A prospective student clicks on a college website, imagining a cohesive daily experience. They picture walking from their residence hall to class, meeting friends for coffee, finding a study spot that fits their needs, and then ending the day with an evening event. Academic programs, costs, and admissions requirements are only one part of the big picture. So online visitors need more insight into all of the aspects of choices that will translate into daily life on campus. A digital experience that delivers clear answers will surpass factual checklists and statistics to answer a deeper question: “Can I picture myself here?”
The modern college experience begins long before a student steps foot on campus. So, many institutions are wondering how to improve college websites in a way that provides a comprehensive digital experience. They want to deliver what prospective students look for on a college website. Virtual exploration gives students the tools for self-paced tours in an accurate digital environment, helping them answer the big questions and see themselves as part of a future community.
What Does This Campus Actually Look and Feel Like?
Photographs highlight attractive aspects of a campus. But they lack the ability to answer logistical questions that build familiarity. Students search multiple sources, such as college websites, search results, AI platforms, social platforms, and forums, to piece together a fuller picture of each college campus. But they often achieve varied results. By offering tools on your college website to answer questions like “How large are the spaces?” and “What do residence halls, classrooms, dining areas look like?” you simplify the search with accessible information.
360-degree tours go beyond photographs to let students look around individual spaces and explore at their own pace. The best tours include everyday environments alongside signature buildings. So focus on the residence hall common rooms, labs, libraries, and outdoor gathering areas. Enhancing tours with student commentary explaining how people use each space incorporates a conversational aspect students often seek from forums. Such features helped the University of Portland meet its goals of making its campus more accessible through virtual tours. The tours guide visitors through meaningful locations, supported by commentary that describes space uses and reflects on the university’s mission and values.
Where Would I Hang Out, Study, and Relax?
Spaces that support community and a strong campus culture are essential to envisioning a daily campus routine. Alongside campus size and location, spaces that enhance student life are among the nonacademic factors students consider when researching schools. Wondering how to improve college websites to incorporate this information?
College website improvements with digital tools should highlight places that help students imagine a routine or create a sense of belonging. These might include coffee shops, student lounges, dining options, recreation spaces, and outdoor hangouts. Interactive map categories and linked tour stops make these places easy to discover. You can also distinguish between quiet study areas, group project spaces, and places to relax between classes. Enhancing logistical content with student-curated content, such as “My favorite study spot” or “Where we meet after class,” adds a personal aspect that engages students and creates connection.
Search data from your digital interactive map can also help you tailor information to popular student searches. For example, when map search data at Walsh University showed a strong interest in food, the team added more information to support informed decisions. The campus grill topped searches, prompting teams to update its location information with hours and dietary accommodations.
Where Is the Building for My Major in Proximity to Everything Else?
Connecting academic programs to physical spaces and navigation provides context to illustrate daily campus life. Use interactive digital tools to connect program pages to physical spaces like the engineering building, the nursing simulation lab, art studios, or performance venues. Students will use these connections to address practical questions such as:
- How far is my academic building from housing?
- Could I get from class to the dining hall during a break?
- Where is the library relative to my classes?
- Which entrances and routes meet my accessibility needs?
Interactive digital maps provide context to locational data by allowing users to search for specific locations. They can also plot routes from one building to another, learn distances between key locations, and even get walking-time estimates where available.
Pro tip: Use familiar search terms and clear building names on your digital map. This improves clarity for prospective students who are less likely to know campus abbreviations.
What Happens Here, and Where Would I Fit In?
Academic programs are an essential factor in the college decision. But community life is the secret to belonging and finding a sense of place. A digital events calendar provides prospective students a window into campus culture. It will highlight how club activities, performances, lectures, athletics, and traditions round out daily life.
Up to 32% of students cite lack of knowledge about extracurricular activities as a barrier to participation. Connecting students to an event calendar before enrollment helps reduce anxiety about campus fit during the search. An event calendar featuring searchable categories and useful event details (such as who can attend, date and time, venue, registration requirements, and directions) improves clarity. It will give prospective students practical insight into what their future schedule could hold.
Also, design your campus calendar and event listings to avoid confusion. Clearly distinguish public events and prospective student opportunities from activities limited to enrolled students. Integration with your campus map can enhance searchability even further by allowing you to connect event listings to mapped venues. Then, students can see where activities happen and how close they are to other campus destinations.
See These Ideas in Practice
The University of Portland’s public-facing events calendar is a great example of how college website improvements can connect event promotion with campus navigation. Bringing together Concept3D’s Interactive Maps, Virtual Tours, and Localist Events allowed the university to create a connected, accessible experience that aligned with its redesigned college website. Events automatically populate the university website, making it easy for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members to discover what’s happening across campus. Then they can attend the events they’re interested in.
Can I Explore the Campus in a Way That Makes Sense to Me?
Self-paced and self-guided exploration helps students connect with colleges in a way that feels more natural than guided tours. Organizing exploration around interests, including academics, housing, student life, study spaces, and recreation, creates structured search parameters that can be adapted to individual search preferences. Up-to-date information and easily accessible digital tools also add clarity.
Create a digital exploration experience that makes sense while preserving personal preferences by making maps, tours, and calendars easy to find on relevant pages and easy to use on mobile devices. Enhance exploration features by creating clear location descriptions and ensuring photos, locations, and event details stay current.
With a fully connected digital ecosystem, students can find the things that matter to them. They can also virtually explore campus logistics and surroundings to imagine themselves in the physical space. For example, a student scrolling through activities on a campus event calendar may choose a relevant club event. Then they can open the venue on the map and explore the space through a 360-degree tour. After completing the tour, the student investigates further by checking the route to the location from a residence hall. The connected journey gives the student a sense of familiarity (despite never having visited campus) to begin imagining a daily routine.
University of Portland’s updated virtual tours and events calendar are examples of the working parts of the institution’s complete redesign of its public website. With a goal of creating a cohesive digital experience that reflected its brand, strengthened connections with students, and made it easier for users to engage with campus, they turned to Concept3D to enhance their interactive maps and tours with a public-facing events platform to connect every digital touchpoint.
By bringing together Concept3D Interactive Maps, Virtual Tours, and Localist Events, the university created a connected, accessible experience. Audiences could more easily discover, explore, and engage with campus. Read the case study to learn more about University of Portland’s successful digital redesign.
Help Students Imagine a Day Here Before They Plan a Visit
The prospective student who clicks on your website is interested in learning about the academic programs your institution offers. They’re also seeking answers to more in-depth questions that help them decide which school will be their community. Students want to feel comfortable with the idea of a complete routine, including where they’ll learn, study, socialize, and participate. Connected digital tools complement one another to create a virtual experience that paints a realistic picture of a day on campus. Concept3D’s full suite of digital tools works together to answer the real questions about campus logistics, from locations to navigation and what actually happens on campus. Virtual tours show the spaces, and interactive maps explain their location and proximity. An events calendar then reveals what happens there.
Unsure about whether your campus website has what prospective students look for on a college website before they visit campus? Ask a student unfamiliar with campus to find an academic building, a study spot, a hangout space, and an upcoming event on your college website. Use the gaps they encounter to guide college website improvements. Want to learn more about how to improve college websites with integrated digital tools? Explore how connected maps, 360-degree tours, and event calendars can help prospective students get to know your campus before their first visit.