Campus Tours Go On-line for Prefrosh

By Sara Fenchel
Contributing Writer

With the click of a mouse, prefrosh can now explore the Wesleyan campus without leaving their chairs.

A "Virtual Tour" of Wesleyan, accessible through the Admissions homepage, is now available on the World Wide Web. The tour consists of color photos accompanied by the text of senior interviewer and tour guide, Matthew Goldstein ’98. Goldstein, who has given over 150 tours in his career, tried to emulate an actual admissions tour when writing the text for the Virtual Tour.

"The Virtual Tour is basically how I would give a tour - a little bit of history, and a little bit of comedy, but a lot longer than a normal tour," said Goldstein.

According to Charlotte Lazor, manager of admission information systems who helped create the tour, approximately 1000 students applied to Wesleyan using the electronic application located on the Wesleyan homepage.

"The visitors to the Wesleyan homepage can get a lot of information all in one place. A prospective student can go to this page and find out about open houses, interview information, transportation, overnight information — anything that anyone actually visiting campus would ask," explained Lazor.

The Virtual Tour was designed with all prospective students in mind, but it will be especially helpful to those students who are unable to come to campus for an actual tour.

"Some students will just be browsers who happen to pass by. Other students might specifically be looking for information on Wesleyan. A classic example is an overseas student," said Ralph Figueroa, associate dean of admission.

Goldstein supplied the text based on his experience as a tour guide but the pictures were obtained from a variety of sources.

"Some of the pictures were from Public Information, the catalog, or the tour guide," said Figueroa. "A lot of the pictures are from the book, ‘Wesleyan: A Living Portrait.’ We received permission to use the photos from that book, and then scanned them into the computer."

So far, the Virtual Tour has received rave reviews from both parents and prospective students via e-mail. Joe Greenseid ’99.5, who helped design the site, described one particularly impressed parent.

"I received this one e-mail from the mother of a current student. She said that the Tour allowed her to see more of the campus in 20 minutes than she’s ever seen."

The Virtual Tour also meets the approval of current Wesleyan students.

"It was informative and interesting, if a bit lengthy," said Kristin Savage ’01. "I liked the pictures, and it was easy to navigate. It was like a regular tour for an Internet junkie."

"I didn’t learn anything new," added Andrew Drane ’01. "But I marveled at the picturesque campus with happy students on their way to ponder the existence of the universe in intellectually stimulating environments."