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With the economy and job market down, county high school students are banking on education as their tickets to getting ahead.

"I think students are thinking about college even more because the students realize that they need a college education to get a job," Andrew Eppeldauer, a guidance counselor at Gaithersburg High School, said. "They are savvy enough to realize that."

Many county students arrived at the Montgomery County National College Fair at the Montgomery County Agricultural Center in Gaithersburg April 15 and 16 already knowing where they wanted to look.

"I did research on the colleges I want to go to," said Thomas Valencia, 17, of Olney, a junior at Sherwood High School in Sandy Spring, who would like to study architecture or law and justice.

Almost 300 colleges, universities, trade schools and military services were represented at the fair.

Most of the students attending the first day were Montgomery County high school juniors.

"This is the largest MCPS field trip of the year," Eppeldauer said. "We have 40 buses per day — about 3,000 students over the two days."

Doing homework before the fair made the event more valuable for students, said Rockville's Richard Montgomery High School counselor John Randall, who helped coordinate the fair along with Eppeldauer and the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

"The point here is to meet with the representatives and pick up materials," Randall said.

Malik Smith, 16, of Silver Spring, a junior at Springbrook High School in Silver Spring, had done his homework. Smith is interested in aeronautical engineering.

"I'm ready. I checked on college board.com to look for colleges in my interest area," he said.

Students wandered about the three levels of the large building, looking at the displays each school had set up, sometimes stopping to talk with admission counselors, other times just picking up printed materials.

Jake Pallon, 17, a junior at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, kept a close eye on the city and state of each school.

"I'm interested in location, somewhere nice and warm," said Pallon, who enjoys playing golf.

Many students were only interested in state schools where the in-state tuition rate would help keep the costs of a college education more manageable.

"The economy is affecting my choice," Manuela Mbouma, 17, a junior at Watkins Mill High School in Gaithersburg, said. "I would like to go to a school outside Maryland for the experience but money's tight so I'm looking at Maryland schools. I don't want to be a strain."

Mbouma wants to study elementary education and become a teacher. She stood with a group of students listening to an admissions counselor from St. Mary's College of Maryland in St. Mary's City. "It is a state school and they have a study abroad program and athletics," Mbouma, who plays basketball, said.

Nadra Saunders, 16, of Gaithersburg, a junior at Col. Zadok Magruder High School in Derwood is not sure what she wants to study but knows she is looking for a school that is "different."

"I'm just looking to see what colleges are out there other than what everybody tells you about," Saunders said.

She said she will know the right one by the look of the campus and the way the people from the school represent themselves.

Saunders said she was not concerned about the cost of college but her friend Darriana Evans, 16, also a junior at Magruder, said cost is a something she thinks about. Evans was looking for a legal studies program.

"We are definitely going to have to get scholarships and financial aid and I'm already working," Evans said.

Students can find tuition and other expenses through online searches, said Shannon Chen, a counselor at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville.

This year many parents are worried about how they will pay for college, she said.

"In the past that has not been an issue, but they are very concerned," Chen said.

Chen was one of two counselors available to do online searches for students at the fair.

She was busy throughout the morning session April 15, although most of the students should have already been through the process with their school counselors or on their own, she said.

"I've had a lot of home-schooled students," Chen said.