For a lot of incoming first-years, college can be the beginning of new and exciting things to come. But with all new things, you might also experience the unexpected too.
So we decided to ask the BuzzFeed Community, "What's the weirdest thing that's happened to you on a college tour?" and they did not disappoint.
1. "I was touring a school in Wisconsin and specifically asked to go on a tour of the kinesiology department since I knew that was going to be my major from day one. During the department tour, our tour guide asked me what my ACT score was as well as my GPA to which he scoffed and replied, 'You’ll never get in here.' Little did he know, I was already accepted to the school. No surprise, I chose to go to their rival school because that experience left such a sour taste in my mouth."
2. "I don’t remember much from my college tours (it was more than 10 years ago), but I remember doing this one tour where random guys would walk by and shout out 'cockroach' and my tour guide would have to immediately fall to his back and kick his legs up for a full minute. This happened several times. He eventually explained that it was a game he and his friends had come up with on some campus trip. It was so annoying, especially because I already didn’t want to be there. My parents were making me tour that school in case I didn’t get into my first choice school."
3. "I was the outrageous thing. It was my first hangover, and I thought I was fine until I got outside and had to lay down on the sidewalk. It was mid-March, and I was wearing gym shorts and a tank top. A tour group went by and I tried to play it off like I was just resting, but no, they knew."
4. "When I visited one of the most selective colleges in the Midwest, I was thinking I was going to go there. On three separate occasions, I had current students walk up to me and say, 'You're a prospie (prospective student)? Don't go here.' I decided they were right and didn't go there. The college is known informally as 'where fun goes to die' so I think I made the right decision. This was 32 years ago, so I don't know if it's gotten better since."
5. "Okay, so I went on a college tour to an Ohio university a few weeks ago and we walked into the dorms. Maybe three minutes after we get in there, the smell of weed just FLOODED the halls. All OF the juniors and seniors were cracking up but the parents and sophomores were PISSED OFF. The tour guide just looked so defeated."
6. "In the Deep South where everyone is so friendly, I thought maybe they are huggers. A tour guide was reaching around me and I was like, Oh okay, he’s hugging me. Nope, he was trying to gently shoo away a wasp behind me. I hugged him and he was like, 'Ma’am I’m married, please stop hugging me.'"
—No
7. "I was touring a very liberal arts college in Washington state and got released to lunch with a recommendation to check out a beach on Puget Sound, which was a short walk through the rainforest on campus. So my dad and I did, and who did we see walking toward us about halfway there but a gorgeous topless hippie woman and her boyfriend? Yeah, I ended up going there, but my dad and I never really talked about that. I found out later it was an unofficial nude beach."
8. "I was touring an Ivy League college. The tour guide was in the middle of emphasizing the academic rigor of the school when another student ran up to him and yelled, 'HEY MAN, CAN I GET THAT DIME BAG FROM YOU LATER TODAY?' The parents on the tour were horrified, and the poor tour guide spent the rest of the tour trying to convince the parents that he was the victim of a friendly prank and not a drug dealer."
9. "My college was in the Bronx but gated all around with guards at every entrance; You had to scan your student ID to get on campus. However, that setup wasn’t always effective. One day, a man ran past one of the guards and onto campus with three police officers chasing him. Thankfully, they did catch him. They tackled him to the ground right in front of a tour group."
10. "For a while, I lived in one of the older apartments down by the student union building and it was a nice central location, so they often used it as an example of on-campus living for tours. One afternoon between classes I was at my apartment when a tour group walked in on me while I was in the bathroom. Apparently, my apartment had been marked vacant or something, in spite of the fact I'd been living there for over a year. I ended up switching to one of the apartment units that weren't on the tour shortly after that."
11. "I had two girls take me aside after a tour at an elite liberal arts school in upstate New York to tell me that while they didn’t have Greek life, they did have 'underground sororities' where older girls forced first-years to wear tight bracelets. When the girls lost enough weight for the bracelets to fall off over their hands, they were 'initiated.' To say I was horrified was an understatement and I didn’t even bother to apply."
12. "When visiting a college with my family, a group of students in Looney Tunes costumes ran by the tour group and sprayed us with squirt guns yelling, 'You’ll never get in!'"
13. "I went on a tour of a Christian college. They were trying to tell us why their school was the best choice. We saw all sorts of different fields that they offered. It is a great college and well-known in our state. One of the students who was a gay teen asked if they would be okay with people who identified as homosexual attending their school. The lady said, '….Not preferably.' We all kind of just got quiet cause she said it so quickly and matter of fact. She then turned around and kept it moving toward the next building. I understand it is a Christian college, but that answer was not acceptable especially to a senior in high school who is already struggling with who they are."
14. "I went on a college tour a few years back. Even though it was a fairly small campus, our tour guide kept getting turned around and it was obvious that we kept getting lost when she suddenly turned around and led us in what seemed to be the opposite direction of campus. I guess she could see that we were getting frustrated and thought she could ease the tension by going, "Honestly, I live off campus and barely go to classes, so I'm not really the person to show you around." Um, hello? Then why are you a tour guide?"
15. "My 21-year-old tour guide assumed that my mother was actually the prospective student. Even after learning that she was my mom, that didn't stop him from flirting with her for the entire tour."
—Anonymous