We were late and the metro was crammed. I jumped into the train car at the last moment and my mom followed, suitcases and canvas totes trailing behind.

I heard beeping and turned around to find my mom's suitcase hanging halfway out of the car with the doors closed around it. With some serious yanking and the help of our fellow passengers, we were able to get the bag onto the train.

We needed that bag — it was filled with college materials: pens, pamphlets and review books, everything I would need to make a decision as to which college I should attend. We were on our last stop, touring the three schools I had yet to choose between.

The trip began with a sleepy, early-morning plane ride as I flew by myself from Sacramento to Minnesota, home of lakes, snow and more importantly, Carleton College. I was flying to attend the first of three Accepted Students Days — at which you meet other students, attend classes and try to decipher if this is indeed the college for you.

It really is a lovely situation to be in, especially after months and months of trying to impress colleges. This time, it's their turn to impress you.

At Carleton, they rolled out the red carpet for us, with everything from a delicious banquet to a pile of snow — a little mound in the corner of the quad, set aside for prospective students from sunny climates who had been looking forward to the white stuff.

After a wonderful weekend of dorm
life, water polo games and an Irish literature class, I flew to Baltimore, where I
met my mom. Our destination was Johns Hopkins University.

Unfortunately, I had not been able to get an overnight in the dorms with a student host. This turned out to be a big disadvantage, and I wasn't able to meet many students to find out what they thought about the school.

We were kept busy, though, as we trotted back and forth between English department presentations and a club fair (where I picked up more information than I could ever want about an Indian a cappella singing group).

The next morning, we took the train to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. It rained the whole day. We splashed all over campus, picking up the requisite college paraphernalia at the bookstore, trying out the dining hall and checking out the selection of couches in the library.

I had decided ahead of time what I needed to see (the couches in the library were on the list). So, at every college, rain or shine, we made a point of visiting everything on my list.

One of my main goals was to talk to students in order to get a good feeling for the academics, the atmosphere and the student body. I went up to student after student, getting second and third opinions about how prevalent the Greek presence on campus is and how easy it is to study abroad.

Visiting a class was also on my list. Johns Hopkins and Carleton provided lists of classes to visit, but George Washington didn't. However, a professor giving one of the welcome speeches at the beginning of the day invited anyone who wished to stop by his class that afternoon.

It turned out to be one of the best parts of the trip: a discussion about the discovery and excavations at Troy and which Troy is the "real" Troy, a debate I hadn't even known existed. As we left, my mom and I continued the argument over which one was Homer's Troy.

We tried to get to know the area by having dinner in the Bilbo Baggins pub, where we could have ordered the Sleeping Dragon or Gandalf's Brew (I stuck with spaghetti). The next day, after taking pictures next to the Watergate building (a mere block from our hotel and two from campus), we headed to the Smithsonian museums for a couple of well-deserved days of sightseeing.

Looking back on it, the best advice I can give to students looking at colleges is this: Make a list of what you need to know and seek out that information. Be aggressive if necessary. Walk up to students and start a conversation. You should not assume that the admissions officials will answer your questions.

Most important, you will not necessarily know which school you want to attend as soon as you step foot on campus. You will be able to discover whether or not it is "the school," though, by knowing ahead of time what is important to you and then finding out how well it fits into those standards and needs.

Other than that, just don't forget to stop by the admissions office, where there's almost always free food.



Nora Cassidy is a senior at Modesto High School and a member of The Bee's Teens in the Newsroom journalism program.