On April 24, UR students will celebrate Dandelion Day, a university tradition that started in the 1950s and developed into the current one-day festival typically held the weekend before classes end. Given the nature of the celebration, the Office of Admissions does a disservice to the University, as well as prospective students, by scheduling tours on this day.
In recent years, the primary attraction of the day has been the copious amount of alcohol consumed rather than any event the Campus Activities Board might plan. The sight of inebriated students loitering on the Wilson Quadrangle or opened containers of beer strewn in all directions is not likely to impress students or their parents. More importantly, their perspective is skewed by visiting UR during an anomaly in its social life, as many students use the day as an outlet to relieve the stress of upcoming exams. Tours held on D-Day are misleading and distract from the opportunities that UR offers.
The Office of Admissions should reconsider its rationale for scheduling tours on D-Day. While it is important for prospective students and their parents to see the University for themselves, the Office of Admissions already offers tours on weekdays and occasionally Saturdays throughout April and May. Spread out over two months, these remaining visiting days give prospective students ample opportunity to visit the campus even without tours on D-Day.
In order to make an informed decision, prospective students deserve to see UR on a day that accurately represents both student interactions and the general campus environment. Since D-Day falls short on both accounts, it should be scrapped as a visiting day for students deciding whether to spend their undergraduate years at UR.
