What Canadian Schools Can Borrow From the American Campus Tour Arms Race

By Midya U · Midya U Advisory

In brief: American colleges are spending heavily to win a shrinking pool of applicants, and a Niche survey cited by Inside Higher Ed in September 2026 found 92% of enrolment leaders at small US colleges call the campus visit their single most important strategy for securing a class. Canadian institutions are heading into a comparable fight for domestic students, with international numbers capped, and most of the American playbook costs more than a Canadian marketing budget can match. The parts worth copying are cheap and sit with marketing: what a visitor reads before the tour, what the guide knows about them, and what lands in their inbox after.

Baylor University lights up a spire in its welcome centre with a visiting student's name and what they want to be when they grow up. Trinity University in Texas reserves parking spots for visitors, by name. Mount Saint Mary's in Los Angeles pays for flights and hotels so out-of-town students can attend events like Admitted Students' Day.

Inside Higher Ed rounded these up on September 21, 2026, and while the spire is easy to laugh at, there is a very useful point in there. American colleges have been fighting over a shrinking pool of applicants for years, and Canadian institutions are now in a version of the same fight, for domestic students, with international numbers capped. Some of what the Americans have built is worth copying. Most of the worthwhile parts are cheap, and they sit with marketing.

Why are US colleges spending this much on a tour?

Because their enrolment leaders believe the visit is where the decision gets made.

A Niche survey from summer 2026, cited in the same article, found 92% of enrolment leaders at small US colleges named the campus visit as the single most important strategy for securing an incoming class. Albion College says its tours are up about 23% since 2022, and it now gives students who toured and then enrol $2,000 a year, or $8,000 in total. John Carroll University reports tours up 46% over the same period and is rebuilding its welcome centre, which used to feel like a large conference room.

I'd hold that 92% loosely. It's what enrolment leaders at small American colleges believe, which isn't the same as measured yield, and I haven't found an equivalent Canadian survey. Even so, when that many people running admissions agree on one thing, I'd want to know whether my own visit experience would hold up.

Which parts of the American playbook belong to marketing?

The story the visit tells, and everything the visitor sees before and after it.

The tour route, the guide schedule and the parking belong to admissions. What marketing owns is the reason anyone books the visit, what they read the night before, the first thing they see when they arrive, and what lands in their inbox on the drive home. Those are the parts that decide whether a visit feels like your institution or like every other campus with a quad.

What does Marquette do that anyone could copy?

It tells the guide who's coming.

Marquette University's tour guides get a short fact sheet on upcoming visitors and pick the ones who match their own interests, so a student who wants nursing isn't walked past the business school for twenty minutes before anyone asks. Marquette also flew in 318 admitted families in spring 2026 for its admitted-student program, which most Canadian budgets won't stretch to. The fact sheet is the part to borrow. It costs a form field and a briefing, and it turns a generic tour into one that sounds like it was planned for that student.

Marketing can build this without asking anyone. Add one question to the booking form about what the student wants to study and why, and send the answers to whoever is guiding that day.

What should a visitor see first?

Something that could only be your campus.

SIUE's chancellor walked the tour route personally to find the rough spots. John Carroll is rebuilding its welcome centre. Nobody needs a new building to learn from either of them. Walk your own route with a stranger's eyes, from the parking lot to the first classroom, and write down what a 17-year-old and their parent see in the first five minutes. It might be a construction fence, a notice board of expired posters, or a reception desk that doesn't know a tour is due. Fixing that is brand work, even though nobody files it under marketing.

What about students who can't come?

Give them the same story, told online, with the same people.

Plenty of applicants live a province or a flight away from the campus they're considering. A virtual tour built on stock drone footage won't do much for them. Short videos from the guides who'd have walked them around, answering the questions visitors ask on real tours, stand a better chance. The Keystone survey data in The Trust Gap AI Hasn't Closed found students still trust university websites more than any other source they use, so that's where these videos belong, and Why Reddit Outranks Your Admissions Office covers where the same questions get asked when you don't answer them.

Where would I start?

Book your own campus tour as a prospective student, under a family member's email, and keep everything you receive.

Note the booking form, the confirmation email, what you see when you arrive, what the guide knows about you, and what follows in the week after. If nothing follows, that's your first fix. If what follows reads like it could have come from any institution in the province, that's a positioning problem, and it's the kind of work I do in Brand Repositioning.