PDF文件下载
评论
打印
【Touring Colleges, Without Ever Leaving Home】
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
这里是美国之音慢速英语教育报道。
Students who want an easy way to get information about a large number of colleges in the United States can visit a website like CampusTours.com. It brings together virtual campus tours and interactive maps of more than twelve hundred colleges and universities. The site plans to add an international database for schools in other countries.
希望有一个简单的方法得到大量美国院校信息的学生，可以访问CampusTours.com这类的网站。它汇集了超过1200所学院的虚拟校园参观和互动式地图，该网站还计划添加一个其它国家学校的国际数据库。
CampusTours recently celebrated its fifteenth anniversary. The president of the company, Chris Carson, was one of the people who started the site. He says more than one hundred twenty thousand foreign students use the site each year. They make up more than fifteen percent of the traffic on the site.
最近CampusTours庆祝其成立15周年。该公司总裁Chris Carson是网站创始人之一。他说，每年有超过12万外国学生使用该网站，占到该网站流量的15%以上。
The virtual tours allow students to get a sense of how a college looks. There are also links to official websites and online applications. And there are details like price, number of students, admission requirements and sports programs.
虚拟之旅让学生们了解一所大学看上去怎么样，它会链接到学校官方网站和在线申请页面，还有像学费、学生人数、入学要求和体育项目等细节。
But Chris Carson says students should never depend on a third-party website like CampusTours to choose a college. He advises parents and students to contact a school directly. If they plan to visit, they should call the school and talk about the visit and where to stay locally. In fact, he says contacting a school might even lead to a free visit.
但是Chris Carson说，学生们不应该依赖像CampusTours这样的第三方网站来选择一所大学。他建议家长和学生直接联系学校。如果他们打算参观，他们应该打电话到学校讨论参观，以及到当地在哪逗留。事实上，他说，联系学校甚至可能得到一次免费参观的机会。
CHRIS CARSON: "In some cases, if the student is a good enough student or is a special case, they will sometimes pay for travel to get the student to come to campus. That's a little known fact."
CHRIS CARSON：“在某些情况下，很多外国学生不知道的是，如果一个学生足够优秀，或者有特殊情况，学校有时会支付让学生来学校参观的费用。这是一个鲜为人知的事实。”
He says showing real interest in a school can increase the chances of being admitted.
他说，对一所学校表现出真正的兴趣可以增加被录取的机会。
CHRIS CARSON: "One thing in the United States is that they often use something called 'demonstrated interest' as a factor in your admission. They write this stuff in your file, believe it or not. If you've engaged them in conversation about the institution, they're actually more likely to offer you admission."
CHRIS CARSON：“在美国有一件事是，学校经常使用‘表现出兴趣’作为录取的一个因素。‘表现出兴趣’包括你联系该院校的次数。他们会在你的档案中写下这些，无论你相信与否。如果你确实参与他们，并引起他们讨论该院校的兴趣，他们实际上更可能为您提供入学机会。”
Chris Carson and several of his friends started CampusTours in nineteen ninety-seven. They noticed that many websites with campus tours were heavy with text and lacked much visual material.
Chris Carson和他的几个朋友于1997年创办了CampusTours。他们发现，很多和校园参观有关的网站只有大量文字，没有太多的视觉材料。
At first, colleges worried that online tours would compete with the tradition of a personal visit to the campus. But today schools work with sites like CampusTours or its competitors, or build their own virtual tours and maps.
起初，各大院校担心网上参观会和传统的校园个人参观相竞争。但是，如今各学校和CampusTours之类的网站或它们的竞争对手合作，或者建立自己的虚拟参观和地图。
