emphasized. “It’s tough to get that intangible feel of the culture until you are on campus.”
8
QUALITIES OF A GREAT PEDDIE TOUR GUIDE
Jane Richardson ’19 agrees. She’s been a Peddie Tour Guide for four years and is one of 11 Head Tour Guides, which means that she leads training for recruits. “You can read all you want about our community, but when you get on campus and see it for yourself, you start to believe, ‘Wow, that’s actually how this school is.’”
1 . Great communicator
Fellow Head Tour Guide Owen O’Neill ’20 considers Peddie’s inclusive community to be a strong selling point for prospective students, and something that is enhanced by the tour experience. “I enjoy talking about our community the most,” said O’Neill. “It’s so easy to talk about because it’s happening all around you while you’re giving a tour.”
5 . Enthusiastic
THE PATH TO BECOMING A PEDDIE TOUR GUIDE There are more than 160 Peddie Tour Guides. Among them are 35 Blue Key Guides who have at least one year of experience and have committed to giving a tour every week during the busy season as part of their work job responsibilities. Eleven Head Tour Guides, who have earned elite status, help the admission department run the Tour Guide Program by leading training sessions and participating in Revisit Day activities.
2 . Friendly and outgoing 3 . Has a good memory 4 . Quick on their feet 6 . Mindful of time 7 . Knowledgeable about Peddie 8 . Passionate about the Peddie community From “Everything you need to know about being a Peddie Tour Guide”
“We build our tour guides up in a positive way so that they have all the tools they need,” McCollum said. What’s mandatory: Tour guides must attend a training session every year. These are led by Head Tour Guides, who review program expectations and share personal experiences with their fellow students. New tour guides shadow veterans on at
“Every tour guide should find a way to provide a lens into what Peddie has been like for them.” In addition to prospective families, Peddie Tour Guides give tours to other visitors – like job applicants and guest speakers. It all adds up to more than 900 tours a year, with the bulk of tours happening between September and January (before the application deadline). Since McCollum began working with tour guides two years ago, she has instituted new training guidelines and refined talking points along tour routes.
least two tours (one with a visiting family), and the admission department often pairs them with an experienced tour guide for their first official tour. There’s also “Everything you need to know about being a Peddie Tour Guide,” a program guide with talking points that the admission department distributes to all program participants. Last fall all tour guides attended an additional strategic messaging training.
31 SPRING/SUMMER 2019