Prospective students will hear a different explanation of the College from their tour guide as they wind their way around campus this fall.
The admissions office changed the tour script and added new training sessions, and is reducing the size of tour groups, which at peak times once numbered as many as 50 prospective students.
The admissions office hopes the new system will limit tours to 10 to 15 prospective students and their parents.
The changes are part of a new emphasis on giving individual attention to each prospective student. "The idea was to personalize the program," Senior Associate Director of Admissions Maria Laskaris said.
"We want to do everything we can to get more people visiting the campus," said Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg.
Under the new system, guides receive more training than before, Laskaris said.
Through the fall, winter and spring, tour guides volunteer once a week to show prospective freshmen and their families around campus. In the summer, when hundreds of high school seniors descend on Hanover everyday, guides give three tours a week and are paid $6 a tour.
Students involved in the admissions process and admissions office administrators selected members of the Classes of 1995 and 1996 last winter as the first to participate in the new tour guide training.
Training involved mock tours, discussions on how to present balanced information and sporadic meetings throughout the year.
The admissions office also started distributing information to tour guides about Dartmouth icons and traditions, including the Senior Fence on the west side of the Green and the Lone Pine.
Getting guides to show up for their scheduled tour times was a major problem with the old tour system. Sometimes guides "just didn't show up," Laskaris said. "We want a small, core group of students to get really involved in tours," she added.
Dan Lukas '94, a two-year tour guide veteran, said that because under the old system almost any student could give a tour with little training, guides often did not take their mission seriously.
The new tour program attempts to correct that problem.
The admissions office "looks for individuals who are very knowledgeable about Dartmouth and able to give a good, well-rounded presentation about the school," Lukas said.
Lukas said the improvements over the old system were "immeasurable" during a test run last summer.
Furstenberg said more applications have been requested for the Class of 1998 and that so far, testing scores for that class are higher than in previous years.
