A bigger picture

Sure, your campus tour assured Mom and Dad the college you’ve chosen is safe, academically sound and a good value for the money, but did it offer you the best place to get pizza or reveal the location of the closest dry cleaner?

Chances are it didn’t, according to the founder and chief executive officer of a Web site launched in August to give high school juniors and seniors a better representation of the school they’re thinking of attending.

CollegeClickTV.com not only allows students to compare data on up to four colleges side by side, but it also provides video interviews with students, local merchants, faculty and staff members from more than 200 colleges and universities on a host of subjects.

“It has the grandest of thoughts and the smallest of thoughts,” said founder/CEO Glenn Pere. “We feel this Web site has opened the eyes of lots of students, parents and guidance counselors to get the full culture of their school choice.”

Area schools such as the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Tennessee Temple University, Lee University and Bryan College are not among the schools with video profiles, but they are among the 2,200 that may be compared side by side.

However, the University of Tennessee, Vanderbilt University and the University of Georgia do have video profiles.

Brenda Rayburn, director of college guidance admission at Silverdale Baptist Academy, said she was unfamiliar with CollegeClickTV.com but that it could be helpful once students have narrowed their choice of schools and scholarship searches. Some sites offering extensive information on a variety of schools are costly, she said.

“I can see where this tool would be useful,” she said.

In addition to giving students an unbiased look at the school they may attend, CollegeClickTV.com may help parents save money by helping substitute for college tours, Mr. Pere said.

A family campus tour of six or seven schools could run up to $10,000, he said, quoting a recent article in The New York Times.

Susan McCarter, director of college guidance at Girls Preparatory School, said she “could see some benefit” in CollegeClickTV.com but felt people should “be a good consumer” and consider the Web site’s merit as they would any other resource.

They should consider how valid the information is, determine where it came from and understand that one student or teacher’s answer to a question may not be the same as another’s, she said.