You would think that the Internet, that globe-spanning phenomenon, would render as an out-of-date relic that time-honored tradition, the college fair, where dozens of schools of every kind and thousands of high schoolers of even wider variety meet, greet, shake hands and exchange information.

After all, isn’t a live, 360-degree virtual tour of every campus under the sun just a mouse click away, along with every needed form, course catalog, contact, etc.?

You might think so. But you would be wrong, judging by the greater-than-expected success of Tuesday’s first (and apparently far from last) Central Oregon College Fair, which attracted almost 90 colleges, universities and institutes, and more than 3,000 students from up to a 4-hour school bus ride away to the Deschutes County Fairgrounds (think Burns, Crane Prairie and Ione/Heppner).

Organizers, who had been hoping for 2,000 or so young attendees, learned that some of the participating schools (the alphabetical list ranged from Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage to Wings of the Cascades Spirit Flight School in Redmond) were running out of some of the materials to hand out less than halfway through the four-hour event.

As they left, Mountain View High seniors Thomas Geraghty, 18, and 17-year-olds Brandy Holmes and Robin Taylor called it F2F (face to face, in Net lingo) time well spent.

“Definitely,” Geraghty said. “I was most impressed by people who came up to me to talk,” rather than waiting for him to come to them.

“There were a lot of people, and they were really nice,” Holmes said.

There’s always lots to talk about and learn about at such events, a lot of them having to do with the costs and how to cover them. “Out-of-state tuition can really be evil,” said Holmes, whose list expanded Tuesday from the University of Washington and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to include Central Washington University and a school in North Carolina.

No sign of Stanford, but still a wide array to visit

There are so many colleges (and college fairs) out there that everyone isn’t always 100 percent satisfied by who shows up and who doesn’t. Geraghty said it seemed like “every other school was a Christian university – not that there’s anything wrong with that.” And while there were several East Coast schools, large and small, Geraghty noted that some prestigious West Coast spots, like Stanford, weren’t part of the inaugural event.

Dale Seipp, admissions director at George Fox College in Newberg, was among those happy with the “very well attended” college fair, encouraged by the “good number of students and good questions to ask. The students seemed well-prepared.”

And Seipp said that even with the advent of Net-based college shopping, “I think this has just as much value. I’m a firm believer in face-to-face contact.”

Some parents took time off from work or what have you to accompany their high schoolers, at least for a time. They included Jeff Rola and his son, Sam, 17, a senior at Redmond High, who plans to major in engineering and said he “got a lot of info” from the participating schools.

Co-organizer Jennifer Britz, a consultant to colleges around the country, said the event “exceeded our wildest expectations.” The hope is to make it an annual event, and Britz said a grant from the Pacific Northwest Association for College Admission Counseling helped make sure no school had to pay for its part in the event. While the main target was high school juniors and seniors (and their parents), some sophomores also took part.

Tiffiney Kindred, 18, a senior at Bend’s Marshall High, was disappointed that her hometown school, Tacoma Community College, wasn’t on hand. She expects to major in nursing and attend college “somewhere in Washington,” but also found herself looking at Oregon colleges, as well as some in Idaho. As for the money to pay for it, she expects to work and hunt for scholarships.

Alumni help pitch their schools

Not everyone who staffed the college booths, arranged alphabetically in long rows, came direct from the college campus. Take Marianne Pyatt of Bend, who worked the booth for Arizona’s Prescott College, where she graduated a decade ago.

“We definitely made people aware of Prescott,” said Pyatt, who now works for Outward Bound and described the college as an alternative education experience, self-directed with hands-on learning.

The big Oregon schools were on hand, of course. Oregon State University’s assistant admissions director, Blake Vawter, said, “This is a great fair,” and he should know, as the school hits 15 to 20 such events each year.

“Higher ed and admissions have become more competitive, because there are so many choices” for students to pick from, Vawter said.

As the event wound down Tuesday afternoon and crowds thinned a bit, Aaron Rice, 17, a senior at Mountain View High in Bend, approached Vawter to ask about the facilities on campus. No, not how nice the dorms were – but how wired.

The OSU representative assured that there are high-speed, T-1 phone lines to the dorm rooms – and on-campus wireless connectivity as well. (Of course.)

“I’m pretty focused on what I want,” said Rice, who will major in computer science and math. His short list of schools to consider: OSU, Southern Oregon University and Cal Poly.

For big schools, admissions effort far-reaching

Ana Panganiban is an assistant director of admissions for Pennsylvania’s Villanova University – but she’s not based back East. Instead, the Villanova alum works out of Seattle, a sort of “field office” becoming more common in the world of big-school admissions. “We’ve had a Western representative for 11 years,” she said.

And why come to little ol’ Redmond, Oregon? “Last year, we had some really quality Bend residents apply,” Panganiban said. As for the first High Desert college fair, she said, “It’s been absolutely fabulous. We ran out of materials in 1 ½ hours.”

Does the Internet and other communications advances boost the odds that a high schooler would choose a far-away school, with less risk of homesickness? That’s not what it’s about, even in today’s high-tech world, the Villanova rep said; instead, it’s more about having “somebody from your town” already going to the school, for less loneliness and possibly to travel home with as well.

Melissa Lathen, an admissions counselor at Pacific University, a private school in Forest Grove (west of Portland), said the pace was “a little slow” as the day began, but by the end, the day had gone “really great.”

The other event co-organizer, college consultant (and Bend-La Pine School Board member) Carolyn Platt, seemed weary but happy as the fair ended, saying it went “unbelievably well.”

“The admissions reps are ecstatic – they didn’t realize the quality of applicants” they would find here, Platt said.

For many of the college reps, it was a fast box lunch before boarding the bus (or cars) for a caravan to the next stop on the college fair circuit, in Medford. (Pendleton was having one the same day as Central Oregon’s, Platt said.)

As Mark Battorff, assistant director of admissions at the University of Redlands in Southern California, was rolling his small suitcase to the fairgrounds parking lot, he said the Internet can play a key follow-up role: “This is the introduction to the Website,” he said. “They get their first look at the brochures, which is important. We can spend some good times with the student, and the parents, too, which is real important.”

Indeed, because with all those grants and scholarships and work-study programs, parents still play a key role in getting most young people to the college of their choice.

After all, everyone wants the most bang for the buck – and with the big bucks that college costs these days, the big bang of dozens of college reps in one place is hard to resist.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 8th, 2002 at 5:48 pm and is filed under Top Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.