It’s never too early for high school students to start sizing up colleges.

At least, that’s how Carla Hurst sees it.

She’s a career counselor at Oak Harbor High School who’s running the college and career fair at the high school Monday night, Sept. 30.

More than 60 post-secondary organizations will be represented at the “Focus on the Future” event, which will begin at 6 p.m. and go until 7:30 p.m. in the Student Union Building.

Hurst expects roughly 400 high school students from all over Whidbey Island and Anacortes to be in attendance at the annual event.

Although juniors and seniors make up most of the students who’ll come, Hurst encourages freshmen and sophomores to stop by as well.

“We open it up to all grades,” Hurst said. “We feel it’s never too early to be exploring options.”

Hurst remembers taking her own daughters, Anacortes High School graduates Austin Roberts and Chloe Roberts, to a similar college and career fair their freshman year at Anacortes.

At the time, Austin Roberts figured she was going to attend Washington State University just like her parents.

But she wound up changing her mind and is now a college senior expecting to graduate early from Chapman Unniversity in Southern California.

Chloe Roberts just started her junior year at Western Washington University.

“I am a firm believer that the more information any of us have the better decisions we can make,” Carla Hurst said. “She (Austin) got more information and her perspective changed, too.”

Representatives from two- and four-year colleges, technical schools, military organizations and others will be on hand. All of Washington’s public universities will be represented. Out of state colleges that will be represented include Linfield College of McMinnville, Ore., and the University of Idaho.

Every branch of the military will have representatives on hand.

This event happens only once a year on Whidbey Island as Coupeville and South Whidbey high schools don’t hold their own college and career fairs, Hurst said. Anacortes only hosts such an event every other year.

For more information on the event, call Career-Tech director Sandee Oehring at 360-279-5801, or email her at soehring@ohsd.net