Planning for college can be fun and stressful at the same time.  It’s never too late to start planning and in fact, I recommend you start planning on looking at colleges once you hit high school.  You don’t need to know what you’re going to major in, instead try and learn what each college offers, what it costs, and everything else under the sun.  If you start in 9th grade, you’ll be able to attend a few each year until you become a high school senior.

Find the top colleges – Before you even go to the college fair, make sure you do some research ahead of time to find colleges that interest you.  Make sure that you visit all of these booths before you visit any others.  This way, if you spend too much time at one, you won’t feel bad you missed out on some others when the fair shuts down for the night.

Bring supplies – The best thing to do when attending the fair is to make sure that you have a little notebook and pen to jot things down on.  In this notebook, you can write down notes for future reference.  Write down things that you liked and disliked about the school, etc.

Know what to ask- instead of walking up to a booth and not knowing what to say, write down some pre-planned questions so that you can get your answers and not waste the college representatives time.  Some of the questions you might want to ask include –

• Ask about the acadmeic programs relating to your major.
• What does a schedule usually look like.
• What’s the average employment rate?
• What’s the neighborhood like?

Ask as many questions as possible.  The representatives are there for a reason.  The more you get out of them, the more you’re going to know for the future.

Bring an info card – A college fair is no different than a career fair.  Many colleges are strict on who they will bring in for their academic program.  A great way to impress colleges are to bring simple business cards and/or resumes.  On that business card, include all of your contact information like your name, address, phone, e-mail, etc.

When you leave the college fair, make sure you organize all of the information you received there and don’t forget to follow up with the schools.  Every school will have some sort of contact information.  If you want more questions answered or you want to take a tour, simply call and they can help.