“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X

On April 10th and 11th, The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) college fair took place at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds.

The fair, which brought hundreds of colleges and universities out, provided students an opportunity to see what their future might look like and where it might begin.  According to the NACAC fair’s website, these “National College Fairs allow students to interact one-on-one with college admission representatives from a wide range of postsecondary institutions.”

Stepping onto the fairgrounds, attendees found that people were fairly helpful. Students received a bag and a set of directions in order to make the college fair more successful. Before attending the event, students were encouraged to sign up online and print out a barcode that could be used at each college booth .There, representatives from schools could simply scan the paper and the student’s information would be entered into a database.That would put them on a mailing list to  receive information via email instead of having to spend time filling out a form.

The schools were not set up in any particular type of organized manner, but the locator guide did provide some guidance.  One challenge on that day was that students needed to walk quite a bit to get to the schools they wished to visit.

This did cause a bit of trouble for some students including a junior from Albert Einstien High School, who mentioned, “I really didn’t find colleges I wanted to find.”

This flaw, however, didn’t mean that the college fair wasn’t a success. If a student did manage to find the space for the colleges and universities they were interested in, plenty of information was available, and the scan option for information meant they would not have to spend so much time with one school. Another positive of the need to wander and find schools is that students came across schools that they never really had thought about.

A student from Northwood High School mentioned that he felt that the sheer number of colleges was positive. He noted, “there’s a lot of colleges that come from all around, and that offer many programs and majors.”

NACAC offered information from schools from all over the world, in addition to schools in the U.S, as  Universities from Italy, Spain, and England all attended as well. Another positive was that there were universities that offered a wide array of majors including fashion design, technology, institutions, culinary arts, and criminal justice.

The variety definitely made the college fair successful. The schools also did a good job at describing what kind of opportunities they offered, and treated their representaives with respect. Another student from Albert Einstein High School said, “It was successful.They interacted with us and it was nice.”

Although the college fair had a few minor flaws, may students enjoyed this two-day opportunity to interact with potential future schools.