Fifteen of my years here were in Admissions. I started my training, incidentally, as a ninth grader at a Massachusetts prep school at which I was The Man when it came to admission tours. I avoided countless hours of classtime charming visitors with my spiel. At this time of the year, Proctor's visitors' parking spaces are filled with black SUVs, sedans, and whatever other roadcraft, as dozens of families check us out.
I joined a few tours today to see what visitors experience during their walkabouts of a frozen, wind-blown campus. Here are the results of my study:
Families arrive with moms sporting inappropriate footwear. Dads are preoccupied with incoming cell phone calls. Applicants fit in immediately with Proctor students by under-dressing for temperatures in the single numbers. The difference is that most boys are wearing coats and ties.
A campus tour is a one hour plunge into the reality of Proctor. We don't try to manipulate the experience the way some schools do, with identified dorm rooms that are always neat and clean. Most of it looks great. Wherever you look classrooms are dynamic.
Even when the tour stumbles across students bidding for extra credit by offering a "Cold Weather Blues" before an American Lit class:
Then it's on through the cold wind to the Learning Center...the dining room...and--of course--a dormitory. Let's see what's going on in MLS. "MLS?," asks a caring mother, "What does that stand for?" Well-meaning tour guide: "I don't have a clue..."
