Plan a Virtual Campus Tour

If you’re still exploring different colleges or haven’t even started yet, that’s OK, there’s still time!

But don’t put it off any longer, because once applications have opened up (August 1 for the Common App and University of California, for example), you want to have already finalized or be close to finalizing your college list so that you can get cracking on your applications in the most efficient way.

As you’ll learn in the next couple of posts, you can take the essays that you create for one college and repurpose it for other colleges, and if your list is already done, you can figure out exactly where that overlap is and pick the essay topics that will work for as many of your colleges as possible rather than reinventing the wheel over and over again. You may need to tweak the essays a bit even when there’s overlap, but that will still take a lot less time than starting from scratch.

But what if you’re not able to visit colleges in person for whatever reason? Maybe you’re still limiting your travel, or you can’t afford the time or money necessary to visit colleges. No worries. You can design your own virtual tour. It should take you an hour or two for each college, and by the end you’ll feel like you’ve been there.

WEEK 28 TO-DOS

THIS WEEK

• Create your own college tours without leaving your couch. That’s it! Enjoy this part of your college admission journey. It might even be a little fun. 😉****
  

THIS WEEK AND EVERY WEEK

• Check your email, voicemail, texts, and snail mail for any communications that relate to applying to college. Read them and take whatever action is necessary.

• Update your parents about what you’re doing. This regular communication will work wonders in your relationship with your parents during this stress-filled year.

TIPS & TRICKS

You’re going to start your tour by imagining you are on campus right now. The easiest way to do that is to google images for the college. The iconic buildings on campus are practically guaranteed to come up. For example, if you google images for Princeton, the first images that come up are those of the Tower on the Princeton campus. And, of course, you can imagine you are there on a picture-perfect day because those are the images that you’ll see. (Funny how they never photograph campus on a bad day!)

Now that you are on campus, orient yourself by downloading a campus map and marking where you are starting. You can usually find good maps on the college’s own website. Sometimes there is not a downloadable map on the college website, but instead an interactive map. If so, keep a tab open with the interactive map because you’re going to come back to it at each stop, so you can get a feel for navigating the campus. Google Maps has also gotten much more detailed for college campuses, so you can google too if you’re not having luck with the college website.

Stop 1. The Registrar’s Office. What’s a registrar and why are you going there first? Well, the Registrar’s Office provides support for your academic life. And since college is first and foremost an academic experience, we’ve made it your first stop. You’ll find a page for the Registrar’s Office on the college’s website. Explore and see if you can find out a few key things:

• What are the requirements for graduation? Believe it or not, they vary A LOT from college to college.

• What majors (or concentrations) are available to me?

• What are three classes I’d be excited to take?

Hint: The answers to these questions can ALWAYS be found in the University Bulletin (a bulletin is an official legal document that the university is required to maintain and it will include this information). That’s usually hosted somewhere on the Registar’s page. If you can’t find the University Bulletin there, you can always Google the school name and the words “University Bulletin” and it should pop up. Make sure to look for the Bulletin that is specifically for the College or for Undergraduate Instruction. For example, here is Duke’s University Bulletin.

Stop 2. A Classroom Building. Now that you know the basics when it comes to your academic life, you’ll want to see where you are going to be taking your classes. You can choose a classroom building at random OR you can visit the building where one of the three classes you’d be excited to take is being offered (you’ll have to find the class schedule to do that). Again, google images for the particular building. See if you can find interior shots of the classrooms.

Are they large lecture halls (auditorium style), smaller “desks forward” classrooms, small seminar style classrooms, or a mix? Try to imagine yourself there with other students. For you science types, also find out what a lab looks like.

For example, here is a picture of a 173-student auditorium style classroom at USC’s Taper Hall where the Principles of Microeconomics class often meets.

Stop 3. A Professor’s Office. You want to find out exactly how accessible your professors are. Why? Because students who engage with their professors are generally more successful. Frankly, the campus grapevine is the best source of information for professor accessibility. You can read student reviews for different colleges at Niche and Unigo (just enter the college name into the search bars at the top of those sites). If you really want to dig into this topic, you can research some of the professors at the college and see if you can find their office hours. It is often found on their faculty web page or on a syllabus for a particular course (which you can often find linked to the course listing that you located on Stop 1). Are those office hours easy to find?

Stop 4. Campus Life. Your next stop is the hub for campus life – usually it is a student center, but sometimes it has a different name or things are spread out across campus. For example, at the University of Chicago, there are several hubs for undergraduate campus life, but the hub for the student organizations and campus-wide social events is the Center for Leadership and Involvement. Locate the list of active student organizations (or clubs). Now pretend you are at the involvement fair and every organization has a table and a couple of representatives there to talk with you. Which tables will you visit? You’ll no doubt have an opportunity to attend a fair like this in the fall of your freshman year – almost every college has one. If you want insight into the arts culture, Greek life, sports, or political activism, go back to Unigo and Niche and look to see what students have to say by looking at those headings under campus topics. For example, you’ll see that University of Chicago is a place where arts and politics dominate campus life, sports aren’t their thing, and Greek life matters only to a small minority.

Stop 5. A Freshman Residence Hall. Even if you only end up sleeping at your residence hall, you’ll spend at least one-quarter of your freshman year there. So you owe it to yourself to check it out. Freshman living accommodations vary widely – some are housed together without upperclass students; some are housed in “live and learn” communities where you share interests and coursework as well as living together; some are in traditional single-sex dorms and the list goes on. For example, at Georgetown, freshmen live in one of four residence halls or in one of five Living Learning Communities (LLC). Read up on the options for freshmen and take yourself on a tour. Look for floor plans, interior images, and details that bring your future home to life. And when you’ve finished checking things out, head over to the ratings on Niche.com and see how recent and current students rate the on-campus housing. In our experience, these particular ratings are usually pretty spot-on. For example, Georgetown, despite it’s A+ for location, only gets a C when it comes to dorms.

Stop 6. The Dining Hall. Now that you’ve seen where you’ll live, it’s time to find out where you’ll eat. Unlike days of yore, “the dining hall” is usually a collection of on-campus eateries where you can eat using your meal plan. For example, Notre Dame offers its students two traditional dining halls, along with several restaurants, express eateries, and a food court. And its meal plan includes an option where you can buy “Domer Dollars” to spend at select off-campus restaurants. Check out the places you could dine and find out what’s on the menu. Does it sound tasty? Meet your dietary needs? Again Niche.com is your go-to source for getting a feel for the quality of the food. They give Notre Dame an A for food.

Stop 7. The Fitness Center or a Sports Field. Sleep, food, now exercise. Yes, we think it is important that you stay healthy at college! What activity are you going to do? Work out, play sports, some of each? Every college will have opportunities for you, and most colleges have gotten very serious about promoting student wellness. For example, at Yale you could work out at Payne Whitney Gymnasium (described as a fitness enthusiast’s dream), play an intramural sport, or go the Good Life Center and do some meditation to reduce stress.

Stop 8. Participate in a College Tradition. Nothing says more about a college than its traditions. Google the name of the college and the word “traditions” to see if you can find out a few. Often you’ll find descriptions of traditions on the college website, on a Wikipedia page, or in articles from the school’s newspaper. Here’s a good rundown on traditions at Penn — who knew toast throwing was a thing? — from the “new student orientation issue” of The Daily Pennsylvanian.

That’s it. Your virtual college tour is done – and you didn’t have to leave the couch!