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Are you looking forward to college in a far-off state, but unable to find the time or money visit? Older teens will benefit from this useful series of tapes.

Are you or your child going off to college soon? Touring every potential future home can take lots of time and money. Here's a great idea on how to get the spiel for many different campuses in the comfort of your own home.

The Collegiate Choice Walking Tours videos offer a candid and objective look into most of the colleges in the nation, without the bias inherent to a school's own promotional material. Collegiate Choice is upfront about the amateurish quality of these DVD videos (which last between one and two hours), and are shot by college counselors, not filmmakers.

Aside from the obvious purpose of previewing a school before a visit, and possibly avoiding the expense, these videos are useful for those who can't make the trip, or as a reminder of what a college is all about, and can be a good review when schools start to blur together later in the application process.

Although they seem expensive at $15 per video plus shipping, and it's often hard to hear what's going on since they are so unprofessionally recorded, they offer a service found nowhere else. Making campus visits on TV could prove valuable in your child's search for the best college. See the list of hundreds of US school tours available (and internationally, schools in Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Morocco, Poland, Russia, Scotland and Spain!) and order them at their website.