Do you want to go to college? Then you should have gone to the college fair November fourth and fifth at the Convention Center downtown. Doubtlessly many people picked up the foldout from the Sunday paper several weeks ago and thought “Gee, I probably should do something about getting into college.”

The big hall had about 375 small booths in which enthusiastic college reps would aggressively attempt to convince you why their college is better than others. At first, I decided to wander around with my mom and “scope it out,” which was not really a good idea because the aisles between the booths were completely stuffed with determined parents and their well-groomed but confused children.

I wandered around for fifteen minutes with my mom until she started getting claustrophobic and had to sit down at a café or something. I did overhear some random snippets of college-related conversation, though.

One guy was talking to his son about a college: “It’s on that island down there. One earthquake and you’re f — — gone!” And some girl in front of me was explaining to her companion why she didn’t like a particular college: “…because in California, I’d be, like, the only one who’s not gay.”

After my mom deserted me, I decided to actually talk to some college representatives. It seemed that this was an opportunity for all the not-very-famous colleges to recruit smart young Eastsiders, although a great variety of colleges attended. There were several Canadian, English, and Scottish colleges, fashion schools, the United States Army ROTC and half a dozen community colleges in addition to the main constituency of state schools and private liberal-arts colleges.

There were also colleges and universities with such names as Bates (a great place to get your masters degree), Le Cordon Bleu, Gustavus Adolphus, Saint Olaf, Kalamazoo, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Swarthmore, Marlboro, Sweet Briar, and DigiPen.

The first college rep I talked to was from the rocky hills of Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colorado. “It is hard to describe in one word,” said the rep. “It takes a sentence: it’s basically a medium size liberal arts college with an eclectic emphasis on business, psychology, theology, and nursing. “We cover the whole gamut!” said the rep enthusiastically.

After that, I went to Lehigh College, which was several booths over. The only thing interesting about that was that its name was pronounced “lee-high” as if by some drugged up Frenchman.

Then I waited for what seemed like an hour behind some girl who, for some reason, was getting a calculus lesson at the St. John’s booth. The rep was the appropriately-named Randall Hollensbe.

“We are very unique,” he said proudly. “No textbooks.” Then he started telling me about their curriculum, which is reading classics such as the Iliad all day.

“Yeah we like to get it geeked up at Garfield too,” I said. Their poster, with three stacks of classic texts, had reminded me of our “geeked up” homecoming poster.

“Yeah,” he said, as if he had not heard me. Then he started telling me about their 8:1 student teacher ratio, which I suppose is supposed to be a very good thing. Then he said 85% of graduates from his school go to grad school.

“I hear they have awesome parties at St. John’s. Is that true?” I said.

He paused for a moment. “Uh, I think that depends on who you’re talking to and what parties they’ve been to.”

I couldn’t get much about parties from anyone, even the guy from University of Nevada in Reno. “There are great parties anywhere in the country,” he said. He also said something about how the library was open all night, and that people had to make a decision to go to a party or the library.

I decided to go to some non-traditional colleges after that. I visited the booth of Le Cordon Bleu, an international cooking school from somewhere in Europe. There were two reps there, and one of them gestured to a man passing by. “He’s wearing a green plaid shirt,” scoffed the chef, with a disapproving look. “He probably got lost.”

My next stop was Virginia Military Institute, which was a state school with a sort of military flavor. If you go there, you don’t have to go into the military but you do have to take some military classes (you still have to pay about $20,000 per year.)

“What you see here is a depiction of everyday life,” said the rep. He gestured brochures that had pictures of college kids in fancy military uniforms with swords and white helmets standing around in formation.

On the opposite end of the spectrum was Corban College in Salem, Oregon, which requires a commitment to Jesus in your application.

“We’re definitely geared toward a more specific type of student…towards Christian students, students who have made a commitment to the Lord,” said the rep. He said that faith affects everything they do in the school. For example, they don’t play sports for personal gain; they play sports “to honor the Lord with your athleticism.”

My last stop was the Marlboro College from rural southern Vermont (no relation to the cigarette) where students design their own courses, live in tree houses, and do whatever they want.

“You’d have to grow your hair a little longer, but keep the Patagonia fleece,” said the rep, commenting on my appearance. “The only common denominator is that [the students at Marlboro] are motivated, but they are really laid back.”

Finally, I went to the Gene Juarez booth, just for fun. After the nice lady told me about how they had campuses in Northgate and Federal Way, I realized that I was sick of the college fair and had to leave right away. In school the next day I watched my friends leave 2nd period to go to the college fair to my dismay. I gave up my Sunday for that? I could have been doing homework!