‘Crisis prompts creativity’ as Ohio campus adapt visits
BEXLEY — Autumn Westbrook didn’t have much time to practice walking backward last year.
The Capital University sophomore had just landed a job as a campus tour guide at the beginning of the year when COVID-19 shuttered colleges statewide in March 2020, pushing everything online — including college visits for prospective students.
Now, a year later, the 19-yearold from Mentor is back on the job guiding high schoolers and their families across Capital’s campus in Bexley, sharing insights and her love for her university along the way.
On a recent warm March afternoon, Westbrook led Kess Cline, 16, and her parents, James and Kathy, on a tour through the private university’s campus. Kess, a junior at Teays Valley High School in Pickaway County, is interested in studying music education.
They strolled through the campus’ tree-lined sidewalks, talking about meal plans, popping into the library and passing by students practicing instruments on the lawn.
In many ways, it felt like a typical campus visit. But some aspects of these tours look a little different these days.
At the beginning of the tour, Westbrook played a video featuring the freshman residence halls for the Clines, since they can’t physically enter the buildings right now. What normally would’ve been a large group walking tour was a more personalized visit just for the Clines. Everyone wore masks and walked roughly 6 feet apart.
These are just some of the ways in which Capital and other Ohio colleges and universities are adapting campus visits to a new season of the pandemic as they try to keep current students healthy while still opening their schools to potential future classmates.
Emily Ragland, Capital University’s director of admissions, said the announcement last spring to close campuses challenged her team with a new mission: To create an online experience for prospective students that gives them a true feel of their campus.
Capital had long offered some virtual options for international and out-of-state students who couldn’t easily visit campus, but they weren’t used by most prospective students. Within a few days of working from home, the admissions team introduced CapTour: a virtual, self-guided campus tour. You can take the tour in the suggested order or bounce around to locations that interest you most.
Ragland said Capital also is offering virtual appointments with counselors to answer questions for students during the application process.
Students can either “walk” through the virtual tour themselves or sign up for a virtual visit with a guide. These virtual visits are where prospective students can meet oneon-one with a current student. Students also can schedule in-person visits now with safety guidelines in place.
Ragland said that the transition from in-person to online visits was certainly different, but finding a way to make that experience meaningful for students and families was crucial during such an uncertain time.
“With the campus visit experience, we know that’s one of the most important things in a student making a college decision,” she said. “Admissions is a competition, so we really had to be confident and flexible with our experience.”
At Ohio State University, in-person visits still are on hold until officials feel it’s safe to fully reopen campus, but Beth Wiser, OSU executive director of undergraduate admissions, said her team has tried to tailor virtual visits to what each student needs.
When campuses closed last spring, Wiser said it came at a time when many students had previously visited or had been admitted. Ohio State also had some virtual tour experiences in place for students, but the pandemic pushed them to enhance those virtual options for all prospective students.
At Ohio University, Candace Boeninger, vice president of enrollment management, said their team also reinvented how it’s doing in-person tours. Starting this month, it will offer what it calls the “Ohio Pawprint Tour.”
She said families will navigate a guided tour by themselves and stop at stations manned by student ambassadors.