Providence College's new virtual campus tour has been awarded the CampusTours 4-Star Tour Award for March 2004. This award was created by CampusTours to recognize 12 outstanding tours each year from among the approximately 565 tours presented on their Web site for colleges and universities in all 50 states.

Providence's tour, a fast-paced, two-minute presentation, debuted on the Providence College Web site and on CampusTours.com in mid-January. It is organized around three themes: recently constructed and refurbished campus facilities; projected new facilities; and the emergence of the City of Providence as a popular destination.

The online tour was developed by staff in College Relations and Planning and the Office of Admission, in conjunction with CampusTours, the leader in virtual college tour development and a popular internet portal for prospective college students.

Each month, CampusTours officials pre-screen and select 12 exemplary tours from the site and present them to the awards committee for review. The awards committee, comprised of five prospective students, two parents of college-aged children, and two college administrators, then selects three tours as finalists; one tour is ultimately named the award recipient during a monthly committee conference call.

In announcing the award, CampusTours noted that Providence College's tour "acts as a well-choreographed introduction to the institution. Complete with narration, music, photographs, panoramic images and animation, the Providence College online tour provides the type of broad institutional overview that prospective students increasingly demand from university Web sites."

CampusTours also notes, "The Providence virtual tour ... treats visitors to a linear, narrated production that showcases the college, its campus, the tremendous new facilities that are currently under construction and the lure of Providence, Rhode Island. Throughout the tour, important facts about Providence are highlighted with text blurbs and students can delve further into Providence at any time by selecting the 'more information' link at the bottom left of the tour window. In a sense, the Providence online tour serves as a virtual introduction to the college, and the 'more information' link does a tremendous job of augmenting the brief presentation with detailed college information."

According to a CampusTours spokesman, the committee generally values substance over glitziness, rewarding those schools whose tours not only impress, but inform."

"Providence College's online excursion certainly paints a vivid and attractive portrait of the institution, encouraging further exploration by prospective students," concludes CampusTours. "The CampusTours Awards Committee found this to be an extremely compelling online excursion."

The 12 tours selected for 4-Star honors throughout the course of a year are each prominently featured on the home page of CampusTours.com during the month they are honored. National media outlets frequently contact CampusTours when developing college admission trend stories and the 4-Star Tours are often promoted as best practice examples.

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