Virtual University Visits

College visits get expensive awfully quickly. There are certainly ways to trim college tour costs - college hotel discount, anyone? - but the best way to trim tour expenses, of course, is to reduce the number of schools you visit. And the easiest way to do that is by encouraging your teen to take a good look at the web sites, photo galleries and college-produced virtual tours of universities that interest them. Then go take a peek at the irreverent campus videos on YOUniversity TV (pictured), an independent site that offers a lighter view of college life. There are 400 college videos posted so far - and wow, my alma mater looks fabulous. But these video valentines need to be taken with a grain of salt. The video for UC Berkeley, for example, quotes GPA figures which, while not technically incorrect, are misleading. While the vast majority of incoming freshmen indeed "have GPAs of 3.75 or more," it would have been a kindness to tell eager prospective freshmen that their 3.75 won't cut it unless they're star athletes or bassoonists too. Two-thirds of Berkeley's rejected students in 2007 had 4.0s or higher. The average incoming freshman had a 4.15. Also, they don't seem to have filmed in any of the massive lecture halls that figure so prominently in freshman schedules.

So, view campus videos as an affectionate peek that can help your teen winnow his list and save you some traveling, but you'll still want to tour the top contenders and ask the hard questions, all 17 of them.