In the TV spotlight: Episode of “The College Tour” filmed on CWU campus

By Jack Belcher, Daily Record News | October 27, 2021

An episode of “The College Tour” is being filmed this week on the Central Washington University campus.

The show focuses on describing the college lifestyle to its viewers, giving them an idea of what the university, and the town around it is like.

Alex Boylan, winner of “The Amazing Race” in 2002, created and hosts the show. He created the show after a personal experience he had with his niece, who had trouble deciding, and not being able to visit all the colleges she wanted.

“The College Tour” has been on the air for just over a year, covered over 30 universities and is currently airing its third season. The CWU episode will be released in two to three months, according to Boylan.

The purpose of the show is to have real students describe what life is like at their university, giving viewers of the show a tour of what the college is like. Other than Boylan, the cast is made up of people who are actually involved with the university, whether they are students or faculty.

“It’s important that it’s real, if you take that away you are gonna lose your audience,” Boylan said. “The first draft of the script is literally written by the student. We kinda give them guidelines and get it formatted the way we want it, and then Central Washington might come in and tweak a few things.”

The show is supposed to help everybody involved in higher education, whether they are a high school student looking for their perfect college, as well as engage alumni and help out the university in general.

“It’s truly fun to know that we are helping tell the story of college campuses in a way that I don’t think has ever been done before,” Boylan said. “Students need to go to college.”

Ten students were chosen to participate in the episode focused on CWU, each with his/her own story. Teri Olin, senior marketing manager with CWU’s public relations department, said the university wanted the episode to talk about the research students get to do in their degree, even as a freshmen or sophomores.

“You don’t have to wait until you are actually in the program, you have that connection with your faculty way early in the game, which is why people are coming to Central,” Olin said.

The show is available for free through “ The College Tour” website, app and streaming channel. CWU will also get the episode around the same time and will use it on its website. The show also works with Amazon to distribute the episodes.

“We are always working to find new channels because the key to this is, it’s available everywhere for free,” Boylan said. “There is not one place where you have to pay to watch ‘The College Tour.’”