The best 10 questions to ask on a Carleton tour

Ingrid is a senior Sociology/Anthropology major from Dayton, Ohio. Besides leading tours, she enjoys wearing her snuggie, thinking about social research ethics, and pretending to be a lawyer on Carleton’s mock trial team. Ingrid’s greatest talent is (kindly!) ambushing walkers on campus so she can pet their dogs. She also is the student tour guide coordinator and a tour guide (and backwards-walking) expert! Here are Ingrid’s thoughts on the best questions you can ask on a Carleton tour.

1. How has Carleton changed you?

When you go to college, you will change. You will meet people, travel places, and encounter perspectives that will turn your world upside down. You will leave college a different person than you entered it. It’s important to understand how the school you attend will impact who you are. Asking your tour guide how Carleton changed them will give you a glimpse of the impact attending Carleton could have on you.

2. What are 3 things you would change about Carleton?

Every school has flaws. It’s important to understand what students perceive those to be so you can get a holistic picture of your future school. Are these flaws ones you can handle? This question also lets you hear the values of students — do they think deeply about how issues on campus negatively affect the student body, or are they upset by the food?

3. How do you balance stress and self-care?

Carleton is a rigorous academic environment. Coming out of the intense and often unhealthy college admissions process, it’s important to know how students think about mental health at your future college. Is this a place you can be happy and healthy, as well as a strong student?

4. What’s your favorite spot on campus? Why?

Throughout your tour, you’ll see a lot of places on the Carleton campus: the student center, the libe, and a dorm. We don’t show you these places because we want you to see the physical location you’ll be at for four years — we show you these spaces so you can see how students interact with them: the community that’s built in these locations and how students spend their time in them. Understanding how students interact with their physical campus can give you a glimpse of how daily life could feel for you at Carleton.

5. What do you and your friends talk about?

This question gets at what Carleton students care about. It’s easy to apply adjectives to Carls — we’re curious, compassionate, and quirky. But what do we care about? What do we choose to discuss in the midst of our often-chaotic lives? What are the conversations that build the college friendships that last lifetimes?

6. Can you tell me about the communities you’re a part of at Carleton?

You’ll hear a lot about the Carleton community on your tour, probably because students feel strongly about it. However, it’s important to get a specific sense of what that community is. How do students support each other and what does that look like? Getting an idea of specific social environments for different students will let you understand the smaller communities that exist at Carleton.

7. How did you choose which activities to participate in?

Extracurriculars are a huge part of student life at Carleton! They’re where many of us de-stress, build friendships, and give back to the campus. But how did we find these groups? This question lets you hear what Carleton students do with their passions, how students spend their time, and how students form community.

8. What’s something you’ve done at Carleton that you never thought you’d do?

 Before Carleton, I wouldn’t have dreamed of identifying as a feminist. Now I own slippers with vaginas knitted on them. One of the coolest things about Carleton is its capacity to nudge people in different directions. This question gets you two things: a memorable, detailed moment of your tour guide’s Carleton experience, and a glance at what the high school to college transition looks like at Carleton — how has Carleton pushed your tour guide?

9. Can you tell me about the best conversation you’ve had with a Carleton professor? The worst?

At Carleton, you’ll primarily be a student. Professors shape the student experience. While you might hear that our professors are great or even watch a couple of them teach, this question will get you the specifics about what the student/professor relationships can look like at Carleton. I’ve heard about the strong student/professor relationships, but what does that actually look like for students at Carleton?

10. What surprised you most about Carleton after you arrived?

This question is pretty straightforward. What you’re really asking is: what do you think I should know that I don’t know now? For better or for worse, when you arrive at Carleton as a student, you step into a slightly different world than you occupied as a prospie. With this question, you’ll be figuring out how those worlds differ. In what ways is the Carleton of the brochures and prospective student events different than the Carleton students walk and breathe each day?