Money for College: saving big with armchair campus tours

February 9, 2:30 PMCollege Admissions ExaminerLauren Starkey

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I just visited my alma mater, Trinity College, this morning without getting in the car and driving the 230 miles between my home and the campus. The $15. tour video I watched gave me a great current snapshot of the school, including required courses, sports teams, students’ community involvement, dorm rooms, dining halls, and more.

Collegiate Choice visits schools (350 and counting) in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and tapes actual campus tours, complete with student guides and prospective freshmen and their parents.  Since my daughter went through the college admissions process just last year, I took these tours recently—what’s better about the videos is that the cameraman knows great questions to ask the guide and fills in the blanks after the tour by visiting the buildings and locations the tour guide skipped.

Another selling point, and why I’m writing about the videos on Money for College Monday, is the price. When Emma and I traveled to and around the mid-Atlantic states checking out the schools she was interested in, it cost close to $1000. for fuel, hotels, and meals.  Collegiate Choice tours are not a substitute for the real thing, but they can help you eliminate some schools from your list without leaving home and without spending hundreds of dollars.

While there are a couple of other tour sites online (and they’re free), they both fall short. One simply plays promotional videos shot and produced by the schools themselves. The other provides silent 360 degree views of the campus while relentlessly plugging their scholarships.

The Collegiate Choice videos are best used to check out the colleges beneath your “must apply to” group. With application fees typically over $50, why bother to apply to a school you know about only through its website?  You’ll not only get to see what the campus looks like, but you’ll hear students talking about the food in the dining hall, the plusses and minuses of campus housing, what the social life is like, and safety concerns. While the quality of the guides, as with actually tours, varies, the information you can glean from watching can help you hone your list of schools and make more informed, less costly college application decisions.