More Students Winnow Lists
Of Possible Colleges Online

From the University of Wyoming's fast-paced, eight-minute orientation video to Harvard University's user-controlled, panoramic cameras, virtual tours have moved to the front lines in the battle for college applicants.

The latest market research shows that 70% of all college-bound high-school juniors began their college search on the Web, and those virtual tours came second only to actual campus visits in luring students.

With that in mind, schools have begun overhauling their Web sites, adding panoramic pictures and encouraging students to apply online.

Go on Harvard University's virtual tour (http://www.news.harvard.edu/tour/qtvr_tour/) and pop inside Hollis Hall to see students goofing around in their dorm room. Click on a window and head out to the Old Yard and its perimeter of red brick buildings.

The New College of Florida's virtual tour (http://www.ncf.edu/Admissions/virtualtour/nc_vt_jump_page.html) highlights panoramic pictures of residence halls and plenty of students wearing shorts. The tour links to the admissions department, course information and online applications that cost $20 if they are printed out and mailed, $30 if submitted electronically.

"The majority of high-ability kids are on the Web," says Joel Bauman, NCF's dean of admissions and financial aid. While it is hard to say with certainty that the pictures of white sand and dormitories designed by I.M. Pei have boosted out-of-state and online applications, Mr. Bauman notes the rise in applications from 211 in 1999 to 274 two years later "coincides with us having a virtual tour."

At Bucknell University, in Lewisburg, Pa., a flashy, informative Web site (http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/admissions/tour/tour24.shtm) has drawn applicants from places like Hanoi and San Francisco. The 15-minute Web tour was the only one Steven Palmer took before the first day of school last month. Besides the hassle of a 30-hour drive from his native Beaumont, Texas, the 17-year-old freshman had other schools still on his radar. "The need to visit all of them kept me from visiting any of them," he says. Mr. Palmer acknowledges the gamble, but says it paid off: "Luckily, when I showed up on campus it was as advertised."

Some schools are looking into personalizing their mailings to students using tracking software that notes a student's stops along the virtual tour -- much like the software that lets Amazon.com make recommendations to customers. Despite the software's high cost, many schools are asking for it, says Chris Carlson, tour director of Campus Tours LLC, a developer of university Web sites that handles more than 800 virtual tours on its Web site. "[Tracking software] will become more prevalent in the next three to five years," he predicts.

Steve Oblas, director of university relations at Lehigh University, says his school is moving to match mailed materials to students' interests. A student will fill out online questionnaires, then personalized brochures -- both electronic and printed -- will be sent to the student. "We're trying to give them only what they need," Mr. Oblas says. "A student-athlete wants something different than someone interested in research."

While online tours can help students focus their college search, they also enable students to apply to more schools -- a certain boon with today's fierce competition to get into college. "It used to be kids would apply to three or four [schools], now it's eight or 10," says Linda Hutchinson, counseling director at Yorktown High School in Arlington, Va.

Jay Fromkin, a spokesman for the University of Wyoming, says that visiting the Laramie campus isn't easy -- even for in-state students. So the virtual tour is a good, cheap alternative for students who might not apply if they couldn't get an idea of what the place was like. The school's Web site (uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu) contains video clips of the scenic, if windswept, campus. "We put a lot of stock into curb appeal," says Mr. Fromkin.

High-school counselors are skeptical. Ali McClellan, a counselor at Robbinsdale Armstrong High School in Plymouth, Minn., says she doesn't "ever want to get to that point where [students] lose that personal contact." And certainly colleges also fear the Web becoming their only contact with students. Jim Shaynak, associate director of admissions at Bucknell University, estimates 95% of his duties are Web-based today. "It can be difficult to truly make a connection with people who may be simply browsing," he says.

But some high-school students have little hesitation over making their picks online. Sarah Griffin, an 18-year-old senior at Bay High School in Bay Village, Ohio, estimates 95% of her college search has been done from her desk. With hardly the time to go around the country surveying schools, Ms. Griffin went online and found Columbia College in Chicago, a tiny art school she wouldn't have been able to scout without the Internet, and one her guidance counselors were unlikely to have recommended, she says.

The school's site even piqued the interest of her mother, who otherwise may have rejected the school as an option, says Ms. Griffin. "She likes to see things for herself."

Write to Ryan Dezember at ryan.dezember@dowjones.com

Updated October 30, 2002