At night, they sat around a campfire and sang and talked about the lives they had lived at home and the ones they hoped to live at college.

''I had heard that the campus was incredibly preppie and really uptight,'' said Ms. Maclachlan.

Mr. Jorgensen added, ''Yeah, I was just waiting to see pink and green everywhere.''

Their leaders, Larry Scoville, 21, and Amy Shaw, 20, set them straight. It's not so preppie even though some people do wear pink and green, but all in all, the 1,710 students here come from varied backgrounds. Two-thirds of the students receive some sort of financial aid, Mr. Hershey said. Meeting Another Midwesterner

Lance Cabanban, a 17-year-old from Evanston, Ill., feared that most of the students would be from the Northeast, but also on the trip was Edie Clark, an 18-year-old from North Canton, Ohio.

Besides meeting classmates, the students benefited from their own achievements on the trip. For Marie DiBenedetto, an 18-year-old from North Andover, Mass., that was climbing three mountains and a waterfall. ''I had my doubts I could do it,'' she said, adding that she had had problems with her knees before the trip.

Mr. Jorgensen said the trip helped make the college and all its seemingly odd routines seem a little less foreign. ''I couldn't even find my dorm the first day,'' he said. ''But by knowing 15 people, it made the school seem more personal. It makes you feel like a veteran.'' 'Figuring Out How Much to Party'

Upon his return, he even felt up to the task of registration. ''The most bizarre thing I've ever seen in my life,'' Mr. Jorgensen said. ''You run around getting people to sign little pieces of paper.''

For their part, the leaders, Mr. Scoville and Ms. Shaw, offered advice.

''Take only four classes at first, to get used to things,'' advised Ms. Shaw, a sophomore from Wayland, Mass. ''In high school, it's all routine. In college, you have a lot of free time to structure. Figuring out how much to party.'' Mr. Scoville, a senior majoring in English from Grosse Pointe, Mich., added this: ''Enjoy it, don't take things too seriously. I'm kind of jealous that they have four years left and I only have one.''