Curry College, in Milton, Massachusetts, has been awarded the CampusTours July 2009 Four Star Tour Award for their creative video virtual tour.

The Curry College virtual tour offers guided video tours, an interactive campus map and videos relating to the surrounding communities. The guided tours use video interviews with students and faculty to give visitors a sense of the Curry campus experience. The interactive map features one-click access to every location, plus photos and information on every building and alphabetical and categorical lists of buildings.

Video has rapidly become the new standard for virtual college tours, supplanting older methods such as narrated slideshows, panoramic images and avatars. Today colleges like Curry deliver clear and concise messages to prospective students that articulate the unique strengths and advantages of the institution through stories told by current students, alumni and faculty. None of this should be particularly surprising; exploring campus landmarks isn't the goal of most people's actual campus visits either - most people visit campus to interview and get a sense for the character of the campus community. As one of our student reviewers put it, "I want to see videos - not pictures - on a college's virtual tour."

The CampusTours Awards Committee found the Curry College virtual tour to be a creative and compelling presentation, worthy of the CampusTours Four-Star Virtual Tour Award!