Early in the school year, 8th graders from multiple schools around the county make a trip to Gables. Most of the attending middle schoolers will feel slightly intimidated by the thought of journeying into a new frontier. After experiencing a brief glimpse of how the school functions, most of the tour’s attendees are swayed towards picking Gables from the school pool.

Tours offer many advantages to students who are uninformed about the schools they are contemplating spending the next four years in.  Students are able to see the school and learn their way around its campus. Figuring out the school’s layout is helpful, since the size difference between middle schools and high schools can be quite intimidating to first time visitors.

“The 8th graders taking the tours this year seemed to really like the tours and Gables. They were interested and asked a lot of questions throughout the tour, but by far I think their favorite part was my comedy,” sophomore Julian Elortegui said.

Although most find the tours beneficial, some do not see them as influencing students’ decisions for school choice and think students merely go on them to miss school. Many people are destined to go to a certain high school from an early age. They believe that going on a tour of a school is meaningless because they already know most of the information about the particular school they will attend.

“The tour did not influence my decision about coming to Gables because I had known for a long time that I was coming here. It did help me get a better idea of what the school looked like, but nothing that would have made me decide to come here otherwise,” freshman Lucas Kerwin said.

However, most students on the tour have no idea where they want to go. The tours are useful for potential Gables students because they get to meet some of their potential future teachers and learn about the different classes that are offered, such as electives and AP courses. They get a hint of the school’s energetic atmosphere too, since the tours take place during school days.

Students should always have at least an idea of what they are thinking of getting into in order to be prepared for the important choice of what high school to go to. They might look back at the tour and think how it really helped you pick the ideal classes and join the right clubs for them.

To check out more pictures from one of this year’s middle school tours, click here.