Virtual University Tours for International & Underrepresented Students

How can schools reach students who are coming from overseas or who might be the first in their family to attend college? Existing virtual college tours often focus on history and facilities, but fail to capture the personal experiences of students. Our student-led virtual campus tours enable prospective students to experience the campus in the shoes of current students. This "by students, for students" approach provides an authentic window into student life. Our tours use multimodal engagement to provide a rich, immersive experience in a VR headset or web browser. Users can listen to stories, visually traverse the campus, and tap on locations of interest to reveal additional information. High-resolution 3D models of the campus are created using Matterport’s LiDAR camera and geospatial AI. This talk shares lessons for creating virtual tours that speak to a diverse, global audience.