• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

If you’ve ever taken an organized tour in a foreign country, you will remember the ubiquitous bubbly flag-waving guides who unfailingly skip the bad restaurants, ignore the shady neighborhoods, and use an English name to put their followers at ease.

Well, UCLA has a domestic variety to call its very own. (The names, however, are their own.)

Their job, in some ways, isn’t very difficult. Admissions season is in full-swing; many parents, with college seniors in tow, are just looking for a cheap T-shirt to prove that paying for those miserable years of flute, French or pottery lessons was actually worth it. Most tours, in fact, end in front of Ackerman Union – the perfect spot for families who want to load up on gear plastered with the acronym.

UCLA is exceptionally lucky that way. The reputation alone – most of which still belongs to John Wooden – is enough to draw in more applicants than any other school in the country. More than a few high school seniors are probably swayed by the weather or the address, which promises easy access to the beach and Sunset Boulevard.

But for so many other reasons, the job of a campus tour guide must be like having an alter-identity.

Unless they’re studying at a school other than this one, these are the same people who must beg for PTE numbers in classes that refuse to enroll more students because the TA’s contract won’t accept them. They’re the same people who must wait in line for same-day-only counseling appointments, only to have them booked before 8:45 a.m.

And what about the students who must carry a part-time job to pay for fee increases that the administration of their beloved university has done nothing to prevent? One and the same. They secretly worry, just like the rest of us, about what a degree from this place is worth.

But they don’t tell their followers, who gather three times daily to hear about the realities of campus life, academics and the social scene.

In frightening numbers, many families making the rounds this past week admitted their campus tours would be the determining factor in making their college decisions. They didn’t have time to sit in on classes attend a culture night, or talk to students on the Hill about how safe the dorms really are.

So it explains why, when walking by Dodd Hall these days, we might be reminded that the building in back is the UCLA School of Law, named 16th in U.S. News and World Report’s most recent law school rankings. And continuing north toward a strategically placed emergency phone, we remember the campus is safely nestled between Brentwood and Beverly Hills – in contrast to our downtown rivals, someone might knowingly chuckle.

One mother even said her family was skipping out on the housing tour to check out Rodeo Drive.

Goes to show how horribly influential the mere name of this place has over students wanting to study here. It put many of us under the same spell – I am here because I thought those four little letters would look good on a résumé – but the reality of this campus is only sometimes reflected in the optimistic stories retold by the cadre of tour guides.

One exception: When I took my first campus tour, my mother – expecting the grunge of 1960s Berkeley, I suppose – remarked on how everyone’s clothing matches here. For some reason, tour-ees are usually impressed to learn that “Legally Blonde” was shot on campus. I, for one, don’t know why they’re surprised.

E-mail cjenkins@media.ucla.edu if you’ve come from the streets of Sacramento to the freeways of L.A.