1B - College Fair

The college fair held in the Hilton Hotel turned out to be a catastrophe.

On the 26^th of September, 2008, a college fair was held in Hilton Hotel, Istanbul, Turkey. The fair is hosted every fall by the Hilton Hotel and this year 70 universities were to be represented (10 fewer than last year). However a few of the reps did not even show up.

At 7 pm, when the college fair opened its doors, the small room was inundated with almost 700 high school students. This made it very difficult for people to get around and interact with the college reps. Pushing and shoving, students tried to get to different booths, demanding attention from college reps.

The different souvenirs the reps brought were quickly expired by the growing mob and there was a lot of pen thievery involved. Many students were more focused on expanding their pen and brochure collection than trying to learn more about colleges.

Though the aim of this fair was to provide students an opportunity to widen their knowledge of colleges and to think about their futures, 92% of the students who attended the fair said that they were not seriously considering any of the represented colleges and only 66% said that they felt the fair was a worthwhile experience. “I’m not sure if we’d do it again. It was so crowded, it was hard for students to spend any quality time with the college reps,” says Mrs. Sanderlin, one of the IGA chaperones. Here is good advice for next time: Better to go early in the evening when it’s not so crowded.