<p>I like the tapes and they did help my daughter. After watching a couple of tapes, she decided she wanted a larger school. </p>
<p>I like the tapes about Oregon, Arizona, and Brandeis because I liked the tour guides and the tapes were well done.</p>
<p>Wisconsin had a great info session at the end of the tape. Very helpful.</p>
<p>Penn's and Wash U's weren't filmed well. </p>
<p>Haverford, Lake Forest, Washington, and UCSD were boring.</p>
<p>Has anyone seen the tapes of Indiana, Maryland, University of Miami (Florida), Texas, Arizona State, Vanderbilt, Brown, Univ. of Florida, or San Diego State? Are they worth getting?</p>
<p>When D asked for info at Reed they sent a CD with quicktime interviews with students Re thesis- a tour of campus and interview with the president Steve Koblik
I thought it was pretty helpful ( and free)
It is also someplace on their web site
Linfield also sent a Cd but wasn't as fun
I would hope that soon more colleges would be making DVDs to send at least to students who ask for them- I mean if high school students can manage to put slide shows with music on their websites- schools that charge $50,000 should be able to put out a CD for PR- I would rather have a CD than a mountain of paper!</p>
<p>I haven't seen the videos- are videos made by Collegiate choice much different than videos made by the college?
How much detail do they usually give?</p>
<p>They are videos of college tours. If you get a bad tour guy, the video is bad. If the weather is poor, the video is poor.</p>
<p>They are not polished. It is also hard to get a perspective on the layout of a campus. The videos go from building to building. </p>
<p>I like them anyway. The Reed tour guide tries to act intelligent. She says things like "Let's coagulate here".</p>
<p>Some videos also have info sessions where you can learn what it takes to get into the school. Colorado, Wisconsin, and I think Michigan have these.</p>
<p>The difference is the videos are not infommercials put out by the colleges.They aren't pretty,sanitized and full of the schools propaganda (for lack of a better term).
They did help us pick and choose.S thought Rice was beautiful but way too quiet..too few kids,too much open space for the # of kids.I thought Michigan would be "prettier" or more historic looking,but it gave you a good look at a really busy campus.South Carolina's tape had a helpful tourguide,and gave a pretty balanced view of the urban neighborhood/quiet campus setting.NYU's (this was a couple of years ago maybe its been redone) was almost inaudible due to street noise,but gave a good look at the campus buildings.
i think its a good balance to the glossy stuff the schools send you before you can make an in person visit.</p>
<p>The only Cds I have seen are the one from Linfield which wasn't really helpful- but which we weren't really interested in anyway
and the CD from Reed-- I don't think it was sanitized or overly polished(<a href="http://web.reed.edu/apply/tour/%5B/url%5D">http://web.reed.edu/apply/tour/</a>)
It had about 33 short clips of seniors discussing their theses,( they seem to be updating those on the web- many are from '04) and links to other places where Reedies hang out like Powells ( bookstore) and Reed cabin at mt Hood
I made a really funny mistake when I was looking at the CD-
I clicked on the quicktime surround of the Timberline lodge on mt hood-( historical ski resort) and thought it was the Reed student cabin! It was pretty plush! I thought I knew where all the money was going to ;)</p>
<p>I do like the CDs cause they are easy to navigate- click on the maps and you can find your way around the building- but the videos sound like a good way for when you can't visit or to help you narrow down what schools to make the trek to.</p>
<p>Hello. Please could you tell me how you get videos/CD's sent to you? I have looked at a lot of (great and ok) websites and also requested brochures, but I would love to actually own some videos of schools. Thanks.</p>
<p>How could I have forgotten "coagulate" girl? I think I've watched at least a dozen of those videos. I think my favorite was Sewanee - Jersey guy seemed quite pleasantly surprised with what he found. I can't decide what I'm going to do with all of these videos - my son will be a senior in three years, but these will be quite out of date by then. Maybe donate them to his school's college center. Anybody else have any ideas for them?</p>
<p>dstark - no, I haven't seen any of the ones you discussed. I've viewed Davidson, William & Mary, Williams, Bowdoin, Hamilton, Allegheny, Kenyon, Centre, Sewanee, Rhodes, Carleton, Macalester, and probably another I'm forgetting.</p>
<p>You might check with your high school guidance office. Ours has a large collection of these, although we haven't used yet them since college son knew where he wanted to apply.</p>
<p>Dartmouth, UChicago, Swarthmore and Vanderbilt. The Dartmouth video was best hands down, filmed in the dead of winter. Very amusing. The other three did great disservice to their respective institutions IMHO. As earlier posters have said, all it takes to ruin the show is mediocre weather or a mediocre guide. (In the case of the Vanderbilt video, well the weather was OK.) Another thing to consider before investing is that these video tours show very few interactions with students or professors.</p>
<p>ksanders, I can't handle the quick cuts of those videos. I also think they film too tight. I can't see the schools. I see people being interviewed and graphics. I want to see the schools.</p>
<p>Like I told Barrons, I may also be told too old for the MTV style video format. :(</p>
<p>Perhaps this isn't the place to ask this question . . .</p>
<p>but can a freshman bring a car to campus?</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>PS -- I'm a big fan of the CC video series ... it's not a replacement for your own tour, book research, talking to everyone with any knowledge of the school, but it's another tool for doing your due diligence.</p>
<p>I thought some were obviously biased, but most of them told me something I didn't know. (yes, mailbox areas are important!) I'm donating my son's to his GC. We saw Drew, Vassar, Fordham,Clark and Holy Cross. Fordham's was the best, he even showed it in 2 seasons and really liked the two-team tour guides. Clark's was the worst, but my son loved the college in person, so it shows, if you're interestd, please don't just go on a tape.</p>