Students Explore Prospective Colleges at Fairs and Sessions

This past week, the College Counseling Office hosted over 50 colleges at a college fair and a score of evening information sessions, with many more to come as uppers and seniors prepare for the upcoming college application process. Although most seniors have already decided where they would like to apply, uppers who are looking to get ahead in the game have swarmed to the two events, and a fair number of them have attended the evening sessions, held by a score of colleges.

While the fairs are predominantly established for students to receive more information about the colleges in which they are interested, the College Counseling Office on campus hopes that these fairs and information sessions will also open students’ eyes to the many lesser-known institutions that offer impeccable educations.

“We want students to be smart consumers by understanding what resources will provide the best and most accurate information about an institution.”

“The list has grown considerably,” Director of College Counseling Betsy Dolan noted. “More colleges are offering tremendous undergraduate educations. Programs have been enhanced and the co-curricular opportunities at some institutions are just terrific.”

“It’s not about name brands anymore,” Dolan added. “It’s about educational opportunities that have both short and long term benefits for the student and can meet the ever-changing demands of our world.”

However, Dolan acknowledged that the most-frequently visited booths are still those of Ivy Leagues and other top liberal arts colleges.

Upper Greg Miller complimented the wide selection of colleges represented. “The college fair really put some schools I hadn’t thought about on the map. I plan on applying to Penn State now; before, I didn’t even know Penn had a ‘State’ to apply to.”

Many students visited the Marine Corps booth, where one could enlist. “Schools from pretty much everywhere were there,” upper CJ Penn said.

For colleges, the fairs are a great way to attract a diverse group of prospective students. Typically, a university would purchase names from testing agencies such as the College Board or the ACT and run reports to see where concentrations of high-achieving students are located. Those are the locations that admissions teams wish to target when touring the country. Additionally, many colleges run geodemographic searches on high-achieving low-income students and make efforts to recruit students who otherwise wouldn’t have an opportunity to visit or hear about the school. Richard Nesbitt, Director of Admissions at Williams College, explained that the goal of these searches “is to balance our travel so we’re also visiting schools with a high concentration of low-income [students] who are promising college candidates.” Nesbitt has toured the country on behalf of admissions for 31 years.

On the part of Exeter, specific colleges aren’t “chosen” to attend a college fair. Instead, the College Counselling Office invites all the colleges on students’ prospective lists. Booths will be given to the colleges who sign up first, as space is limited in the fall. Evening information sessions, however, are typically given out to colleges who had a high number of applications the previous year, or have given sessions in the past. Unsurprisingly, these are often held by Ivy League and related universities. “I do appreciate the interest Exeter brings to campus, even though I wasn’t too excited about the colleges that came out for this fair,” upper Aum Bhuva said.

As many campuses throughout America usually have a handful of Exonians attending, Exeter remains a popular destination for top-tier colleges. “If you’re looking for a concentration of high-achieving students and not just from one area, but from a wide geographical range and socioeconomic background, it makes sense [for us] to look here,” Nesbitt said.

Dolan said it is important to keep in mind that decisions on where a student wants to go should not be made solely by visiting these fairs, or attending evening sessions.

“We want students to be smart consumers by understanding what resources will provide the best and most accurate information about an institution,” Dolan said.