How are we going to visit the colleges we want to attend? Are any colleges open for tours and visits? Is it even safe to see any colleges? All of these questions are running through the current seniors at West Boca High.    

    It’s that time of year again; the start of common applications, college essays, teacher recommendations, and of course college tours. The most crucial time of the year for seniors which mark the beginning of the next chapter of their lives. However, with the current pandemic, it has been a struggle to visit any colleges. This year is already hard enough as society had to relearn how to live their lives, and now seniors have to worry about the entire stressful college application process. Being a current senior myself, it is extremely difficult to figure out which colleges I want to apply to, getting recommendations from teachers, figuring out how to visit the colleges I want to see, and whatnot. Not to mention we have to stress about college along with grades, classes, and other personal issues we may have going on. Thus, just to help out some of my fellow seniors and help make the process a little easier, I have come with some suggestions on how to visit colleges from the safety and comforts of your own home. 

     My first suggestion would be to check out some of the Florida colleges that have set up virtual tours. FloridaShines has included which colleges have set up tours where visitors can tour virtually and feel like they’re walking on campus. Some of the colleges they included are Florida State University, University of Florida, College of Central Florida, and more. You can just click on the college you want to see, and it’ll bring you to the college website where you can leave your name and email address to have access to the virtual tour. YouVisit is another site where you can visit any college, not just Florida schools, that give you the option of looking up any school you want to see and tour it virtually. You can take a 360 tour of the entire college, see information on the college, and you can even have a digital tour guide that goes along with you and walks you through what the college offers. You can do all of this while laying on your couch, which sounds much better to me than driving a couple of hours to visit a college. If you’d like to see only Florida Schools on YouVisit, click this link: YouVisit Florida Colleges  

   If you don’t see any colleges that you like on some of the websites I suggested to check out, or if you want a synchronized and interactive tour of the college, then not to worry because my next suggestion would be to visit the college website you want to see and sign up for one of their live virtual tours. Miami University has just stated that you can take a live virtual tour and visit their virtual open house where you can meet the staff and faculty on November 6th and 7th during 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Some other colleges in Florida that are offering a similar experience where you can register for a live and interactive tour are University of Florida (visit here) Florida Atlantic University (visit here), University of Central Florida (visit here), University of Miami (visit), Florida State University (visit here), University of Tampa (visit here), Florida International University (visit here), University of North Florida (visit here), and University of South Florida (visit here). 

     While Covid-19 has made it a challenge to physically visit the college of your dreams, you still have a chance to visit the school virtually. Of course it is not the same as experiencing it in person and face to face, but you can still visit the college and have a sense of the school without driving for hours back and forth.