Other schools are taking similar approaches. Texas Christian University has asked students to put together videos about life on the Fort Worth campus. And at Tulane, students are sending in videos describing what they love and miss about the university.

Some Colleges Were Already Online

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The spring scramble that took college classes off campus and into Zoom was less chaotic for some schools than others. At more than 800 American colleges, a majority of undergraduates were already taking some or all of their classes online, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). That includes major public universities like the University of Central Florida — where almost 60 percent of the nearly 60,000 undergraduates are enrolled at least partly in online courses — and community colleges such as Indiana’s Ivy Tech.

About half of Ivy Tech’s nearly 70,000 students typically take online courses. When the college went completely online after spring break, about 80 percent of students and instructors in face-to-face classes transitioned to an existing online class or began using online content developed by systemwide curriculum groups, said the provost, Kara Monroe. Faculty members who did not convert their courses were given training in how to continue their classes through Zoom and Canvas.

“Obviously we do have an incredibly strong foundation,” Dr. Monroe said. “All of those tools are already in our toolbox.”

Concern that schools’ fall semesters could start remotely has some prospective students looking into online access. In a survey of 573 high school seniors by the market research firm SimpsonScarborough, 47 percent of undecided students said the coronavirus pandemic might cause them to rethink their top choice of school. The top two ways these seniors said they would make their decisions were to observe colleges’ online classes and make virtual campus visits.