Eric Wang ’27 and Ariel Xu ’28
Oct 27, 2026
Last Thursday, October 29, Mercersburg Academy hosted its third annual college fair, bringing direct exposure to college admission officers to students from both the Academy and nearby schools.
By bringing representatives directly to campus, Mercersburg Academy’s college counseling office seeks to provide students with opportunities to ask questions, discover unfamiliar institutions, and broaden their understanding of the paths available after graduation.
About the goal of the fair, Matt Hurst, Assistant Director of College Counseling, said, “Because we’re a boarding school, not everybody has access to go to all these places…. The success for us is students getting face time with the universities student are interested in.”
Schools represented this year included returning institutions from along the East Coast, as well as the addition of international representation from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. The University of Chicago was among the new schools present, giving students the opportunity to explore more institutions with different academic offerings, locations, and campus cultures.
Compared to past fairs, the exhibition has expanded considerably. Rachel Mallory, Associate Director of College Counseling, who spearheaded the effort, said, “Our first year we had around 20 to 25 schools. Last year, we were a little over 50, and we're right around 70 this year.”
For the College Counseling Office, expanding the fair has meant balancing the goal of inviting many schools with the practical challenges of fitting the fair into representatives' busy schedules. “We're at the mercy of who’s able to visit on the date that we schedule, and how it works into their travel schedule,” Mallory said.
Despite these challenges, the fair’s growth has been driven by continuing strong relationships between the Academy and visiting colleges. Matt Hurst, Assistant Director of College Counseling, said, “As we've run a good fair, the universities and colleges have actually reached back out to us and said, ‘Hey, we heard you had a really good fair. We'd like to attend too.’”
The college fair is open for all grades to attend. Cindy Fowler, Associate Director of College Counseling, said the event serves different purposes for students depending on where they are in the college search process. “For seniors, it’s connecting with schools that they're planning to apply to. For juniors, it's getting to know some schools and thinking outside the box and maybe connecting with some schools that they might not originally be thinking about so they can expand their view and start to learn more about what’s out there.”
The far serves not only students, but counselors too. Fowler added, “It’s [also] a good opportunity to network professionally.”
Students also found value in the opportunity to speak directly with college representatives. Irene Jin ’27 said, “I’m realizing how much of the schools are kind of combining [programs]. They're not looking for students who are really good at a particular measure, but they're leaning towards more interdisciplinary [work], having multiple majors.”
Christian Garcia-Rivas ’27 added, “It's a good way to communicate your missions to see what majors they have.”
The juniors also put in their perspectives. Louis Yamamoto ’28 said, “I got a better understanding of courses and what colleges actually do.” Amy Li ’28 mentioned learning more about college course offerings and the possibility of pursuing multiple majors: “I thought you can [have] only one major and then a minor, but then it turns out that you can [have] two majors if you want or even three minors.”