Campus Tour: Couple Hits 500 College Visits

On their honeymoon in 1984, Steve and Caroline Lake did something that lots of tourists do in Boston — they stopped to visit some of the area's well-known colleges.

Steve Lake poses for a photo during his visit to Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Monday, Oct. 13, 2008. Our Lady of the Lake University marked Lake's 500th visit to a college campus. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

(AP)

Then the honeymoon ended. And the Lakes just kept on visiting colleges.

Twenty-four years later, on trips across the country and occasionally in other countries, the Lakes are still building their vacations around visits to college campuses. On Monday, Steve Lake checked the 500th four-year college off his list, at a ceremony at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. (Caroline hasn't seen quite so many; when they travel, she'll often sleep in while he hits two or three campuses, then join him later).

"It felt tremendous and a big relief, too," Lake said after meeting Our Lady of the Lake's president, Tessa Martinez Pollack at a ceremony. "It's something I've worked on for 24 years and have finally achieved."

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For prospective students and parents taking their rite-of-passage college tours in high school, campus visits can be stressful, with pressure to soak in everything you'll need to make a critical, life-changing decision. But on most campuses, you don't have to be a parent or prospective student to take the tour and enjoy the history and scenery. And while campus security has clamped down somewhat in recent years, most remain open and welcoming to visitors to simply walk around, at least outside the buildings.

For Steve Lake, a pit boss at Caesars Palace Casino in Las Vegas, part of the appeal is experiencing something he missed the first time around. His alma mater, now called Concordia University in Montreal, was crammed into a city office building and had no campus whatsoever. Visiting Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth and other New England schools on his honeymoon left him wide-eyed.

"I really missed out on the college experience," he said. His school "didn't have any of these walking paths, any greenery. I said, 'From now on when we travel, let's visit colleges in the vicinity.'"