aine students are attractive to Colby for several reasons, Beverage says. "They have an uncommon work ethic," he said. "If you compare students from rural Maine schools with students who have attended good prep schools, the Maine students probably will start a little behind, but they soon catch up because they work so hard. Our faculty love teaching Maine students. The Maine kids also bring a life experience and a background that is a marked contrast to students coming from urban areas or from other parts of the country. So they contribute to the education of their fellow students just by being there and sharing that experience with others." Beverage is concerned that Colby not be viewed by Maine students as elitist. One of the ways he tries to avoid such a characterization is by describing experiences of recent Colby graduates from small, rural Maine towns, like Fort Kent's Pooler. "It's great fun to mention to the Maine kids how successful Maine kids have been at Colby," he said. "These stories do resonate, and students begin to see themselves as following in those footsteps." Indeed, he never failed to squeeze into his remarks at Aroostook County schools the fact that 10 of the past 13 Colby valedictorians have been from Maine. Often, Beverage says, a visit to the campus reassures Maine students and their parents that Colby is as unpretentious as they are. At Presque Isle High School, the mother of a current first-year student approached Beverage and told him that she knew Colby was the place for her daughter when, during a campus visit, they spotted Beverage sweeping the sidewalk in front of the Lunder House. "That showed me what kind of a place Colby is," she said. As he drove past potato fields and hard scrabble farms on the third day of his northern Maine tour, Beverage mulled the sensitive subject of cost and students' ability to pay. "We have made a commitment to Maine students and Maine families," he said. "We recognize that many of the students from this area will require financial aid. I want them to know that Colby can make it possible for them to attend. It's important that they recognize that Colby is not out of their reach because of financial considerations." Typically, high schools receive dozens of college admission representatives in the fall when seniors are making their choices about where to apply. Appointments are scheduled well in advance and students are notified by the school about a representative's visit. Often, counselors discuss particular colleges with the students to help them narrow the scope of their search. But inevitably some students show up to hear about a college they know virtually nothing about or, worse, have no intention of attending. It happened to Beverage at Presque Isle, where 39 students answered the call to hear about Colby. Obviously, Beverage says, several of them were just passing time. "When you're talking to thirty-five or forty students in a cavernous auditorium you know there are at least a few who are there because they're getting out of class. And you certainly know that with a group that large, if all of them applied to Colby many of them would not get in. So it's a challenge for an admission officer to hold forth, be professional and stay focused while at the same time enduring the distractions from the students who really aren't there to hear you," he said. Beverage prefers a small group. "If you're seeing one student or maybe two students, it can be a very enjoyable experience, particularly if it is a bright, seriously interested student. You can almost conduct an interview to learn about their interests. I like the groups between six and ten with a couple of juniors and a few seniors," he said. Beverage decided to conduct one last bit of business before heading back to Waterville. He pulled over at a roadside stand where a local farmer was selling potatoes--$1 for a 10-pound bag. He bought two bags, loaded them in the trunk and turned the car south. "I really enjoy my trips up here," he said. "And I hope it says something about Colby that we continue to visit these schools and maintain our relationships here. They're important to us." Three weeks after his trek to northern Maine, Beverage boarded a commuter plane in Portland for a 90-minute flight to LaGuardia Airport. His three-day visit to New York would include some of Manhattan's most venerable and prestigious preparatory schools as well as a handful of public schools in the well-heeled suburbs of Westchester County. Beverage was out the door of his hotel--across the street from Grand Central Station--at 7 o'clock the next morning. He grabbed a bagel and a cup of coffee from a street vendor to fortify himself for the one-hour, 30-block hike to the schools on the Upper East Side. Sidewalks lined with trendy boutiques and ethnic restaurants bustled with brisk-walking office workers while delivery trucks competed with impatient taxis for a wedge of curb space. Beverage has been to New York at least a dozen times on recruiting junkets, but the city still excites his senses, he says. "The diversity here is so amazing," he said as he strolled past an outdoor produce market being tended by two Asian men. "You could walk into any one of these shops and probably hear half a dozen languages being spoken." The city's cosmopolitan character affects the students its schools produce as well as his approach in marketing the College, he says. "The students here are very worldly," Beverage said. "I often talk about Colby's global perspective because many of these students may already have been to Europe, for example, and they are looking for new opportunities to expand on what they have experienced. I'll talk a bit more about Jan Plan internships, student research opportunities and Colby's foreign study programs." He noted, however, that the central message does not change whether in remote Maine or midtown Manhattan. "Colby is the same place regardless of where the students coming in have grown up. The key for an admission person is to be honest about portraying the strengths of the College--and its potential shortcomings," he said. As if underlining this approach, he pointed out to students at his first stop--The Brearley School--that they should give serious consideration to the setting where they will live for the next four years. "Living in a rural area will be a broadening experience for you--it's beautiful and friendly and safe--but it will be different from what you've grown up with. If you come to Colby you can't go to a Red Sox game whenever you want, but if you enjoy skiing, Sugarloaf is close by. So there are trade-offs you make depending on where you go to college," he said. His audience, three eager young women, one of whom was drinking from a Colby mug, nodded dutifully but appeared to already have determined that rural Maine was okay by them. All of them had visited Colby and were impressed. Katherine, the one with the Colby mug, said her mother was getting tired of making college visits so she figured it was about time to commit. "What is the deadline for applying early decision?" she asked. (Again this year, Colby set a new record for early decision applicants with 460.) Beverage clearly is more than a recruiter. He counsels students about the college selection process in an almost fatherly way. He believes it is the best method for ensuring that students who apply to Colby are doing so for the right reasons. "They have to determine whether they would be happy at Colby, and I want them to have the information to make that decision before they apply," he said. "The last thing we want is to bring a student to Colby and have their experience be unhappy. It obviously is not good for the student and it's not good for Colby."