Editorial note: An institution’s purpose for attending a college
fair is to attract high school students to their campuses. Black Issues
thought it would be interesting to hear from a student who attended.
The following is his report.
WASHINGTON – I am a high school junior now, so I guess its time to
get serious about my immediate future – namely college. Where do I want
to spend the first four years of my young adult life? Of course I want
to go to a college that fulfills my academic and social needs, but
there are so many of them out there.
The Washington, D.C., National College Fair, which was sponsored by
the National Association for College Admission Counseling, offered what
I thought would be the perfect place to begin my search for my perfect
school. According to the association approximately 5,000 other students
visited with representatives from 165 schools during the two-day fair
earlier this month.
My present thoughts about a future career involve engineering.
Before I went to the fair. I did some research and discovered that the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the California Institute
of Technology, and Stanford are considered three of the top engineering
schools in the country. While I was hoping to get some additional
information from these schools – which did not attend the fair, much to
my disappointment – I was still eager to question some of the other
engineering schools.
I arrived at the fair with my dad and we were greeted with a bag
full of helpful information, including a book of college facts and a
pamphlet of college shopping tips. An announcement that a financial aid
workshop was about to begin caught our ear. My dad, being the thrifty
man that he is, suggested that we attend.
For us, this turned out to be a waste of time. After watching my
parents deal with the financial-aid process with my older sister for
four years, I already knew what the seminar leader was telling us about
keeping grades up, filing applications on time, who is responsible for
paying for my education, the types of financial aid available, and
things like that.
After the workshop, I made my way. to the Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute table. There, a friendly person with concise answers gave me
a lot of information on RPI’s research programs, equipment, and
facilities – and even told me about students who were published in
academic journals before they graduated college.
