Prospective Dartmouth students can get a taste of what it's like to attend the College through the new online tour -- they can see what the campus is like and get the experience of spending precious hours of the day on the Internet.
As if students needed any more excuses to spend time staring at their computer monitors, the Admissions Office offers a new on-line toy: a virtual tour of campus, also known as "D-Tour."
The site, created by Brian S. Hughes '99 and Matthew Slater '00, provides a simple and quick view of the main campus, but does not mirror the informational tour which prospective students take.
Hughes said he started it so "people all around the country and world could have some impression of Dartmouth."
D-Tour, which has been operational since last week, is not just an online view book. The site is made by students and is supposed to appeal to students with writing that is often humorous.
For example, its description of Hanover reads, "You won't find Macy's here in Hanover, but you will find The Gap. In fact, you'll only find The Gap, which is why all Dartmouth students dress alike by sophomore year."
There are three parts to the site: a simplified map of the campus, D-Tour Nodes and photographs of important buildings.
At the nodes, users can zoom in or out and move their frame of view anywhere within a 360-degree panoramic.
The nodes include views of the Collis Center, the Hopkins Center, Dartmouth Row, the administrative buildings on North Main Street and the Rockefeller Center on Tuck Mall.
Hughes, the photographer for the project, said he managed to avoid any signs of the extensive campus construction in his pictures by using only certain angles.
Currently, many schools have a virtual site linked to their homepages, including Princeton University, whose tour Hughes said is "pretty bad."
Hughes and Slater approached the Admissions office with the idea earlier this year and received a commission. They began work on the project in September.
The address of the webpage is www.dartmouth.edu/admin/admissions/D-tour/.
