What questions should we ask on a college tour?

Short answer: Ask the student guide about their own experience, not marketing data: 'What surprised you most freshman year?' 'What do students do on weekends?' 'How easy is it to change majors?' Avoid questions the guide has answered 100 times — the off-script answers are the honest ones.

Student tour guides are trained to hit talking points. The questions that break through are personal: 'What's one thing you'd change?' and 'Where do you actually study?' get answers you won't find on the website.

For the info session, ask about the academic side: 'What's the average time to declare a major?' and 'How common is studying abroad?' These reveal the campus culture better than admissions-rate questions.