By Sophia Chakos-Leiby
Daily Bruin Contributor
Kathleen Sweeney, a third-year business economics student,
pauses in front of Kerckhoff Coffeehouse.Â
“Look,” she announces to a quiet group of Orange
Glen High School students from Escondido, Calif., “this
campus coffeehouse is one of my favorite places to study “”mdash; it
provides a great social buzz.”
Sweeney is not just an overeager student volunteering her time
to show prospective students around campus “”mdash; she works as a
campus tour guide for UCLA’s Office of Admissions and
Relations with Schools, and leads an average of two groups a
week.
UCLA will mail all admissions decisions by April, and many high
school and transfer students rely on tours to aid them in the
decision-making process.
The Campus Tours Office says they serve over 20,000 people each
year. They cater to groups of high school students, those with
private reservations and transfer students.
Although tours do not specifically focus on any one aspect of
campus, fourth-year political science student Jeremy McKenzie said
that as a guide, he usually asks the prospective students about
their academic interests in order to highlight the related
departments at UCLA.
Katherine Dooley, mathematics department chair at Orange Glen
High School, said the tour was relevant to her students’
interests. “It covered things that mattered to the students,
and the questions we asked helped direct the tour guide on what
material talk about,” Dooley said.
Much of the information on the tour consists of the
guides’ personal experience ““ such as the clubs they
join and what their professors are like.Â
Because of this, Sweeney said tours do not provide a completely
idealized picture of the campus.
“It gives you the chance to talk with real
students,” she said. “They learn about the stuff
we do, the stuff we experience, which you can’t get in a book
or online.”
Sweeney said that at UCLA, many guides start working with campus
tours based on their personal experiences as incoming freshman.
“They see that the tours made a big difference, and want
to help shape someone else’s experience in a positive
way,” Sweeney said.
The students from Orange Glen High School, led by Sweeney,
visited North and South Campus, the Associated Students of UCLA
store and got the low-down on the UC admissions process.
Ranging from freshman to seniors, these students belong to
Advancement Via Individual Determination Program “”mdash; an
elective class that provides tutorial support and motivational
activities for high school students statewide “”mdash; which
requires its students to visit a college or university at least
once.
Although Dooley said the students enjoyed learning about
services offered on campus, such as tutoring through the Academic
Advancement Program, she added that observing a lecture and
visiting the dorms would further expose her students to the
school’s environment.
“Maybe not an advanced calculus class, but if the students
could sit through a sociology or history lecture, they could think,
“˜Oh maybe I could do this,’ and realize that it’s
not so different from and an advanced placement history class in
high school,” Dooley said.
Group tours and reservation tours essentially cover the same
information on academics, admissions and campus life “”mdash; as
well as visit the same parts of campus “”mdash; McKenzie said.
Ethan Smith, a high school senior from Austin, Texas, recently
visited UCLA after making a private reservation to tour the
campus. He said nothing in the tour specifically grabbed his
attention “”mdash; except UCLA’s rivalry with USC.
Kayla Bee, a high school senior from Redding who attended the
same tour as Smith, said the size of the school surprised her. Bee
and her parents, who also came, said the tour was very informative
and gave a good glimpse of student life.
“To me, the feel of a campus is extremely important. If
the atmosphere of the campus is too foreboding, then I am not
likely to attend that campus because I would not be happy
there,” Bee said. “UCLA’s atmosphere seemed
very inviting and somewhat relaxing, so I am more likely to
choose to go to UCLAÂ than I would be if the atmosphere was
less open.”