Secrets of Ivy League Tour Guides

At universities across the nation this spring, chirpy tour guides will paint an idyllic, PG-rated picture of collegiate life. Here’s the unedited version.

Illustrations by Eleri Mai Harris

In McCosh Courtyard on a sunny October afternoon, Princeton students mill about between classes while my friend Sybil, a junior, stands facing her Orange Key tour group. We smile and wave at each other over the heads of the thirty or so prospective students and their parents eagerly listening to Sybil. As I walk by, I catch a snippet of her presentation: “In general,” she says, “Princeton students aren’t really concerned with GPA.”

I laugh to myself at the absurdity of her comment. In a rigorous Ivy League atmosphere where students are divided into quintiles based on GPA cutoffs, how could this be true? I texted Sybil immediately after I heard her comment: “Stop lying to your tours!!” To which she responded: “They tell us to say that!”