“More students are now applying to college more than ever before, there’s more competition for admission and they want to compare financial aid packages,” said Audrey Kahane, a college admissions counsellor in Los Angeles. “When you’re applying to many schools, it’s not practical to go out and visit every one, especially when they’re all across the country [or overseas].”

Virtual tours can give them all students a sense of the school, added Kahane.

Schools pay a minimum of $3,000 (Dh10.950) a year for the YouVisit service and the client base has been doubling every year, growing even faster in recent months, said Abi Mandelbaum, who launched YouVisit in 2008.

The Florida, company has worked with 150 universities and its tours have hosted about 2 million visitors so far. Mandelbaum said some universities that adopted his company’s service saw a 30 percent increase in physical visits the next year.

Orange Coast College adopted the virtual tour as a supplement to its in-person tour service. When budget cuts hit, the school could not afford as many student workers, so it started using the virtual tour as the main way for prospective students to check out the campus. “We started to say, ‘This seems more effective,’” said Jeff Hobbs, a spokesman for Orange Coast College. “We’re doing thousands of tours a month instead of just a few.”

With the vast majority of students physically visiting four or fewer schools in their search, according to Mandelbaum’s estimates, schools need online tours to stand out and attract more visitors and applicants. That means giving more than just a description of amenities.

“It is important for them to put themselves in prospective students’ shoes and offer this stuff in detail so they can feel more confident in applying to their university,” he said.

Smart way to start

Financially strapped schools are also trying to capitalise on the growing number of international and out-of-state applicants, who often pay higher tuition. “Partner schools are receiving higher numbers of out-of-state [and international] applications from people who weren’t actually able to visit,” Mandelbaum said.

College counsellors and families said virtual tours are no replacement for the real thing. Virtual tours do not let prospective students sit in on actual classes or approach current students to ask questions.

Experts said the tours can be a good first step in narrowing down choices. Katherine Cohen, chief executive of IvyWise and Applywise.com, which advise mostly applicants to Ivy League schools, said she has seen international students and others enroll in universities they have never set foot upon. Cohen said her company found about a year and a half ago that families were spending $3,500 (Dh12,775) on applying for college, between the costs of traveling to visit schools, application fees and SAT prep classes.

Those costs have recently increased, she said. “It might be wise to do the virtual tour, do the due diligence and decide where to apply,” she said. “I think it’s a smart way to start. We don’t want parents wasting their money and the students wasting their time.”

Still not the real thing

Another virtual visit company, CampusTours Inc., makes detailed electronic maps and videos so prospective students and parents can check out campuses from their web browsers and smartphones. The company has built tours for Pepperdine University, the University of Miami, Sweet Briar College and others.

Some of the multi-layered maps include details for those who want to know about places to hike or see historical features.

CampusTours President, Chris Carson said this is an improvement on the usual online school marketing materials. “There are still schools out there that treat the tour as a laundry list of their facilities,” said Carson. “Recently, schools are saying these are not giving a good impression of what the school is about.”

CampusTours’ videos, which include interviews with current students, have become much more useful to applicants looking for individualised perspectives on things like sports andsocial activities, said Carson. Universities use these materials to set themselves apart. “Instead of being all things to all people, here’s a way to deal with things that appeal to different populations. It allows people to self-select.” However, IvyWise’s Cohen said, virtual tours are not a replacement for the real thing. “It’s good for families because tours today are no longer just slide shows of images,” she said. “I believe nothing beats the sense of stepping on the college campus.”