Let’s get personal

The UNC admissions office is looking to revamp the campus tour. This is a great opportunity to create a more personalized tour experience for prospective students.

The current general tour covers the most popular areas of main campus: the Pit, Student Union, quads and Lenoir Dining Hall. The only academic building that prospective students preview is Murphy Hall — hardly an accurate representation of most classrooms that future students will attend.

A more personalized approach would allow tours to cater to students’ individual interests.

Jesalyn Keziah, an admissions ambassador, or tour guide, agreed that a personal approach to tours has the potential to be very beneficial.

“Sometimes I can tell that the information I’m telling people doesn’t apply to everybody in my group, because they’re sort of zoning out,” Keziah said.

The optimal structure for tours would provide personalized information and attention to prospective students depending on their field of interest.

The University should ask prospective students their interests and use the information to create tour group dates.

People interested in business should have a business major as a tour guide and should tour Kenan-Flagler Business School.

This way, students entertaining the possibility of attending UNC will have a broad understanding of their academic future within their field of study.

While a general overview of the campus and details about campus life are certainly critical for any tour, prospective applicants should have the opportunity to preview what is most important to them.

 Andrew Parrish, assistant director of undergraduate admissions, said admissions officials have not looked into how the University directly engages prospective students “in a while.”

“What may not be unique about our tour is that it’s similar to what every other university does,” he said.

He stressed that high-caliber prospective students want to be at a university that has other high-quality students to challenge and mold them.

 As admissions officials continue their discussion on how to enhance the campus tour program, they would be wise to develop a program that caters the tour experience to the prospective student.