To Tour or Not Tour a University – It's Not Even a Question!

February 27th, 2019

By Katelyn Elrod

You wouldn’t commit to a relationship with someone you hardly knew. So why would you commit to a college without getting to know it first? Hopefully, you wouldn’t.

One of the best ways to get to know a school is through a campus tour. Websites and emails are helpful for learning facts and statistics about a college, but the internet can’t communicate the energy of athletic events or tell you the best thing to eat in the caf. On a college tour, you can experience the vibe of the campus and ask the questions you really care about with someone who has first-hand experience.

We sat down with Hunter Thomas, a senior business major at MACU, to discuss the importance of visiting a school and the highlights of a MACU campus tour. Thomas has been a student admissions counselor for three years and hopes to join the MACU Admissions team full-time after graduating this May. When it comes to campus tours, he knows what he’s talking about!

Why Campus Tours Matter

Choosing not to tour a university before deciding to enroll may seem like a harmless choice to make in the digital age, when pictures and videos of a campus are accessible at the touch of a button (or tap of a finger). However, looking at a staged picture or video of something is vastly different than experiencing it in real-time. If you choose to opt out of touring a campus, you miss the opportunity to experience campus as it truly operates and interact with the environment.

“You don’t know what to expect,” Thomas said. “You don’t know the environment. On the first day of classes, you don't even know where you're going.”

When you tour a university, you have the opportunity to learn the layout of the campus, chat with current students and staff, and assess the overall atmosphere of the school. Touring a college boasts many benefits, but according to Thomas, three of the most advantageous aspects of touring MACU are establishing a face-to-face relationship with your admissions counselor, speaking with someone in the financial aid office, and learning where to go and who to talk to on the first day of classes.

For Thomas, visiting campus was the primary deciding factor in his choice to come to MACU.

“After my campus tour and talking to my family, I was like, ‘Yes, this is definitely the place I want to be. This is the place I feel like a person rather than just a number. I knew coming in, it was more than just a campus – more than just waking up and going to class. It was a different feeling.’”

How Tours Work at MACU

Every university’s touring system works differently. At MACU, prospective students can choose from three types of campus tours. The Admissions Office understands everyone has different time and travel availabilities, so the three tour formats are designed to work with every kind of potential student.

EVANGEL TOUR

The Evangel Tour, offered on Wednesdays and Fridays, is the tour of all tours at MACU. You have the opportunity to explore campus and eat lunch with your admissions counselor, sit in on a class of your interest, speak with your personal Financial Aid counselor, attend a chapel service, see your future dorm room, and get personal answers to your burning questions. Also, you will receive a legendary MACU swag bag, which typically includes a hat, a sticker, pens, pencils, a lanyard, and a drawstring bag.

CAMPUS TOUR

For those a bit more pressed for time, the Campus Tour, offered Monday through Friday, is an ideal way to experience campus and meet with your admissions counselor face-to-face. You can fill out your application if you haven’t already, walk through campus, ask questions, and, of course, receive a Swag Bag. The Campus Tour is less comprehensive than the Evangel Tour, but our admissions counselors ensure that it is no less personal.

SKYPE/FACETIME TOUR

Our diverse student body consists of not only students from all over the country but also students from all over the world. To guarantee that prospective students from outside Oklahoma still have the opportunity to experience the campus in real-time, the admissions team offers tours via Skype and Facetime Monday through Friday. On a virtual tour, a student admissions counselor will call you at a scheduled time and take you through the process of a Campus Tour. If only you could get a Swag Bag through the phone!

What Most People Ask on Tours

A campus tour gives you the opportunity to ask the questions you forget about when you’re sitting at home in your pajamas, looking at college websites. Though prospective students ask a wide variety of questions, Thomas says that a few of them are more common than others. Here are the most frequently asked questions and the answers Thomas typically gives:

Q: Is it easy to make friends here?
A: “I usually say yes, but you have to put yourself out there. You have to open up. But there are groups for everyone on this campus. You’ve got your extroverts, you’ve got your introverts. We also have clubs, which you can fit in, like Nerd Alert! and intramurals.”

Q: Where are the best places to study on campus?
A: “The library or library study room. If I’m not focusing on anything, I get a room, and I just lock the door, shut the blinds – it’s me, myself, and I – and I’m in there studying.”

Q: Is there free printing on campus?
A: “Yes! There is free printing available for students.”

Q: Is there crowd participation at athletic events?
A: “Yes, we have really big crowd participation at all athletic events. Red Rage is our student section that just goes crazy and has fun at games. Anyone is welcome to be a part of that.”

Q: How old are the residence halls?
A: “Southwest went up in 2014, while McCutcheon went up in 2015.”

When You Should Tour a College

Though it’s never a bad time to tour a school, most students tour a university during spring of their junior year, fall of their senior year, or the summer between them. Tours are available year-round, but if you want to encounter the true culture of a campus, aim to visit on a weekday during the fall or spring semester, when current students will be available for you to observe and even chat with. However, any tour is better than no tour, so if your only option is to tour during a break, certainly don’t pass up the opportunity.

At MACU, in addition to our individual tours, we offer events for prospective students throughout both semesters so you can stay on campus overnight to live a day in the life of a college student, meet current Evangels and other future students, and even earn some scholarship money. To check out our upcoming potential student events and register, go to events.macu.edu.

No matter the route you choose for your tour, Thomas says the MACU admissions team has the same goal:

“We just want to make you feel comfortable and make sure you know where you’re going on your first day as an Evangel.”