Collegebound

Like most girls about to complete high school, Liberty's Bethany Carey is looking forward to all the traditional senior perks, such as the prom and graduation. When she takes the field for the Ohio State women's lacrosse team next spring, however, she will enter a class all her own. Set to graduate high school in just three years, Carey will become the first player, male or female, to finish school early and go on to play Division I lacrosse, according to US Lacrosse, the sport's governing body.

Financial aid administrators will hold the third annual College Goal Sunday in Millersville to help high school students fill out FAFSA (Free Application For Student Aid) forms for federal assistance with college tuition. Students should bring proof of the income and benefits that they and their parents received in 2003, such as completed federal tax returns and W-2 forms. The event, which begins Sunday at 2 p.m. at Old Mill High School, 600 Patriot Lane, is organized by college and university officials in Maryland, Washington and Delaware.

The idyllic campus of St. Mary's College is a long way from Baltimore, in more ways than one. Situated on the St. Mary's River at the southernmost point in the state, the small, public liberal arts college often finds itself overlooked by prospective students from the city. But as part of its drive to attract city students, St. Mary's is offering scholarships and grants to a handful of Baltimore students - an effort set to grow next year through a scholarship fund set up by a 1941 graduate.

THEY USED to call it College Awareness Week. Now it's College Awareness Month, and it begins tomorrow with activities at the Port Discovery children's museum directed not at teen-agers about to make the leap, but at elementary and middle-school kids for whom college at this point in their lives lacks size, shape or color. Or even possibility. The adults who run the CollegeBound Foundation, the primary sponsor of tomorrow's affair, realized a couple of years ago that the high-schoolers they were helping with college applications and scholarships hadn't had the lifelong prepping for higher education enjoyed by their peers in the suburbs.

Wanderlust gripped Mimi Roeder Vaughan so tight it pushed her to vacation on nearly every continent and compelled her to move her family three times in 11 years. As the owner of two travel agencies and a travel agent school, Vaughan even earns her living from people on the go. Yet it wasn't until her children began to pack their bags for college that Vaughan put down permanent roots. That's when she built a college student's haven as part of an addition at the back of her brick Colonial in Towson.

The Baltimore Museum of Industry was transformed into a sports mecca at the "Mid-Summer Sports Fest" to raise more than $35,000 for two scholarship organizations, CollegeBound Foundation and Joe Sandusky Fund. More than 600 guests were greeted by party co-hosts WBAL-TV sports director Gerry Sandusky and Baltimore Raven Jamie Sharper. An array of games awaited: a batting cage, basketball hoops, putting greens, a makeshift climbing "mountain," pool table, pingpong, tennis, even fencing. If that wasn't enough, you could listen in on the sports radio show being broadcast live from the site.

Like many students at St. Frances Academy in East Baltimore, Joseph Scott Jr. knows that taking advanced courses will increase his chances of getting into a good college. So a pilot technology program that will offer advanced high school courses and advanced-placement courses for college credit at St. Frances beginning next month couldn't have come at a better time for Scott, who is entering his senior year. Called the Project for Enhancement of Educational Resources in Under-Served Areas, or PEER-USA, the program will be tested at St. Frances and Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington.

Ever want to shoot hoops with Terps basketball coach Gary Williams? How 'bout lobbing a few with tennis champ Pam Shriver? Maybe shoot pool with the Ravens' Tony Banks, or the Orioles' Brady Anderson? The Mid-Summer Fest "SportsORama" was a chance to party and play various games with sports celebs and raise money for the Joe Sandusky Fund of the Baltimore Community Foundation and the CollegeBound Foundation. The partygoers browsed a bountiful buffet from Baltimore restaurants and danced to the music of O'Malley's March, starring none other than Charm City's hip (in black T-shirt)

EACH DAY, with the arrival of yet more mail from colleges around the country, I get a clearer picture of what the next few months hold for me: late nights spent battling both my parents' moody old typewriter and a pile of applications that now threatens to topple over on innocent civilians standing below.It wasn't always like this. Applying to college used to be fairly simple, with most university-bound students aiming for just a few in-state schools.However, as a greater percentage of 18-year-olds head off to college each year, the admissions process has grown increasingly competitive.