Improve Your College Search With CampusReel

By Madison White

Deciding where to go to college may arguably be one of the biggest decisions of your life, but it is also the most complicated. When looking at prospective colleges, you may be bombarded with a series of numbers from acceptance rates to graduation rates to tuition costs and student fees. While these numbers are important, and can be a huge factor in where you want to go, numbers and statistics aren’t everything.

You want to choose a place that is right for you. You want a place that feels new and exciting, but also comfortable enough for them to thrive in. If you love big, exciting events, you may want a place that hosts large gatherings and sporting events. Or maybe you want a college full of close-knit communities that thrive on shared interests. However, how do you go about finding out this information? It isn’t easy to figure it out just by looking at numbers. This is where CampusReel steps in.

When looking at different colleges, you may be lucky enough to visit some campuses, but even with these visits, it can be difficult to understand the atmosphere of the university. Campus visits are carefully orchestrated and present an image that the university wants students and parents to find appealing, which may not necessarily what it is actually like. You are also unlikely to really dive into the student activities, events, and group meetings that are happening since you’re only there for a brief time. Depending on your financial and geographical situation, you may not be able to visit campuses at all.

CampusReel allows students to see into the actual lives of college students at different universities. The website creates video content made by university students to allow people an insider look into their lives. This press release boasts that students can “check out gameday at the University of Florida, a camping trip at the University of Wyoming, or sit in on a lecture at UCLA.” These kinds of videos may be crucial information in understanding the actual atmosphere of universities you’re looking into. It may also help you discover and find interest in things you had never considered before.

All of CampusReel’s content is created by students so you don’t have to worry about higher-up executives twisting things to look better. The website, however, isn’t just a free-for-all uploading website like other platforms like YouTube or Vimeo. All of the content must be approved before it goes live on the site. With these constraints, the people from CampusReel say they “encourage any student to upload content that wants to convey important information about their school.” This way, you know you’re not watching wild or not-serious content about potential universities. You can also get a feel for the kind of people that go to that school.

This website may become a major factor in students’ decision-making when it comes down to college choice. It can offer important insight into student life that would otherwise be obscured by numbers and distance. It also gives students that can’t travel for tours a chance to better understand what the place and people are like. It sounds like CampusReel could become an invaluable tool in many upcoming choices.