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"Straight from State & Regionals" is an occasional column featuring unique news from state and regional ACRAOs. If you have an idea for an article, please email connect@aacrao.org.

A unique program in the commonwealth of Virginia gives high school students ample access to college reps – and admissions representatives the opportunity to meet with students across Virginia. The Virginia Tour, a state-wide series of day and night college fairs, takes place across the commonwealth over the course of eight weeks every fall. There’s also an abbreviated one-week version in the spring to fill in some of the gaps in the fall programming.

The program, in place since the early 1970s, relies on collaboration between local school districts and VACRAO volunteers. The school districts provide funding and venue, while VACRAO assists in scheduling, publicity, set-up and dissemination of program details to institutions. Events are held in schools or in public places such as malls, depending on the location and anticipated attendance, as well as the resources of the school district organizing the fair.

Benefits students & institutions

“It’s a win-win for road runners as well as students in the K-12 pipeline,” says Ashley Browning, Director of Admission at Hollins University in Roanoke, VA, and Vice President for Admissions and Enrollment with VACRAO. With a team of ten other VACRAO members, Browning helps organize and execute the tour.

“The program helps students have access to a variety of institutions—public, private, large, small, single sex, co-ed, in-state and out,” Browning said. “Students appreciate that there’s a critical mass of schools represented. It’s exciting for them to see all of these schools in one place.”

Each week, the tour covers a different geographical region of the commonwealth, and college reps can attend the entire program or pick and choose among the fairs. “Because recruiters can anticipate and rely on this tour, it’s very helpful in terms of planning,” she added. “They appreciate that VACRAO is responsible for the organization of the fairs, which helps to conserve the time and resources of our institutional members. And out-of-state institutions benefit because they can plan a trip to Virginia, spend up to eight weeks here and have an event almost every night.”

Bringing the Tour into the Digital Age

“One idea we’re working on is trying to facilitate the use of scanners,” Browning said. “Our big goal is to get more events on the tour accessible via scanners, so students can enter info on their phones in advance and recruiters can just scan them. Then, instead of waiting for students to fill out cards, they can better spend that time engaged in conversation.”

For more information about the Virginia Tour, .

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