claim before I go?
Why ask it
Some colleges hand open house visitors a waiver code and others offer nothing, so ask at the check-in table instead of assuming. If there is a code, find out when it expires and whether it works for every program.
How is the admitted students' day different from this one, and is it worth a second trip?
Why ask it
Colleges often run one kind of open house for people still choosing where to apply and another in spring for those holding an offer. Ask what the later one adds, such as a night in a dorm or a meeting with an advisor, before you spend twice on travel.
Before you leave
What do students here complain about most?
Why ask it
Asked late in a tour, after some rapport, this often gets a real answer: parking, the registration system, one department, a dorm. Every school has a standing complaint, and the schools where nobody will name it are the ones to look at harder.
If you could change one thing about this place, what would it be?
Why ask it
A good closing question because it invites criticism without demanding it, and a guide who has thought about it will give you something concrete. Ask the same question at every school you tour, then compare the answers side by side.
Knowing what you know now, would you choose this school again, and what would you do differently in your first year?
Why ask it
It asks for a verdict and for advice at the same time, which is easier to answer than a straight yes or no. The first-year advice is often the most practical thing you take away from the whole visit.
What do families usually forget to ask on this tour?
Why ask it
Guides hear the same handful of questions on every tour and know which useful ones never come up. This lets them tell you what they would ask in your place, and it works best once the group has thinned out at the end.
What should we go and see on our own that the tour route skips?
Why ask it
The official route is designed, and what it leaves out is usually either dull or unflattering. Guides tend to answer as a local: the older science building, the far dining hall, the street where upperclassmen rent. Then go and look.
Is there a current student I could email later, ideally in my major?
Why ask it
Questions arrive in the car on the way home and again in spring when the offers are in. Many admissions offices will put you in touch with a student if asked, and some guides offer their own address. Either way you leave with a person to write to.
How to Run a College Tour That Tells You Something
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Ask the Right Person
Your guide is a current student, so ask about experience
Guides are usually paid, trained and enthusiastic, and they genuinely know what it is like to live there. Spend their time on daily life, classes they took, and what surprised them. Do not spend it on policy questions they will have to guess at.
Ask between stops, not in front of the group
Guides answer more freely one to one than with twenty people listening. Walk near the front and ask the personal questions on the way between buildings, and keep the closing ones for when the group has broken up.
Save numbers and policy for admissions staff
Aid renewal, transfer credit, major declaration rules and graduation rates should come from an admissions or financial aid officer, ideally in writing. If a guide gives you a number, treat it as a lead to confirm rather than an answer.
Find one student who is not working the tour
Ask someone in the dining hall or a department office the same two or three questions. Five minutes with an unscripted student is often the most useful part of a visit, and most students are happy to answer.
Visit the department, not just the campus
Walk into the office for your intended major and ask who advises undergraduates and whether a professor has ten minutes. Departments vary far more than campuses do, and you will spend four years inside one of them.
At a college open house, start with the people who are only there that day
An open house gathers professors, financial aid staff and a student panel in one place for a few hours. Go to the department table and the aid session first, and take the walking tour afterwards if there is time, because the tour is the part you can usually book on another date.
What to Check With Your Own Eyes
- Eat a real meal in the dining hall rather than accepting a coupon for later.
- Walk into a residence hall bathroom and a laundry room, not only a staged model room.
- Look at bulletin boards and the student newspaper for what is actually being argued about on campus.
- Drop by the library in the evening if your visit runs late, and see how full it is.
- Check how far the nearest grocery store, pharmacy and urgent care are from the dorms.
- Notice whether students on the paths look like they are talking to each other or commuting through.
Common Pitfalls
Trying to get through the whole list
A tour is short and your guide has a group to look after. Before you go, mark two or three questions in each group that matter most for this school, and take the admissions group to the desk afterwards or send it by email.
Asking what the website already answers
Tuition, majors offered and club lists are published. Using tour time on them wastes the one resource a website cannot give you, which is a person who will tell you what the experience is like.
Letting a parent ask every question
Guides answer differently when the applicant is doing the asking, and admissions staff notice who is engaged. Split the list in advance: the student takes academics and daily life, the parent takes cost, aid and safety.
Touring on a perfect day and deciding from feel
Every campus looks good in May sunshine with flowers out and admitted students being fed. Ask what February looks like, and weigh the answers you collected over the mood of the afternoon.
Comparing schools from memory a month later
By the third visit the tours blur. Write down answers to the same handful of questions at each school on the day you visit, including the one thing your guide would change. That grid is what you will actually decide from.
Answers Worth Getting in Writing
- 1The four-year graduation rate, not only the six-year rate.
- 2Whether your merit award renews each year and what GPA maintains it.
- 3How many credits from AP, dual enrollment or a community college will transfer, and toward what.
- 4The rules for declaring your intended major, including any GPA or application requirement.
- 5Whether the college commits to housing you beyond the first year.
- 6The total cost figure including fees, meal plan and typical books, not just tuition.
- 7The testing and interview rules for the year you apply.