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The Tell-All Campus Tour
theodp writes "Want to check out colleges without the bother of having to read about them? Well, my YouTube-loving friend, the NY Times reports that old-school elephantine dead-tree college guidebooks may be a thing of the past thanks to startup unigo.com, which has launched a free, gigantic, student-generated web-based guide to North American colleges that's laden with photos, Flip-shot videos and reviews (OK, you may have to do some reading)."
I can't imagine schools would be too happy with this. Allowing J. Random Student to publish, in a semi-official venue, information which is intended to represent a public face of the school is not likely to do much for their image any more than having the most (or least) number of girls going wild and lifting up their school t-shirts on spring break porn videos.
Hell, non-tenured faculty are usually limited in what they can say and do because it will reflect on the institution, whether its positive or negative.
Although, I would imagine that were I still in high school, rather than two and a half years out of college, seeing things from the viewpoint of normal students would give me a much better grasp on campus life than the promotional propaganda filled with happy looking, so-called students, who are hired models pretending the part.
Knowing if you're going to fit into the community of students is as important as knowing the reputations of the faculty in your department, their research interests, etc -- the professors are your mentors and guides, but your peers are the ones you're going to hangout/date/drink with and are the relationships that, going forward, are going to help you establish yourself.
I think this is a good idea, but I'm not sure how long it'll last.
I'm a working professional with an undergrad. I'm looking to do a Master's part-time. There's several universities (I'm Canadian) that offer on-line Master's courses. You do all the work/reading yourself (which is what it always was about anyways) and get your degree. There's reputable universities offering this, but I'm not sure as to how well implemented the programs are. It would be nice if the Tell-All would work to include or expand upon the non-campus tours.