Treating the Campus Tour Like a Theme Park 'Experience'

The Washington Monthly's Eric Hoover explores the growing practice of designing college campus tours. How does an institution make itself stand out? Take a page out of Disney's book:

These days, almost every college has a new gym and cafeteria to show off, not to mention shady lawns and pretty trees. And so colleges are under pressure to find fresh ways to stand out.

Jeff Kallay is a pioneer in this new frontier of college recruitment. Campus tours, he preaches, should not only relay information, but also create a memory. What makes a company (or college) great, he believes, isn't just products or services: "It's all about the experience." To that end, he encourages colleges to tell stories that will distinguish them from competitors, to engineer an experience that will stick in consumers' minds. Call it the Gospel According to Mickey.

Read the full story at The Washington Monthly.