<p>I recently purchased four videos from Collegiate Choice -- Rice, Rhodes, Davidson and Wake Forest. Technically they weren't the greatest, but they do give a pretty good idea of what the campuses look like. Since we won't be able to visit every college we'd like to see, they're better than nothing.</p>
<p>I'd like to view the ones from University of Virginia, William and Mary, American University, GWU and Emory, but I don't particularly want to invest any more money. If anyone has Collegiate Choice videos from any of those schools, would you like to swap for any of mine? Actually, now that I think about it, I'd like to see Boston College and Boston University, too.</p>
<p>I have to say that the Davidson video really turned my son off to the school. I wasn't too impressed, either. We still plan to visit because I think that it must be better than the video made it out to be. If anyone else has viewed it, I'd be interested in your impressions of it.</p>
<p>I'm not exactly sure since they aren't dated. I was wondering the same thing as I watched them. I tried to figure it out by looking at the cars in the background but that didn't work!</p>
<p>I'd say they're probably a couple of years old, circa 2003 or so. Some may be newer. If anyone has more info about that, please post.</p>
<p>Wow, what a great idea, although if the Collegiate Choice folks turn back up on this site, they might not be so happy about it ;). I've got a couple gathering dust in my backroom, but the only one I can remember right now, I'd actually like to keep because it might be good for my son.</p>
<p>Also I've made a couple of trips to Davidson, but I haven't seen the video - what turned you off? Campus seemed very quiet, but we were there at mid-terms, and a lot of studying was going on, and it was a coldish damp day.</p>
<p>The video of Davidson was just .. drab, I guess. The buildings looked badly in need of refurbishing, there weren't any students around (I guess maybe they were in class but you'd think SOMEONE would be out and about!) and the tour guide wasn't the greatest. There just wasn't any excitement generated by the video. I drove through the campus about 2 1/2 years ago on a weekend and it was deserted then, too.</p>
<p>However, everything about the school sounds great on paper, so we're going to go visit in the spring. I think it would be a great fit for my son if he can get in.</p>
<p>We were consistently disapppointed in Collegiate Choice videos (Kenyon, Carleton, Davidson), though Kenyon was the best of the three. Generally, technical quality was poor, questions canned, personalities muted. As it turns out the only school of those three that my D ended up visiting was Davidson, and it was wonderful--extremely well-kept, vibrant, bustling, and very pretty, with some lovely facilities, such as the student center, athletic center, and elegantly renovated main classroom building (Chambers). The campus doesn't ever feel crowded, but it certainly seems alive and lively. It is hard not to be turned off by a disappointing video, and if a visit is feasible, I would urge you to take that opportunity.</p>
<p>Re quiet weekends, keep in mind that students often sleep late on weekendsl; I remember visiting Wesleyan one fall Satuday morning in October with my older child, and it was amazingly empty and peaceful; we left around noon, and by then the campus was beginning to come to life.</p>
<p>Davidson is lovely, there are a few bare spots in the grass in front of some of the dorms, but I think those represent the favorite Frisbee hang-outs. They should be just about finished with a major round of renovations, so some things that looked down-at-heels in the video are greatly improved - we visited in Feb of 2004, then again in June 2004 (just a drive by), on the tour in Feb we saw 3-4 new to practically new classroom building renovations, the gorgeous student center, and they were just starting to tear up a major building (the library?, can't quite remember). Also possibly misleading from the video, many of the exteriors of buildings are old or old looking, I don't know how else to put it, not really unkempt, but old looking, worn brick looking, but inside were freshly renovated.</p>
<p>From walking the campus, I thought the campus was very quiet, too, uuhhh, actually dead, but when we went into the student center, it was great, made you want to sign up. The have a large free-standing open sided fireplace at the entrance, it had a gas fire going, lots of cozy couches and chairs and tables to bring coffees and Cokes from the snack bar. Almost every chair, couch and table was occupied by groups of students studying (it was at mid-term), couple playing ping-pong on a lower level - all looked like a fun, inviting place to study, just pairs of kids discussing or going over notes.</p>
<p>You need to visit, I think the campus is a little quiet, because everything is so close, people don't have to be sort of hanging around in public places for classes, they can run back to the room between classes, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot going on.</p>
<p>I made it a habbit of previewing the collegiate choice videos before showing them to my daughter. If they were really bad, and it was a school that I suspected WOULD be a good fit for her if seen in person, I didn't show them to her. In at least one case, (Beloit) the video turned out to give us a totally different impression of the school than visiting did. In fact, after our visit we had to rush home and watch the video again because we both thought that maybe we had confused it with the video from another school. </p>
<p>I think the idea of swapping these is a great one!</p>
<p>I agree with you Carolyn. Some of them would turn you off if you couldn't visit and see for yourself. I wonder why some seem so much more in depth than others. I thought maybe he was just biased with some colleges, although he was stuck with a few bad tour guides in others. In Holy Cross's video, I think I fell asleep while he showed a blackboard for 10 minutes while a student explained their "core". In others, like Fordham, he had 2 great tour guides, asked a lot of questions, beyond his "usual". He even showed the college in extra footage, in the spring, since he went fall/winter originally.
I was loaned a few, but bought Vassar, Drew, Clark and Holy Cross if anyone is interested.</p>