With a seventeen-year-old high school junior for a son, the time
has come once again to go college shopping. And as one of those guys
who hates to shop, I naturally was looking for something that would
allow me to visit a university or two hundred without leaving home.
After all, travel expenses can be…well, expensive.
So imagine my joy at finding not one, but two CD-ROMs which provide
information, supplemented by sites on the World Wide Web, on thousands
of higher education institutions. And one of them a multimedia
presentation, too?
College View has come out with a new version of its College Search
CD-ROM program — this one designed for consumers, not just educational
institutions. It contains information on 3,550 two- and four-year
colleges and universities.
The program offers the ability to customize the search process
based on a dozen variables such as the location, size of the community
surrounding the school, distance from home, types of degrees offered,
racial breakdown of student population, and financial aid packages.
If more information is desired, the program offers two
alternatives: it generates letters which can be used to request
additional information from the schools being considered; and the
College View Web edition allows users to contact admission offices for
information or to file an application for admission.
The Web site also offers another valuable asset — the Coffee Shop.
Here, interactive messages and chat rooms help users locate students at
the institution being appraised to discuss life on that campus.
Perhaps the most intriguing thing about the program, however, is
its multimedia capabilities. Brief audio and video presentations allow
Users to view “snapshots” of selected institutions.
