Face your college

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Every year, Jesuit High School juniors and seniors search for the perfect college. Alumni advice, online research, and campus visits all flood students with information, and students have to swim through an array of details to pick which school is best for them.

To bring that information directly to the students, Jesuit, St. Francis High School, and Christian Brothers High School rotate hosting college fairs for the students of all three schools. These fairs include the University of California fair, the parochial fair, and the general college fair.

“Typically for college counseling, college fairs provide access for students [to learn] more about the schools,” said Director of Counseling Ms.Smith.

Since there is both a large number of students coming from all three schools and a large number of colleges to consider, college fairs provide an invaluable opportunity for students to meet many different colleges at the same time.

“The benefits for college fairs are that they reach out to as many people as possible in one sitting, so we are able to answer questions and give information to folks that we may not be able to visit individually,” said one of the University of California admission officers.

Most importantly, college fairs provide the face-to-face information exchange that’s needed between colleges and applicants.

“I don’t think [college fairs] are the end-all [and] be-all for choosing what school, but I think they’re [offer] helpful info on deciding one school versus another,” said Diego Lee ’19.

Besides juniors and seniors, interested parents also benefit from college fairs, giving them an opportunity to ask their own personal questions that their children might not ask.

“I think we want to ask more direct questions,” said the mother of Jack Marchant ’19. “When I feel like I have a person-to-person relationship, I can ask some questions about scholarships or other things they might know of.”

For juniors that have missed this opportunity to talk to colleges, worry not. There will be the opportunity to attend one college fair, or all three, next year, so don’t miss the opportunity to prepare yourself.