A little bit about us, our product, and our values.

1. Intro

Tourable was founded in 2022 by undergraduates at Cornell University. Tourable was founded as a way to bridge prospective college applicants and enterprising college students. Drawing from the success of other peer-to-peer programs that disrupted traditional industries, Tourable was founded as a reaction to the college consulting industry. Advances in college equity and access have so far been aimed at providing testing resources, financial aid resources, and mentoring resources.

We believe Tourable contributes to college attainment by providing a cheap and personalized online alternative to physical college tours, which are complicated to plan and logistically expensive. We also think that current college tours are too restricted and censored for applicants to have an honest look at different universities. We believe that students should be the ones deciding who does the touring and we match the perfect college tour guides with students. By doing so, we hope we can give all college applicants a fair look at all universities, anywhere, and college students skill-based jobs that reward their acumen and time management.

2. A Better Alternative than Current Online Tours

When the founders of Tourable were applying to college, the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing. Universities still had recruitment season, and many of them scrambled to create virtual offerings of tours. The result was a myriad of grainy zoom locations around campuses mixed with panels with current student tour guides of all different majors. While universities gave their all to adapt, it was clear that the online alternative neither properly introduced the university feel nor did they fix the original problem of impersonal tour guides.

We identified 3 main problems with current virtual offerings:

Though they were free, they were essential copy-paste glorified replicas of Google Maps Streetview across campus
Though they could be accessed at any time, there was no real-time information, only pre-made descriptions of events/buildings around campus
Information was not unique. There were no real-time tour guides to answer all your questions and no deep dives into the specific majors and programs you were interested in.

Footage from 2009?! And where are the tour guides? (From Google Maps Streetview)

3. Better suited for your needs

Its a better deal for both students and college students:

To get the same experience as on a physical tour and all their questions answered, a student spends much less in logistical costs (traveling, etc.) and accurately explores qualitative measures according to their needs
College Students have a side gig that pays more than the typical campus job, has flexible hours, and has room for entrepreneurial improvement

The simple fact is, if you can tour all of your colleges, get all your questions answered, finalize your college list, and find unique topics for your "why college" essay all across several tours across three weekends, you would spend nothing in logistical costs. Touring physical colleges is cool, for the 4 hours that you spend, but not the days and hundreds of dollars spent planning, booking lodgings and food, and traveling.

These tours go beyond just being a college tour - think of it as being an immersive and flexible experience. Students can use it as "office hours" for writing their college essays and learning about schools to write "why college" essays. They could treat it like a consulting session about tackling the admissions process. They could also lay out their plans, application status, and intended major, and the tour guide could personally craft a route around campus that covers special programs, spaces, and unique features to adapt to students' needs.

Its a premium, personalized tour experience that is also cheaper and more available than current tours. Our tour guides' role is to serve your needs.